New Technology to Fuel Diversification in Digital Photography

Print Action, Aug 2004

Sinar's Small Pixel Giant

An independent jury of the TIPA named Sinar's new Sinarback 54 M as the Best Digital Camera Back. According to Sinar, it is the highest specification available in a digital camera back. This is an impressive statement given the system's small size (87 x 87 x 45 mm / 3 7 /16 x 3 7 /16 x 1 inches) and its lightweight (400 g / 14 ounces). Its 22-megapixel sensor - Sinar Action Module - was jointly developed by Sinar and Kodak to have readout with 14-bit colour depth. The large format CCD image sensor (17.6 cm squared) is actively and silently cooled by means of temperature and dew point sensors. This ensures that image noise that can appear as disturbing graininess in the shadow areas - even in extreme situations - is reduced to a minimum. To maximize image quality, Sinar has removed all superfluous components that might generate unnecessary warmth, such as the monitor screen, processors, etc. from the mobile back. For demanding work with mirror-less wide-angle cameras or studio photographs with view cameras, the Sinarback is equipped with a live image function for pixel-accurate focusing. Most of the functions of the Sinarback can be controlled directly from the camera, meaning the only cable connection of the Sinarback 54 M combines the Firewire interface for the image data transfer and the connection to the power supply. The new Sinarback is controlled by means of the Apple OS X program Sinar CaptureShop 5.0 or higher. A Windows version is currently being prepared.

Getty Together

Getty Images, one of the world's leading imagery company with customers in more than 50 countries, combined what it calls two of the world's most renowned photography archives into one platform. Its Hulton Archive and Time Life Pictures will be united at gettyimages.com as one of the world's largest resources of original photographic material that is said to span the birth of photography to the present day - along with engravings, maps, cartoons, etchings, lithographs and illustrations dating back to the beginning of printed material. Getty Images' archival collection contains more than 60 million images and over 30,000 hours of historic archival footage. The site will contain work from legendary photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, Slim Aarons, Arnold Newman, Ernst Haas, Weegee, julia Margaret Cameron and Alfred Eisenstaedt.