US magazine, Popular Science has published its annual “Best of What’s New Awards” in its December issue, with some interesting candidates in the photography section.

 

December 3, 2004: US magazine, Popular Science has published its annual “Best of What’s New Awards” in its December issue, with some interesting candidates in the photography section.
The awards acknowledge what the magazine believes to be the year’s best in technology, innovation and design. The Grand Award in the photography category went to the HP Photosmart HP R707, a 5.1-megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom. The R707’s adaptive lighting technology uses an algorithm to analyse shots and adjust the exposure in shadows and highlights to provide a balanced exposure. It also includes in-camera red-eye removal and provides Image Advice, which notes each picture’s exposure settings, looks for problems and recommends ways to avoid mistakes.
Other “Best of What’s New” awards went to:
* the 16.7-megapixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II Pro Digital SLR, which the magazine said outperformed the only other three “full frame” DSLRs on the market.
* Canon’s i9900 photo printer, which produces vibrant prints and is also fast.
* the Casio Exilim Card EX-S100, which has the world’s slimmest housing for a 2.8x optical zoom lens, plus a 3.2-megapixel sensor.
* Adobe’s new Photoshop Elements 3.0 editing and organising software.
* the Adobe Digital Negative Specification (DNG), which is a new standardized version of RAW files free of any legal restrictions or royalties, along with free software users can use to convert existing RAW files to DNG.
* the DxO Optics Pro software “glasses” for cameras and lenses, which analyses and minimises their inherent and unique deficiencies.
* Panasonic’s SV-AV100 DVD-quality flash-memory camcorder.
* Sony’s HDR-FX1 high-resolution consumer digital camcorder that has three separate 1-megapixel CCDs to deliver either 16:9 widescreen or standard 4:3 format.
For the full “Best of What’s New” listings, visit www.popsci.com/popsci.