We have reached a new stage with Kodak, and I'm not pleased about it. With prior film discontinuations, Kodak gave advanced warning that a film was going to be discontinued, perhaps with a suggested replacement film. Now, we're faced with films being discontinued without the courtesy of advance warning so we can calibrate our process for a new film or alternatively stock up to complete a project while there's still film to be purchased.

My first look at Efke IR820c

Kodak announced that they are dropping EPR, EPN, and HIE in december.

This could be very interesting. The long-rumored micro 4/3rds camera that is actually tiny, unlike the G1?

Kodachrome is gone.

As somebody who griped up a storm about Kodak's previous film discontinuations, I have to say that they are discontinuing film with the appropriate amount of respect for our loss this time...

I've been in a bit of a funk since Sunday morning when folks noticed Silverprint's post about HIE (High speed IR) and EIR (Ektachrome IR) being discontinued. At least this time, somebody gave us warning about it. Naturally, it wasn't Kodak. Folks called Kodak. The first to call got positive news that it wasn't discontinued.... but everybody else was told that the last cut is next month.

Rollei ended up in an interesting position at the start of the medium format digital revolution. See, Rollei has generally made cameras that are even higher-end than the notationally high-end Hasselblad, giving you a bunch of really nifty features that weren't available elsewhere. And, instead of developing a 645 system, like Hasselblad's H-mount, they kept at their 6x6 format, merely offering decent 645 backs for it.

Well, now they, and Leaf, have announced the Leaf AFi 10, which is the first digital camera to have the same nice egronomics as my RB67, where you can select a horizontal or vertical orientation by sliding the sensor. If I was a digital shooter, I'd be coveting one right now.

So I didn't expect this. I don't even like posting on my sites during the day, just the evening or the morning. But Leica announced their S2 digital SLR system, which pretty much takes the smallest sized medium format digital backs sensor sizes and wraps an SLR system around it.

Much depends on what happens when folks get their hands on it and how it gets marketed. Leica has a habit of launching technically superior cameras that are purchased primarily by rich doctors and not by professional or even amateur photographers.

There are a lot of half-truths going around about photography. Generally, the various photographic equipment companies spread one or two of them, and then the various photography magazines and megasites play along because they realize that to go against what the photography companies want is a great way to not get access to the latest and greatest for review.

I love and hate the lomographic society. It's nice that they can market film to the masses as something that is cool and special and stuff.... but there's a point at which they become an obstruction to the market. I'm certainly not paying what they want me to pay for their cameras.

The Panasonic LX1 interested me, a long time ago, but never enough to get one. The new LX3 looks cool, assuming that there aren't any big stupid design errors lurking.

The lens goes out to f/2.0 and they brazenly decided to NOT add more pixels to the same size sensor as the LX2 had, instead making the sensor a smidgen bigger but at about the same resolution. Plus there's a flash hotshoe.

It's looking like the market for cool compact cameras for people with high end SLR cameras is heating up.

I've come to realize that my tripod needs to be replaced. Like, right now...

Just when we thought that Kodak was out of ways to improve films, they got even finer grain out of the 400NC and 400VC films

As I mentioned in March, Nikon would eventually have to go full-frame. Well, they finally went there and announced the D3.