What's New - November 2008
November 27
Test summaries posted for multiple cameras!
The flood of SLRs this year have put us even further behind on our review work than usual. While it'll take us a while to write and edit the review text for all the cameras involved, we have quite a body of test data collected and ready to go. In the interests of getting data into the hands of our readers in time to help with holiday purchases, we've decided to take a few days out from normal review work to analyze the test results for a number of key cameras. This week, we've completed and posted test summaries for the following cameras; check their respective reviews (links below) for all the details. Cameras with an asterisk next to their name have been selected as Dave's Picks:
November 17
Review posted for 
Sony T700!
The new flagship Sony T700 is one of the most attractive ultracompact digital cameras around, worthy of Sony's offer to engrave it for you. But inside the Sony T700 is pretty impressive, too, with a Bionz processor, optical image stabilization, face detection that can tell an adult from a child, and smile technology that knows a grin from a laugh. Most impressive, however, is the Sony DSC-T700's four gigabytes of internal memory and the password-protected firmware that can manage the 1,500 medium resolution images that this unique digital camera can hold. You can sort by folder or date, but you can also just look for adults or children (or even infants) or just pictures with people smiling on the Sony Cyber-shot T700. And when you've found them, you can scrapbook them in the camera as easily as you can run a slideshow. And all of that can be displayed on your HDTV with an optional cable. The Sony T700 isn't your typical digicam, but after using it for a few weeks, it certainly seems to get the picture. Not every image has to be printed, but it's nice to be able to pocket a year's worth of special events and play them on an HDTV. See our Sony T700 review for more!
November 13
Panasonic G1 Full Review Complete!
We've completed our full review of the Panasonic DMC-G1 Micro Four Thirds camera, and we're happy to say that our early impressions were borne out by our subsequent tests of the production model. Our early impressions of the Panasonic G1 were quite positive, and subsequent in-depth testing of a full production sample confirmed that it's an excellent little camera. While it can't quite compete at high ISO shooting with the best DSLRs with APS-C size sensors, the overall image quality of the Panasonic G1 was really quite good. We were particularly impressed with the performance of its 14-45mm kit lens; it's one of the best-testing kit lenses we've seen to date. (We suspect Panasonic is using post-processing in the camera to correct for chromatic aberration and distortion, but the results are what they are: Optical quality is excellent. We'll look at results in the 14-45mm's RAW files once we get a third-party RAW converter that can open them and that we're sure aren't correcting for the distortion.) The Panasonic G1 is also one camera that feels faster than it tested: Our shutter lag tests came out in the vicinity of 0.4 second, just a tad slower than competing DSLRs, but the camera felt very responsive in our hands, we never had the feeling that we were missing shots due to shutter lag. All in all, this is a really excellent little camera, a very viable alternative for people looking for a smaller yet still capable alternative to carrying an SLR. Read our full Panasonic G1 review for all the details!
November 5
Full Test Results Analysis posted for Panasonic G1!
We've completed our analysis of our test shooting and performance measurements with the Panasonic DMC-G1 Micro Four Thirds camera, and have to say we're fairly impressed with this little camera. As we noted in our preliminary performance report, the Panasonic G1 isn't quite as quick on the draw (shutter lag) as typical consumer DSLRs, but it's not all that much slower, either. - And, oddly, it really feels faster when shooting with it than its performance numbers bear out. Image quality looks quite good: There's a ton of detail available in its images, particularly in its RAW files, its color is good, and it did surprisingly well at high ISOs. When Dave was first briefed on the Panasonic G1 in Japan back in June, he and other editors encouraged Panasonic to aim for fine-grained luminance noise, as it's generally less objectionable in images than the big, soft blotches produced by many camera noise reduction systems. Whether they took that tip, or had already been thinking in that direction themselves, this is exactly what the engineers accomplished in the Panasonic G1. Its luminance noise levels are only average from ISO 100-800, and higher than average at 1,600 and 3,200. But the fine grain pattern of the noise makes it drop out very nicely when you print at output sizes up to about 8x11 inches or so. There's also a fair bit of noise visible in areas of its images with strong underlying subject detail, but the net effect (again, when printed vs viewed on screen) is to render the subject detail more sharply than some competing cameras would. Make no mistake, the Panasonic G1's images are noisier at high ISOs than the best competing cameras based on APS-C sensors, but we found its ISO 1,600 setting very usable for routine shooting. Check out our Panasonic G1 Review for all the details on our testing!
November 3
Full Review posted for 
Canon EOS 50D!
Many features stand out to make the Canon EOS 50D a great digital SLR camera. What will really catch and hold users is the impressive image quality they'll get from the Canon 50D across the standard ISO range of 100 to 3,200. The Canon 50D's new gapless microlenses allow greater light gathering ability, making for surprisingly detailed images, even at ISO 800 and 1,600. The Canon 50D's 14-bit analog-to-digital conversion doesn't slow the frame rate down, either, as the camera clicks along at 6.3 frames per second. UDMA support gives the Canon 50D the ability to write to the card at 45MB per second, with support for future cards that will allow writing at up to 133MB per second, making followup shots with the 50D quite fast. The addition of face detection gives the Canon 50D the most complete set of Live View features in an EOS camera, and other operational enhancements make the Canon 50D both easy to work with and provide more depth to explore than ever before. Canon offers more than one kit lens with the 50D, and one is definitely better than the other. Click here to read our full review of the Canon EOS 50D for more!
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Top 3 photos this month win:
1 Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 Mark II
2 Canon PIXMA MG8220
3 Canon PIXMA MG6220
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