Panasonic & Fujifilm Developed World’s First Organic Sensor!

June 11, 2013; REMEMBER this day because FUJIFILM Corporation and Panasonic Corporation jointly announced that they are jointly developing an organic CMOS image sensor technology using organic photoelectric conversion layer!

Big deal?

You bet!!

This will be one of the biggest breakthroughs in digital camera sensor technology in recent years!

How does a dynamic range of 15 stops and a 88db signal-to-noise ratio grab you?

This is their full press release...

FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Shigehiro Nakajima) and Panasonic Corporation (President: Kazuhiro Tsuga) have developed organic CMOS image sensor technology that uses an organic photoelectric conversion layer with a photoelectric conversion property at the light receiving section of an image sensor to achieve performance beyond that of conventional image sensors.

Applying this technology to the image sensors of digital cameras and other imaging devices expands its dynamic range and enhances sensitivity further to prevent highlight clipping in bright scenes and capture a dark subject with vivid colors and rich textures.

Lumix 45-175mm f/4-5.6 ASPH X Revisited

A friend who bought an Olympus OM-D recently, decided to supplement his 14-42 (Eqv 28-84) f3.5/5.6 "kit zoom" with a telephoto zoom. He had his eyes on the Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 35-100mm f2.8 zoom, he nearly fainted when he found out how much this chunk of a glass cost!

A whopping NZ$ 1,959.00 at our local Photo Warehouse in Wellington city! Since he is a poor photographer like me, who have to save up our pennies for photography addiction; he came and seek a second opinion on an alternative cheaper lens.

First, our friend wanted to know why his dream lens cost so much more than something nearly in the same range, a Lumix 45-175mm f/4-5.6; which is also a "X" lens! The zoom range of this cheaper lens is even longer than the 35-100!

OM-D @ ISO 20,000 in Real World!

I have been using my Olympus OM-D for nearly a year, and I have shot thousands of pictures with it, but how many time did I actually made use of the ISO 20,000 setting for really low light capture?  ONCE!!

This still life test shot was taken in early May last year, while I was testing my newly acquired dream camera. It was shot at ISO 25,600!

Even at that never heard of (a couple of years ago), ultra high ISO for a HALF FRAME sensor, the result was ACCEPTABLE!

New Olympus PEN E-P5 z z z z !

One week ago Olympus launched their new PEN E-P5, superceding their two year old E-P3.

Because the number four and any of its multiples are considered a BAD OMEN in Japan ( even knifes, forks and bowls are never ever sold in packages of four). there are no E-P4.

This is the "new" E-P5, you can have it in black, silver or white. This is the white version.

Ezy Sop Kambing (Easy Mutton Soup)

Sop Kambing (Goat Soup in Malay) is one of Malaysian, Indian and Indonesian cuisine's best-known dishes.

All of us love Sop Kambing but so far we have not discover any restaurant  in Wellington serving this yummy Malaysian fare :(

So I devised a fast and simple but yummy version myself!

P.G.LIM Passes Away

I only met Wonder Woman P.G.Lim twice, I was then working as a Manager for her brother; Lim Kean Siew, in Penang.

I read and heard about what she has achieved, but alas I am only a photographer; not knowing how to put her achievements in words!

Thanks to my friend and ex-colleague Stephen Tan Ban Cheng for this tribute.

 

PICCURE Rock!!

A day ago I test and wrote about PICCURE, a software that claimed to get rid of blurriness in your picture caused by camera shake. During my test I discovered a few discrepancies, for instance; Photoshop's Smart Sharpen made some of my "blurred" pictures sharper than PICCURE!

After I published my story, I shot off an email to the maker of PICCURE; looking for an answer.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a reply in less than an hour!!

" Hi CY,

Thanks for trying us out!

You are right: PICCURE may be equally good like other programs for small blurs (that may not be even caused by camera shake). 

However, we beat them on anything that is a little bit bigger than a micro blur - plus: PICCURE really gives an "authentic sharpness" for small blurs.
 
I did attach a few images - feel free to try them out and post them.

Thanks a lot for reporting about us!
 
Cheers

Hmmm... that sounds like a challenge and I never run away from one ;)