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The market for match-moving software is becoming increasingly crowded – and now there’s another product to add to the list. The Pixel Farm’s PFMatch joins the likes of 2d3’s Boujou, RealViz’s MatchMover, and a handful of plug-in-based solutions in the match-moving market. PFMatch aims to offer a sophisticated toolset and autotracking for the extraction of 3D camera data from film or video footage.
HP’s Photosmart 945 camera is difficult to pigeonhole. Over five megapixels, and an 8x optical zoom lens might put it in the class of advanced cameras like the Minolta Dimage A1 or the Fujifilm FinePix S7000, which cost a lot more. But the overall design of the Photosmart 945 seems aimed at providing point-&-shoot ease.
HP’s Photosmart 7762 is a decent printer that delivers when it comes to photo quality. The price isn’t bad, either, and the unit is well equipped to print photos from memory cards or directly from a digital camera. The control panel’s 1.8-inch LCD displays either photos or menu commands, and the flash-memory card slots on the front of the printer read all common memory-card formats. You can connect an ...
Profile Mechanic consists of two independent programs, sold separately. Profile Mechanic Monitor can calibrate and write ICC correction profiles for CRT and LCD monitors. It provides a small USB colorimeter sensor with interchangeable supports for both types of monitor. Profile Mechanic Scanner creates correction profiles for any flatbed or transparency scanner, as well as digital cameras.
If simplicity is a virtue when it comes to digital cameras, the Kodak EasyShare CX7430 outclasses most of its competition. Kodak gave this camera just the few controls needed for basic snapshot photography, and added text-based help prompts so that even the most neophyte photographer can work through them after a little instruction.
The Epson Photo R300M possesses many features that make printing and managing your photography – with or without a PC – more convenient. The £135 plus VAT printer has two 2.5-inch LCDs: a monochrome display on the control panel for viewing menus, and a colour LCD for previewing images before printing. Among the menu options are commands for printing multiple images (or multiple copies of the same image) on one page, correcting colour and brightness ...
Designed for high-end post-production work, MatchMover Pro is Realviz’s professional 3D camera-tracking system. It’s a robust and generally well-designed package, and it offers both automatic and full user control of the tracking process. Match-moving is the process by which 3D camera data can be extracted from nothing more than film or video footage ...
The FinePix F610 is the latest incarnation of Fuji’s line of flat, square compact cameras, which manages to combine a minimalist stainless steel look with excellent performance. When you switch it off, the lens retracts completely and there are no protruding parts, so it’s easy to carry in a pocket without worrying about breaking it.
Despite its position as one of the lowest-cost digital SLRs on the market, the Sigma SD10 has some of the most innovative technology. Together with its SD9 predecessor, released in 2002 but still available, these are the only reasonably high-resolution users of the Foveon X3 sensor – although Polaroid offers a 2mp version on a consumer camera.
Most digital cameras are rather boxy in shape, so Sony’s higher end cameras are a little different. The DSC-F828 – like its predecessor, the 5-megapixel DSC-F717 – is L-shaped, thanks to its massive lens barrel to one side at the front. The two sections of the unit are joined by a hefty hinge that lets the lens rotate on a perpendicular axis to the body ...
Last summer, Sony announced a new eight million-pixel sensor for compact cameras, and we’re now seeing a rash of new models all hitting the market together. Sony was first, naturally, with the excellent semi-pro DSC-F828 that arrived late last year. It was followed by 8mp announcements from Canon, Minolta, Olympus. Nikon joined the queue with the CoolPix 8700 ...
To the uninitiated, the FlashTrax is an iPod for still images. At its heart is a hard drive running a basic OS viewable through a 3.5-inch colour LCD screen. Photographers can view, manipulate, and delete their images with a minimum of fuss. Rather than just allowing you to view your pictures on the move, the FlashTrax can take them from your camera’s media card.
There’s nothing especially innovative about Nikon’s Coolpix 3700, but for a simple, well-designed point-&-shoot, it’s a decent package. Its long, narrow shape means that the camera fits easily into a pocket, and its silver-metallic case has ...
RealViz is best known for its professional-quality tools for integrating 3D elements into movies. However, its Stitcher software is a high-grade still-imaging tool for creating panoramas from multiple images. Results can be output as a super-wide print, or put onto a Web page or CD to form immersive QuickTime VR MOV, Shockwave, or ...
With the DVC-30, Panasonic has done a good job of cramming the DVX100’s main features into a smaller case – and adding a few of its own. However, it hasn’t achieved scaling the body size down to that of a consumer-camcorder – a feat achieved by ...
TourWeaver, from Shanghai-based EasyPano, lets you link several immersive spherical images via hotspots to form a guided tour – for instance you could create a tour of your house with hotspots on the doors to take you to the next room. You can link to still images, movies, sound files, and to URLs ...
JVC Pro’s DR-DV5000E is a FireWire hard-drive container (with removable 40GB hard drive) and controller that you can add to your shoulder-mounted JVC Pro DV camcorder, and use alongside or instead of tape. Users of the GY-DV5000E camcorder can just bolt it on between the back of the camcorder and the battery, though it can be attached to the DV500, DV550, or DV700 through an adaptor plate.
When Olympus announced the 5.1mp Camedia 5060 Wide Zoom compact digital camera back in September, it seemed like the excellent C-5050Z would just be fitted with a wider-angle lens. Actually it’s a major revision, with a new, fully articulated swivelling monitor, and it’s been tuned for faster start-up and shutter response, too. The lower-cost C-5060Z is still available.
There seems to be a plethora of mid-range DVD authoring tools on the Windows platform at the moment, including Adobe’s Encore DVD. In terms of ease-of-use however, DVD Workshop 2 actually resembles Apple’s iDVD – offering a similar approach, motion menus, and drag-&-drop functionality.
Minds-Eye-View's Click Away is a utility program for stitching together two circular still images taken back-to-back using a 180+ degree fisheye lens, to produce a seamless fully spherical image. This immersive viewing is useful for things like interactive Web site tours of houses, museums, tourist attractions, and car interiors.
