New Releases

If you've been taking pictures long enough there's a good chance there'll come a day you'll want to use your long-time favorite lens on your latest, most favorite camera body, which unfortunately has a lens mount that's totally incompatible with your long-time favorite lens. So now what do you do?

After months of speculation, Apple is bringing Intel Core i5 and i7 processors to its popular 15 and 17” MacBook Pros. If you’re a photo or movie editor, this could translate to a 50% speed boost in common processor-intensive tasks. Of course CPU flex ain’t the only thing Cupertino’s packed into these sleek, unibody beauties. Read on for more about the latest and greatest in Apple’s portable pro line up.

I'm a big fan of cameras that fit in my pocket. I'm also aware of how dainty some of the tinier digicams can be, which is why I've been even a bigger fan of the more rugged, tough digicams that have come to market over the past couple of years from Olympus, Panasonic, Canon, and Fuji. Add to this list the Pentax Optio W90.

Musikmesse 2010 got started today in Frankfurt Germany, and there were so many interesting new products announced that I'm starting to drool like a well-groomed Scottish Terrier. The name of this show kind of suggests that it's a big "musical mess." Even though Europe's biggest pro audio tradeshow is highly organized, it's such a crazy event with so many exciting announcements that it lives up to the English interpretation of its name. Here are a few new products that got our tails wagging... 

Memory card maker SanDisk has begun shipping a 32-Gigabyte microSDHC card, which the company claims to be the highest-capacity card available in a form factor so tiny that it fits on a dime. The card's storage is double the capacity of SanDisk's 16GB microSDHC version. The 32GB card comes with a 5-year limited warranty and will carry a suggested retail price of $199.99. It is expected to be available from B&H in April.

Maybe you've already heard, but in case not, it's official; Polaroid becomes available to the public again later this week thanks to the people at the Impossible Project, in conjunction with Ilford and the Polaroid corporation! If you're a lover of Polaroid film and all it's instantaneous magic, this is awesome news.  If you've got a favorite Polaroid from days of old, post it in the comments section below.  Or feel free to just expound on your love of the medium. This is definitely a victory for film!

I'm always on the lookout for digicams that stand out from the crowd, and considering how crowded the marketplace is, most digicams tend to blend into the masses rather than stand out. An exception to this sad situation is Nikon's CoolPix S8000, a little hottie I've had an opportunity to tool around with for the past week or so. Clad in a brushed - but not brash-looking - red aluminum housing, the S8000 passes muster on several counts. First off, the camera features a 5.4 - 54mm/3.5-5.6 ED VR zoom lens that takes in the equivalent field-of-view of a 30-300mm lens.  Anybody looking for a good pocket-sized travel camera?