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Dave Coffin's open source dcraw RAW converter has been mentioned here a couple of times, but it's worth pointing out that the latest version already supports decryption of Nikon D2X white balance data. There's a brief discussion of the decryption algorithm here, and Photoshop developer Thomas Knoll points to the relevant section of code here.

As far as I know, Nikon has not threatened to invoke the DMCA over decryption of the data - this looks more like a rather lame attempt to obfuscate one of the key image parameters to make life difficult for 3rd party developers (who Nikon can then claim have 'incomplete' support for the NEF format if the camera's white balance settings can't be extracted). Of course this doesn't rule out the possibility that Nikon is deliberately playing games with Adobe, since the Photoshop developers have to choose between implementing decryption that might be actionable under the DMCA, and leaving out support for 'as shot' white balance (it seems like they've gone for the latter, for now). Smaller fish like Bibble are already including white balance decryption, which could leave Adobe at a disadvantage if they continue to believe that this is a legal risk (and who knows the details of the DMCA better than Adobe?!). Meanwhile, Nikon presumably hopes to sell more copies of Nikon Capture (though to be fair, Nikon View, which even comes with a rudimentary Photoshop plugin, can also handle these files and is a free download for Nikon users).

Dave Coffin's open source dcraw RAW converter has been mentioned here a couple of times, but it's worth pointing out that the latest version already supports decryption of Nikon D2X white balance data. There's a brief discussion of the decryption algorithm here, and Photoshop developer Thomas Knoll points to the relevant section of code here.

As far as I know, Nikon has not threatened to invoke the DMCA over decryption of the data - this looks more like a rather lame attempt to obfuscate one of the key image parameters to make life difficult for 3rd party developers (who Nikon can then claim have 'incomplete' support for the NEF format if the camera's white balance settings can't be extracted). Of course this doesn't rule out the possibility that Nikon is deliberately playing games with Adobe, since the Photoshop developers have to choose between implementing decryption that might be actionable under the DMCA, and leaving out support for 'as shot' white balance (it seems like they've gone for the latter, for now). Smaller fish like Bibble are already including white balance decryption, which could leave Adobe at a disadvantage if they continue to believe that this is a legal risk (and who knows the details of the DMCA better than Adobe?!). Meanwhile, Nikon presumably hopes to sell more copies of Nikon Capture (though to be fair, Nikon View, which even comes with a rudimentary Photoshop plugin, can also handle these files and is a free download for Nikon users).

Bibble Labs announced that they will be supporting the D2X encrypted NEF white balance in their Bibble software:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05041901nikon_en cryptnef.asp

It's not open source, but they do support Linux. They claim to have succesfully located and unencrypted the white balance information. As far as I can tell they do not use the Nikon SDK.

As a Nikon shooter I don't really see what the fuss is. I bought the D2H last year, and the extra cost of the software is just like any other Nikon/Canon accessory (e.g. the $120 strobe cables).

Photos of the shuttle from boingboing.net's article on it.

If you are interested in start up times, dpreview.com has a chart detailing response time of the Canon 20D. You can find it here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page12 .asp

Nikon made the decision to encrypt the WHITE BALANCE information, not the entire RAW file. And as a side-effect, Adobe is afraid that supporting a reverse-engineered method for decrypting this would violate the DMCA. The wording and subsequent meaning of this article does not accurately portray the reality of the situation.

Article for reference: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05041901nikon_en cryptnef.asp

I'm a Canon shooter, but for you Nikon people, here's some links to keep you updated:

Nikon D2X white balance encryption
Nikon saying you don't need Photoshop

Okay, this is a longshot, but could something like the foveon sensor be applied to LCDs? How long before we get real square pixels from RGB or RGBE stacked LCDs?

I'm in the market for a device like this for an upcoming trip to Europe. The problem is that I don't want a screen; I'd much prefer just an LCD display for status messages. I'd much rather have a smaller, cheaper (especially cheaper!) device with improved battery life, and if I want to review the pictures, I can always do it on my camera before archiving the photos to the device.

The review only mentions portable devices that have a screen, and I haven't come across many screenless options. The only ones I've seen are the Sony Photo Vault, which burns photos to 8cm (200MB) CDs; the Sony HDPSM1, which is way expensive for a 40GB screenless vault (and I think it is not available in the US); and the XS-Drive family, but their page has a warning about how you need to reformat your memory card after each time you use the device, which does not give me too much confidence in their product. Does anyone know of an inexpensive screenless photo vault available in the US?

Oh yeah, I have a Sony camera so I'm stuck with the stupid proprietary Memory Stick format, which of course makes this much harder.

Thanks!

A California jury found against Toshiba, awarding $465.4 million in damages to Lexar.

Interesting idea! If you can work out a floating point location and colour value for each grain (AFM anyone ?), you could map these characteristics onto the center of your output image pixels, using a function of the distance between grain location and pixel location. Resulting values in whatever you want (8 bit unsigned, integers...)

Depending on your output image resolution (which you choose), the number of grains contributing to a single pixel would vary. Also, grains too far away from a pixel center don't contribute. Measurement errors are averaged out. Interpolation could also go temporal when suited (across frames).

Keyword: scattered data interpolation, RBFs, shepard.

I used shepard on some 3-D scattered datasets (confocal microscopy). Reconstruction works well, although the algorithm is quite hungry. RBFs may be a better option.

Who knows, when the technology catches up (disk space, microscopy, algorithms) this may be the norm in film restoration... At that point, rendering the film on your cheap 128 bit per RGBE channel, multi giga pixel handheld display would also be done in real time...

A neat use for face-recognition is Nikon's Face-Priority mode on some of its new cameras. It doesn't try to ID the face, but it tries to tell where the face is in the picture and makes sure it is in focus. This would be a godsend to my parents who can never focus a picture with two people in it -- the pictures are always focused on the background between the two people.

after wading through a couple dozen posts of hopelessly useless pedantic crap, i figured i'd offer a reasonable suggestion: check out the colorvision spyder 2 calibration tool. it's relatively inexpensive, supports windows and mac, and is widely used throughout the industry for photo manipulation and graphic design workstations. combine with a print scanner, and you can get full start-to-finish calibration of your workflow process. here's a review of the previous model.

as some others have noted you can plan on recalibrating at least once a month, particularly with new monitors. if color accuracy is less important than precision (that is, it doesn't matter if the color is correct as long as it looks the same everywhere), make sure you are using the same model of monitor on each desktop as each phosphor combination used in a given model of tube produces a different color gamut. in all events, stay away from lcd - the gamut is crap and they don't hold calibration well.

The Pretec brandname has been around for a while and their products are often found at the leading edge of memory technology rather than the mainstream. I guess there is money to be made in targetting the niche sector that *really* needs high capacities in single cards like the 12GB CompactFlash card that they make. As the linked article says, you could get the same amount of storage in three cards for a tenth of the price, but if you have no choice...

CompactFlash is still very much around and unlikely to go anywhere soon because of its dominance in the high end digital camera sector. As far as I am aware it's still the smallest removable media format that you can get a Microdrive in. Secondly, it has consistently offered the highest available storage capacity in a single card - up to 12GB (so far) if you have the cash. Even if you could afford it, whether you would actually want to trust 12GB of data to a single card is another matter of course.

There are modules to add authentication to digital camera's. They could authenticate the image after blurring it. For example:

Canon Data Verification Kit DVK-E2

Epson's Image Authentication for digicams

There are modules to add authentication to digital camera's. They could authenticate the image after blurring it. For example:

Canon Data Verification Kit DVK-E2

Epson's Image Authentication for digicams

Even Canon has given up on CompactFlash for tiny cameras. The first "digital elphs" used CF, but the SDxxx and Axxx cameras all use SD. The Sxxx, Axx and Sxx cameras still use CF, but only the Sxx (fast & >4mpix higher-end) and Axx (AA-powered bulky low-end) lines are getting new models with CF slots.

S410 and S500 are 3.43 x 2.24 x 1.09 in.
SD200 and SD300 are 3.38 x 2.10 x 0.83 in.

CF cards are 36.4mm x 42.8mm x 3.3mm or 1.43 inches tall, so it would seem the SDxxx-sized cameras (2.10 inches tall) could fit a CF card, but looking a picture of an S400, it's getting pretty tight.

6- and 8- in 1 card readers are cheap now- there's one built-in to my HP 8450 printer so I don't mind a couple of card types floating around the house, but while SD cards use fewer, faster signal lines than CF (a good idea), they waste part of their storage on secure key storage for DRM.

You can't use that space for ordinary storage even if you don't use DRM and though the spec doesn't require secure storage, no one's built a card without it yet.

Way ahead of you... The new top of the line Nikon has FTP over 802.11

Although not really an open-source initiative, (and more of consumer hardware concern), some of the biggest names in digital cameras (Olympus, Kodak, Sanyo, Sigma and Fujifilm, Panasonic) have signed Joint Development Agreements to develop 'Interchangeable Lens Type Digital SLR Cameras.'

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/index.html

"The Four Thirds System uses a Four Thirds-type image sensor, which makes it possible for manufacturers to design extremely compact lenses that combine high mobility and handling ease with the optical characteristics needed to maximize sensor performance. In addition, the Four Thirds System defines an open standard for lens mounts that benefits consumers by assuring compatibility between Four Thirds System bodies and lenses produced by manufacturers that adhere to the standard. The Four Thirds System standard was first announced in September 2002 by Olympus Corporation and Eastman Kodak Company of the United States, and is currently also supported by Fuji Photo Film Co, Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Panasonic, and Sigma Corporation."

As DpReview pointed out, they were not first

This is nifty news.

Because I have an XP computer. And an XP notebook.

And I just ordered me a Nixon CoolPix 8800 as my Christmas present to me.

Guaranteed delivery Friday, the man said. Of course, he had a Noo Yawk accent and sounded like he was smiling a little too hard...

So I may be spending Xmas day taking super-sharp pictures with "the Nikon touch" color balance and messing them up in a tool that doesn't take 8 clicks and a foray into a semantic hall of mirrors to find something as simple as the contrast and brightness controls.

[p.s. when ordering from "back-east" camera houses, CALL and ask what's in the box; if it weren't for a snafu with the shipping address, I'd never have talked to them, and I'd never have found out that the reason they offered it almost $150 below everyone else was that it was a "camera-only" OEM package, esentially reselling a warranty replacement distribution, without things like, oh, the special rechargable battery, lens cap, etc...and this year's models are coming without an included SD card or CompactFlash drive, probably because they were getting a lot of requests to delete those because by now most camera-hacks have a stack of nicer ones than the mfg's were shipping in the kit...]

Oh, and I just have to link this cool picture of the unpainted body: cool picture of the unpainted body from one of the reviews.

</brag>

slow to start up and there's a lot of delay between pressing the shutter release and actually taking a picture. You can mitigate this by half-pressing the shutter release to pre-focus/meter, but that's a problem with a moving subject (like a toddler!).

Try setting the camera to "action" mode, so it continuously re-focuses while the shutter release is half-pressed.

Second issue: on camera flash is evil. Only a few compact cameras give you a hotshoe. DSLR's will give way better flash results with their bounce flash/diffuser capability. Almost every flash picture I have yields terrible red-eye. Photoshop Album can generally fix this, but not all the time. Even without red eye, you generally get a sterile, harshly lit result.

1. At Digital Photography Review I identified 24 non-SLR digital cameras between 3 - 6 megapixels and under $600 as having the ability to add an external flash either via hot-shoe or pc-sync connector. That seems like more than a few to me.
2. I've looked at a number of sample on-camera flash pictures at Steves Digicams, including ones for the A70, and see that it is possible to take pictures using the built-in flash without red-eye. Of course several factors affect whether or not red-eye will appear, so this isn't definative, but there are certainly camera configurations that make it less likely to be a factor.
3. That is assuming the user actually owns an external flash and a diffuser/bounce-unit, and is carrying it when the photo-op presents itself, and can manage to pull-out, mount, turn-on and charge the flash and associated diffuser/bounce-unit, and then frame and take the picture before said opportunity goes away (or, in the case of your toddler, decides to take a nap). But yes, if you have a DSLR and an external flash with a Lumiquest diffuser, particularly if its always mounted on a nice Stroboframe flip-flash bracket, the result will be much more pleasing than any direct-lighting flash setup, regardless of the camera its attached to.
4. I submit that virtually anyone who needs an article to decide between an SLR and non-SLR camera should start with a non-SLR. Likewise, anyone who isn't ready to buy an SLR because of the unnecessary cost, complexity and size is not going to buy and drag around another 5 lbs. and $300 of external flash, diffuser and flip-frame.
5. I find that most every photo editing program does an adequate job of red-eye removal, and this (or a black Sharpie brand marker) is a more convenient and appropriate option for most digital camera consumers.

As a former pro photographer, (newspaper, studio, wedding), I appreciate the advantages of an SLR, and how a pro or avid hobbyist benefit from these more costly, larger and more complex pieces of equipment. But a pro or avid hobbyist does not need to read this type of article. As for myself, I've grown too lazy and cheap to drag $2,000 and 8 lbs of camera gear around with me and go through the ritual of setting-up flash brackets and bounce cards anymore. If I need that stuff, I still have the gadget bag with over $5K of Canon gear. Instead, I use a Panasonic Lumix, which is still at the upper-end of size and weight for most consumers.

On the other hand, when the typical consumer asks "what's the best camera" what they really want to know, when questioned, is what's going to give them good snapshots of the kids and easily print quality 4x6 and maybe the occasional 8x10. For them, something with a good zoom range, relatively quick focus and release time, decent low-light capability, built-in flash that sits-up high enought to avoid red-eye in most cases, and at least 3 megapixels, coupled with a pl

• Canon Powershot 410 (for the user wanting an ultracompact camera which gives good photos, but isn't worried about manual control)
• Canon Powershot S70 (for the high end consumer, who wants a compact camera but with full manual control and awesome picture quality)
• Nikon D70 (a beautiful SLR, great pictures, fantastic features, quick response and all round goodness. Don't expect it tot fit in your pocket though...)

Of course, if you're really keen, you can get one of the high end Canon SLRs...

Most importantly, I don't think you should scrimp on your camera. Those cameras step up in price, according to features more than anything else, but within a particular category there can be quite a spread of prices. I'm not trying to be elitist here (like people who claim you should never use anything less than 256kbps in OGG format for music...) but the efficiency and quality of your camera will really grate after a while if they're not up to scratch.

-
Illuminating Science

As the other suggested the best way to eliminate red-eyes is either having a flash that is farther from the lens or shooting the flash to the ceiling (something you can do with bigger flashes) or not using the flash entirely: with a DSLR you can go to ISO 1600 without noticeable loss of quality in most cases, so you could get a pretty sharp picture even in dim light. Check out http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/howto.htm chapter 8 for more info on the topic.
The Nikon 5200 has some kind of in camera red-eye reduction which works at times.

For reviews:

http://imaging-resource.com/

http://steves-digicams.com/

http://dpreview.com/

http://dcresource.com/

All of these places have great and thorough reviews.

For those who don't want to go through the hassle of reviewing that much in depth information, My Product Advisor is a wonderful place to input fields of things you would like in a digital camera and then spits back cameras that match the closest. You can even say I like this camera, show me others like it. It's one of the best tools out there for users who are new to digital cameras and don't want to read a 10 page review.

http://www.myproductadvisor.com/mpa/camera/inputSu mmary.do

hope that helps someone out there.

The EOS 20D comes close, but the D70 and Digital Rebel (aka 300D IIRC), are crippled compared to a higher-end ($2000+) pro slr. The amount of shots captured per second, frame buffer, noise are far closer to that prosumer "all-in-one" solution than a Nikon D2X.

You made some ok, somewhat well informed points until you got here. You are flat out wrong.

First of all lenses cost a lot yes, but they also hold their value pretty well if you want to resell them. Lets see what your prosumer camera is worth in 2 years. Also there are off brands such as Sigma that make good lenses so you are not stuck with just Canon or Nikon if you buy one of their bodies.

The Canon 20D takes 5 frames per second for 5 seconds, it is very impressive.

The point where you are flat out wrong is with the Noise. I can speak for the Canon DR and 20D from personal experience and in comparison with prosumer cameras they are noise free. The reason I switched from my G2 to the SLRs was because of the noise issue. Check out DR review and look at the comparisons on noise at different ISOs vs prosumer cameras it is amazing.

And as for DSLRs not being there yet, they are way past "there" the Canon 1Ds is superior to 120mm medium format film, let alone the 1Ds Mark II. Face it except for some artists and a few hold outs film is dead.

A hobbyist wants a DSLR and is willing to buy accessories and learn to use it.

By this definition a hobbyist also has much deeper pockets! Enthusiasts do pay a premium, but you don't need to go DSLR necessarily.

I chose the Nikon CP 8800 (point-n-shoot) over the D70 or 20D because it's less than $800 (street) and has 10x zoom w/ IS. That is hundreds less than the D70.

Sure, the D70 is, in most technical respects, a better camera, but to take complete advantage of its strengths you need to spend another grip of money on lenses. And then you need to carry the lenses around with you in a big heavy bag, or compromise and mount one lens for a trip.

I know I am not the kind of guy who is interested in changing lenses all the time. I also know that I am not willing to spend a lot on new lenses, even if they are nice. Instead, I got a high-end point-n-shoot type camera, because it is cheaper and very flexible out of the box. I am willing to live with the lesser quality pictures. (though if you check the reviews and sample pics you will see it's still quite nice. good enough for this hobbyist, anyway.)

With the money I saved on the camera I was able to get some high-quality support equipment, too: Bogen-Manfrotto 3021 Pro tripod with a Kirk BH-3 ball head/quick release plate.

other good links:

KenRockwell.com -- lots of good info on Nikon DSLRs and lenses. Be warned though, this guy has a very heavy DSLR bias and thinks you are a chump for getting a "prosumer" camera. If you are a pro, you probably are. If you are a hobbyist, maybe not, depending on your needs and budget. (If you only have about $1000 to spend and you want 10x zoom, you ain't getting a DSLR.)

DPReview.com -- Good reviews. Active forums, though they are mostly full of 1) whining and 2) pictures of cats.

Butterfly Photo -- Good prices and a real manufacturer's warranty. Be warned, they WILL call to upsell you accessories before they finalize your web order, but if you don't want any they do ship the camera: it's not a NYC bait & switch.

One feature the dpreview buying guide doesn't ask you for is the orientation sensor. Not all new cameras have it; I know Canons generally do. The orientation sensor saves you the trouble of rotating from landscape to portrait because EXIF information is written that lets programs like jhead do it automatically. If you take photos in batches, I highly recommend buying a camera with this feature.

I do agree that dpreview is a great source of information overall, and I didn't have patience to work through much of the annoying flash presentation in this article.

http://www.steves-digicams.com
http://www.dpreview.com

2nd that about dpreview. I just bought a used Canon 10d, and their reviews were extremely helpful in making the decision. At 10-20 pages per review though, they are almost too thorough.

Just go to dpreview and get better information without all the annoying page transition "features".

Just be careful about which 3rd party inks you buy. Some can cause wicked clogs on the printhead. Read some of the reviews at dpreview before you choose one. I've found that the inks from MIS Associates at inksupply.com work great with my Canon i860 and i950.

You can save a little more money by using Office Depot brand glossy photo paper. It's as good as Canon's expensive glossy paper. I have some prints on OD paper that are three years old and they still look very good (no fading yet).

I recently developed an appreciation for photography. I picked up a nice Nikon D70 and an Alien bees lighting system. A few beers persuaded my friends to set up a small studio on one of my garages. Now, I do photography for local escorts and exotic dancers in and around my area.

I find it to be both creative and rewarding.

As you say bollocks. Photoshop Elements has many of the features found in Photoshop and would be very useable for graphics work. They have added even more in version 3 which was just released and its far from just an "end-user photo manipulation" application. Here is a review.

Mor already does this by adding a GPS receiver to his camera to automatically collect the data

The Nikon DX1 already has an RS232C port to add GPS info to image headers

Companies involved in various aspects of this market include Archos, Nikon, Sony, SanDisk and Epson, as well as a whole slew of smaller names like I/OMagic, Sima, Transcend, Vosonic, Innoplus, Digi Magic and Delkin.

Right now, today, the new iPod Photo isn't destroying their market share. But as of today, we're at the point where we can buy an iPod and a little gizmo (like the SanDisk one) we stick flash cards into for display on a TV... or just buy an iPod Photo. With that Belkin attachment, any iPod can be your place to dump photos in the field. And other than adding card slots, most of the other features other products have that the iPod Photo doesn't offer can be added in firmware updates. One at a time. Step by step. Until another market segment is overrun by white-earbudded iPod people. :)

But by the time that happens, the iPod Photo will probably have video playback capability, since again, that's totally just a matter of adding the capabilities through a firmware upgrade. Sure, it's not a top priority for Apple right now, but they've got the hardware now, and just have to code the functionality in the firmware.

In a year or two, will we all be saying "iPod uber alles" with regard to things other than music? Dunno. But if it happens, I won't be surprised.

Companies involved in various aspects of this market include Archos, Nikon, Sony, SanDisk and Epson, as well as a whole slew of smaller names like I/OMagic, Sima, Transcend, Vosonic, Innoplus, Digi Magic and Delkin.

Right now, today, the new iPod Photo isn't destroying their market share. But as of today, we're at the point where we can buy an iPod and a little gizmo (like the SanDisk one) we stick flash cards into for display on a TV... or just buy an iPod Photo. With that Belkin attachment, any iPod can be your place to dump photos in the field. And other than adding card slots, most of the other features other products have that the iPod Photo doesn't offer can be added in firmware updates. One at a time. Step by step. Until another market segment is overrun by white-earbudded iPod people. :)

But by the time that happens, the iPod Photo will probably have video playback capability, since again, that's totally just a matter of adding the capabilities through a firmware upgrade. Sure, it's not a top priority for Apple right now, but they've got the hardware now, and just have to code the functionality in the firmware.

In a year or two, will we all be saying "iPod uber alles" with regard to things other than music? Dunno. But if it happens, I won't be surprised.

Companies involved in various aspects of this market include Archos, Nikon, Sony, SanDisk and Epson, as well as a whole slew of smaller names like I/OMagic, Sima, Transcend, Vosonic, Innoplus, Digi Magic and Delkin.

Right now, today, the new iPod Photo isn't destroying their market share. But as of today, we're at the point where we can buy an iPod and a little gizmo (like the SanDisk one) we stick flash cards into for display on a TV... or just buy an iPod Photo. With that Belkin attachment, any iPod can be your place to dump photos in the field. And other than adding card slots, most of the other features other products have that the iPod Photo doesn't offer can be added in firmware updates. One at a time. Step by step. Until another market segment is overrun by white-earbudded iPod people. :)

But by the time that happens, the iPod Photo will probably have video playback capability, since again, that's totally just a matter of adding the capabilities through a firmware upgrade. Sure, it's not a top priority for Apple right now, but they've got the hardware now, and just have to code the functionality in the firmware.

In a year or two, will we all be saying "iPod uber alles" with regard to things other than music? Dunno. But if it happens, I won't be surprised.

Which format card reader would you put in? Compact flash? MMC/SD/Mini SD/TransFlash (last two with adapters)?

You make a good point, but Apple still needs to provide a adaptor an an option, though it needs to be small unlike the huge adpator from Belkin. Even if Apple goes with option 3, they really need to make this an option in their build to order list - I just checked and this is not an option.

The other thing which would be cool is if digital cameras, such as the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, could make use of their Firewire connection to transfer photos to the iPod.

Just out of interest I just saw that DP Review had their own comments.

Which format card reader would you put in? Compact flash? MMC/SD/Mini SD/TransFlash (last two with adapters)?

You make a good point, but Apple still needs to provide a adaptor an an option, though it needs to be small unlike the huge adpator from Belkin. Even if Apple goes with option 3, they really need to make this an option in their build to order list - I just checked and this is not an option.

The other thing which would be cool is if digital cameras, such as the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, could make use of their Firewire connection to transfer photos to the iPod.

Just out of interest I just saw that DP Review had their own comments.

The digital rebel's port is only 1.1 USB :(

If anything, I wish my 300d had a firewire port built in.

And while Archos has a nice system it can't display RAW files either. So for now I'll stick with my 30 GB ipod, and my 20 GB Wolverine SixPac image tank.

And while Archos has a nice system it can't display RAW files either. So for now I'll stick with my 30 GB ipod, and my 20 GB Wolverine SixPac image tank.

I've owned a Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) for a little over 3 months now and have acquired approximately 7GB of photos in that time (not counting RAW images). This is purely a hobby. I'm sure other amateur photographers will agree with me that 60GB isn't really overkill, even just for photos, let alone for both photos and music.

You can get cheaper products for $50 which will allow you to do more creative slideshows, effects, etc.

I think Apple missed the boat here. The killer function they should add to the iPod is a camera- which goes along nicely with the photo storage features. Nothing flashy or expensive, but for another $50 they could add a lens that's better than the cell phone cams.

from dpreview
Casio has announced the highest resolution LCD display to date, a 2.2" HAST TFT LCD monitor with full VGA (640 x 480) resolution. The majority of LCD monitors used in digital cameras today have QVGA (320 x 240) resolution (230,000 total pixels), this new screen would deliver over 900,000 pixels which would produce a far more detailed reproduction of images, very useful for immediate record review or playback verification. Casio claim that this new screen has the same power consumption as the older models.

I guess it wouldn't be difficult to slam one of theese babies on a PDA?

The reviews I've read said in fact that the pictures are less vibrant (worse color) but more crisp (higher effective resolution) than higher resolution cameras.

The reviews I've read said in fact that the pictures are less vibrant (worse color) but more crisp (higher effective resolution) than higher resolution cameras.

if you want a good picture, you need good optics. ...which need a lot more space than those tiny lenses built into mobile phones. That's just one of the reasons mobiles can't replace real cameras.

Aren't fluid lenses on the verge of revolutionizing the size (or lack thereof) of digital camera's?

Even if they aren't, I would never use the expression "can't" when it comes to technology, and especially not when it comes to the size of lens systems. After all, nature has demonstrated that lens systems can be versatile, high-quality, and positively tiny. If nature can do it, eventually we'll do it too.