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Dpreview.com met up with one of Canon Inc's most high ranking executives, Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, Masaya Maeda, at Photokina for a wide-ranging conversation about current and future developments in compact and SLR digital cameras. Mr Maeda has been with Canon Inc since 1974 and is currently the head of the entire camera division, covering both DSC and the EOS DSLR system. Find out how the G10 might be split into several products with different sensors, where the future lies for full frame and video on DSLRs and what Canon thinks of the megapixel race in the last of our short series of interviews, after the link...

Taking an hour away from the bustle of the main Photokina exhibition hall we sat down to chat with Toshi Terada, Product manager of SLR product planning and Heino Hilbig, Olympus Head of Corporate Communications & Marketing Services about Micro Four Thirds, standard Four Thirds and the future. Our conversation - much of which had to take place without the tape running, unfortunately - covered a wide range of subjects, from the impact of Micro Four Thirds on the future development of the E-System to the burning question of the renaming or splitting of the Olympus Talk Forum (as regular visitors this was a subject they brought up, not us). Check out the latest in our series of interviews after the link...

There's no doubt that the star of Photokina 2008 was the Panasonic G1 - it was certainly the most talked about product as we made our way around the show for our usual round of meetings and presentations. We caught up with a large group of Panasonic's Japanese Digital Still Camera planning, engineering and marketing team, including Mr Matsumoto, the Director of the DSC unit, for an in-depth discussion of the Micro Four Thirds system and the future of the digital SLR. They kindly agreed to us publishing some of the conversation. Check out the second in our series of Photokina interviews after the link...

In the first of a series of interviews with senior executives at Photokina 2008 we met up with Samsung for chat with Mr. Choong-hyun Hwang, the Vice President of the Digital Camera Business of Samsung Techwin Strategy Marketing Team. He joined Samsung in 1983 and in 2005 was promoted to Global Marketing Director. He is currently in charge of the Product Planning. He's got some interesting things to say about the relationship with Pentax, the development of Micro Four Thirds and the future of compacts, so check out the interview after the link...

ACD Systems has released its ACDSee Photo Manager 2009 software for beginners and hobbyists to edit, organise and share photos. Features include a new import tool lets you rename, back up, categorize and add keywords to image files. Users can now supplement camera metadata and include custom information in file formats such as PNG, PDF and GIF. Other features include adding customized borders and enhanced slideshows.

Olympus, Nikon and Canon have announced firmware updates. Canon’s firmware update for the Canon WFT-E3/E3A wireless transmitter will now make it compatible on the 50D. The firmware update for Nikon D80 and D200 corrects the problem of light flashing empty, inspite of it being fully charged, commonly known as the ‘Dead Battery Syndrome’. Meanwhile, firmware v1.1 for the Olympus E-520 and E-420 improves the brightness level of AF target points in the Viewfinder.

Vivitar's European arm has gone into administration, making its 26 staff in France and the UK redundant after its parent company in US sold the brand name. Vivitar's parent company, Syntax Brillian, entered Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection in July and sold the Vivitar brand name to Sakar, a consumer electronics manufacturer in August. Under the sale agreement the name, along with intellectual property and goodwill was sold, leaving Vivitar France S.A. unable to continue to trade under the Vivitar name.  

Photokina is now over for another two years, so as we return to some semblance of normality it's time to reflect on what Photokina 2008 tells us about the state of the industry and to look at some of the emerging trends in digital cameras and digital imaging in general. We've updated our show report to include not only our thoughts on the exhibition itself but also our usual top 10 pick of the products on show.

Just posted! Our new lens review of the Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50mm F2.0 Macro. With the excitement of Photokina over, it's back to the daily grind at DPReview.com's subterranean nerve-centre, and first off the review production line comes Olympus's stalwart short tele macro. We've long sung the praises of this lens in our camera reviews, but what do our studio tests reveal about it's true capabilities?

Photokina 2008: The Metadata Working Group, an alliance between Adobe, Apple, Canon, Microsoft, Nokia and Sony has published its first guidelines on the use of image metadata. The guidelines suggest methods to increase interoperability and storage of shooting settings and other associated data in digital images. It aims at standardizing the availability of metadata across all applications and devices, making it easier for users to create, organize and share their pictures.

Photokina 2008: Lens maker Tokina is working towards adding autofocus motors to its Nikon-mount versions, which will enable AF with the budget D40/D40x/D60 bodies. The first optic to benefit will be the popular AT-X Pro SD 12-24mm F4 (IF) DX wideangle (gaining a 'II' suffix in the process), and a motorised version of this lens is being exhibited for the first time at Photokina; more lenses in the lineup are expected to be updated in due course.

Photokina 2008: Eye-Fi has announced enhancements to its range of WiFi-enabled SD cards. Upload speeds from camera to computer are now twice as fast, and existing owners will be able to avail themselves of this benefit by simply downloading a firmware update. Also from October 5th, users will be able to add on features such as web sharing, geotagging and hotspot access to their cards. In addition, Apple’s MobileMe and AdoramaPix have been added to the list of supported online services.

Photokina 2008: Kodak has designed a new line of advanced CCD image sensors to power the latest medium format DSLRs, including the Leica S2, Sinar HY6-65 and Hasselblad H3DII-50. The Leica S2 features the KAF-37500 37.5MP sensor with an imaging area of 45mm x 30mm, bringing in a completely new format; interestingly it also includes a novel slimline infrared filter, which we'd guess could eventually find its way into a future Leica M sensor. The Sinar Hy6-65 sports the KAF-31600 34.6MP sensor with an imaging area of 46mm x 35mm, and the Hasselblad H3DII-50's KAF-50100 50MP, 48mm x 36mm sensor sets a new benchmark in medium format camera resolution.

Photokina 2008: SanDisk has today introduced new Compact Flash cards which offer increased storage capacity and faster read/write speeds. The Extreme III CompactFlash card now comes in a 32GB version with a speed of 30MB/s, and the Extreme IV CompactFlash card now comes in a 16GB version with a speed of 45 MB/s. In addition, the rest of the Extreme IV range has been upgraded to a read/write speed of 45MB/s.

Photokina 2008: Adobe has lifted the lid on Creative Suite 4, the latest version of its huge design and production suite. Of most interest to photographers will of course be Photoshop CS4, which brings some interface changes (tabbed windows) as well as 64-bit Windows support and OpenGL support to use graphics cards to speed up operations (and provide nifty zoom and rotation tools) and a new non-modal approach to adjustment layers. We've been using Photoshop CS4 in Beta form since May and will bring you more extensive coverage of all the new features once Photokina is behind us.

Photokina 2008: Lensbaby has introduced three new lenses for selective focusing, and has named them the Composer, the Muse and the Control Freak. The Muse and Control Freak replace the current Lensbaby Original, 2.0 and 3G lenses. The Composer is first of its kind and is based on a ball and socket assembly, offering greater precision and ease of use. All the lenses feature a new Optic Swap System allowing the user to choose from four interchangeable optics (double glass, single glass, plastic and Pinhole).

Photokina 2008: Fujifilm says its new Super CCD EXR technology will allow its next generation of premium compacts to produce high-ISO images "superior to the F31fd," while also offering improved dynamic range in other shooting conditions. The technology is already fully developed and will be integrated into the first camera in time for a spring 2009 launch.

Photokina 2008: Pretec has today introduced the highest capacity and fastest CompactFlash cards in the world. Under the highest capacity come the 64GB and 100GB, 233X CF cards with a read and write speed of 35MB/s. And the 333X CF cards in 32GB and 50 GB capacities have broken the record of the fastest read and write speed with 50 MB/s. Both the cards will start shipping this month.

Photokina 2008: Sigma has announced the DP2, a large sensor compact camera that will sell alongside the DP1. The new model's specifications are largely identical to the DP1's but it comes with a 41mm (35mm equiv.) lens, rather than the 28mm equiv. lens of its sister model; the new lens is also a stop faster at F2.8 as opposed to F4. The DP2 additionally includes the True II image processing engine that appears in the new SD15 DSLR, which the company says offers improved processing speed, operation and performance.

Photokina 2008: Sigma has today announced the SD15 digital SLR as a successor to the SD14, which was originally announced in Photokina 2006. The SD15 uses a 14Mp Foveon X3 sensor, and incorporates a new True II processor for improved image processing speed, operation and performance. This camera also features a larger 3.0” LCD than its predecessor.