November 2009

Given that Casio has been selling tough and rugged G-SHOCK watches for over a quarter of a century, one might wonder what took the company so long to enter the increasingly lucrative water/shock/dust/crush-proof segment of the digital camera market currently dominated by the likes of Olympus, Pentax, Canon and Panasonic. Whatever Casio's reasons were, Casio now has a tough waterproof camera of its own, the new 12.1-megapixel Exilim EX-G1. [See description and specs of the Casio Exilim EX-G1]

Adobe announces release candidates
Adobe announced the Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6, Lightroom 2.6 and DNG Converter 5.6 Release Candidates, available for immediate download on Adobe Labs. The Lightroom 2.6 Release Candidate is available as a free download for existing Lightroom 2 customers, and the Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6 Release Candidate is available as a free download for existing customers of Photoshop CS4. -- Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by chb

Olympus releases tweaked E-P2 PEN with attachable electronic viewfinder
Less than half a year after releasing the PEN E-P1, Olympus followed up with the E-P2, a seemingly puzzling development as the E-P2 is essentially the same but costs US$300 more ($1099 with a 14-42 lens vs. $799 for the E-P1). The idea of the PEN cameras, of course, is to offer SLR performance without the SLR bulk. Problem is that a LCD, no matter how large or great, really is no substitute for an SLR optical viewfinder. So the E-P2 comes with an attachable electronic viewfinder that plugs into a new accessory port (that can also accommodate an optional external microphone adapter). There's also fast AF tracking, new art filters and color enhancements, and manual exposure when shooting video. The big deal, though, is the included electronic viewfinder. For the next model, build it in? -- Posted Thursday, November 5, 2009 by chb