Equipment->News: April 2005 Archives

This site might be well known by some, but Canon has issued some service notices on the EOS 20D digital SLR. The most recent one is:

April 27, 2005: We have confirmed that the BG-E2 battery grip for the EOS 20D digital SLR camera causes issues such as the number of shots being limited or a low-battery warning being displayed immediately when used with a fully charged battery pack or a fresh set of AA batteries. Canon offers its sincerest apologies to all customers who have been inconvenienced by this issue.

Leading pen tablet manufacturer Intuos has announced the availability of the Graphire3 6x8 Bluetooth. It's their 6"x8" basic graphic tablet with built-in wireless BlueTooth support (MSRP $249). This is exactly what I've wanted for a while....

NE Asia Online has a very interesting article online exploring Matsushita/Panasonic's push into digital SLRs using the 4/3 system by 2006. Panasonic has previously teamed with Leica for optics, whether this represents a new direction for Panasonic is unknown.

The British Journal of Photography notes that Zeiss is stepping into secure the Contax brand:

Carl Zeiss is in discussions to save the Contax brand name after Kyocera's shock decision to pull out of the manufacture of Contax-branded 35mm film and digital cameras, as exclusively revealed by BJP.

Zeiss, which owns the Contax brand, is currently in discussions with Kyocera but is also looking at partnerships with another manufacturer should Kyocera go ahead with its plans to discontinue both its own brand as well as Contax-branded cameras (BJP, 02 March).

I think this bodes well for the future production of a digital Zeiss Contax camera with Leica M lens mount.

http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=213639

Nikon Corporation accidentally allowed the user manual for their upcoming D50 digital SLR to leak on the web, according to MacWorld.com. I tried googling for it (for ... errr... research purposes only...), but it appears to have been taken down already. We know it's 6.1 megapixels and will write to SD cards. It's being designed as the EOS Digital Rebel/KISS killer. If you have any info, feel free to post.

2005.05.02: Some other sites are illegally hosting the manuals for the D50 and D70s (the successor to the very popular D70). Rob Galbraith's site has more info on this story as it unfolds.