Digital Camera :Digital SLR market booms

Canon recently announced that it had reach a manufacturing milestone, having now produced more than 30 million of popular EOS digital and film SLRs.
In 1987, on the company's 50th anniversary, Canon unveiled the EOS line with the 650 AF film SLR. The first digital EOS camera, the 30D, made its debut in 2000.

In digital photography, 2007 was a strong year for higher-end digital SLRs.
Already, single-lens reflex cameras were disproportionately popular as photographers moved to models that responded quickly and worked better in dim conditions. The bulk and expense were worth it.
But a panoply of new models arrived to satisfy the needs of experts and professionals in 2007. First was Canon's $5,000 EOS-1D Mark III, a rugged 10.1-megapixel photojournalist model unveiled in March that can shoot 10.5 frames per second. Alas for Canon, the camera's record was blighted with concerns about its autofocus performance.
But the floodgates opened in the second half of the year with Canon's top-end, $8,000 21.1-megapixel 1Ds Mark III. Canon hopes this full-frame model not only wlll keep professional SLR shooters loyal but also to woo studio photographers using even more expensive medium-format cameras. Announced at the same time in August and aimed at the serious enthusiast was the 40D, a $1,300 10.1-megapixel model.
A week later, Canon's biggest rival, Nikon, shot back with the $1,800 D300, and, more significant by far, the $5,000 D3, the first digital SLR to follow Canon's lead with sensors as large as a full frame of 35mm film. Large sensors are expensive, but the extra real estate means that individual pixels can be made larger for a given resolution, and larger pixels can work better in low light. The ISO sensitivity rating of Nikon's D3 goes up to a whopping 25,600.
Olympus, too, released a new top-end model, the $1,700 E-3, and two SLR newcomers expanded their ambitions with their second models: Panasonic's $1,300 (including a lens) 10.1-megapixel DMC-L10 and Sony's $1,400, 12-megapixel Alpha A700.
Makers of compact cameras had a harder time coming up with breakthrough models. Features such as face detection and image stabilization, which most agree genuinely help improve photos, spread from the high end to the mainstream, but those gains were offset by the silliness of the unending megapixel.
Higher-end compact cameras jumped up to 12 megapixels this year, which helps folks who like to crop images but hurts the vastly larger number who want to get something other than multicolored noise speckles when shooting in anything less than broad daylight.
In software, Adobe Systems delivered the biggest changes. For those using the higher-quality "raw" images that good cameras supply, Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom in March, and in just a few months it surpassed in popularity the earlier Apple rival, Aperture. Adobe announced an even more dramatic departure in February by declaring that it would make an online version of Photoshop. Photoshop Express is due in 2008.
Microsoft, meanwhile, made gains with its HD Photo format, built into Windows Vista and designed to replace JPEG with better compression, color, and dynamic range. In November Microsoft said the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which oversees the JPEG standards, would turn HD Photo into a new one called JPEG XR

Study :organic really is better for health

THE biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives.

The evidence from the £12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.

The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain's biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.

Professor Carlo Leifert, the co-ordinator of the European Union-funded project, said the differences were so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables. "If you have just 20% more antioxidants and you can't get your kids to do five a day, then you might just be okay with four a day," he said.

This weekend the Food Standards Agency confirmed that it was reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to change its advice. Ministers and the agency have said there are no significant differences between organic and ordinary produce.

Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent organic and nonorganic sites on a 725-acre farm attached to Newcastle University, and at other sites in Europe. They found that levels of antioxidants in milk from organic herds were up to 90% higher than in milk from conventional herds.

As well as finding up to 40% more antioxidants in organic vegetables, they also found that organic tomatoes had significantly higher levels of antioxidants, including flavo-noids thought to reduce coronary heart disease.

Technorati : antioxidants, organic

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator resigns

24hoursnews

Ali Larijani played a key role this year in defusing a crisis that erupted when Iranians seized a group of British sailors and Marines in disputed Persian Gulf waters off southern Iraq. .

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TEHRAN -- Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, a relative moderate who struggled against the uncompromising agenda of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has resigned his high-profile post, government officials announced Saturday.

The resignation of Ali Larijani dealt a major setback to Iranian moderates trying to forge a compromise over Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology, which is strongly opposed by the West.

For two years, Larijani had served as secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, which advises the highest levels of the government. His withdrawal "may make negotiations even more problematic than in recent months," said Patrick Cronin, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank.

Larijani, a confidant to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is said to oppose Iran's isolation over its insistence on continuing its uranium enrichment program. Insiders said he advocated cutting a deal with the West to end the dispute, which has led to two sets of economic sanctions against Iran.

Within the inner leadership circle, Larijani was often at odds with Ahmadinejad, who refused to tone down his rhetoric or steer a more moderate course on the nation's nuclear ambitions.

"The difference between Ali Larijani and President Ahmadinejad was on the cost of the nuclear issue," said a Larijani advisor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Ahmadinejad insists on not any inch of compromise."

Word of the resignation came a few days after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin visited Tehran and proposed a deal to end the stalemate, and just before Larijani was to have discussed the issue with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.

"We will consider what you said and your proposal," Khamenei told Putin, according to the official IRNA news agency. "We are determined to satisfy the needs of the country in nuclear energy, and it is for this that we take seriously the question of enrichment."

Analysts said the resignation probably meant that Iran's leadership had opted to reject Putin's proposal, which most observers say was a deal in which Iran would halt its enrichment program in exchange for concessions from the West.

"Mr. Ali Larijani believed in a sort of compromise on uranium enrichment, but President Ahmadinejad thinks that Iran should go ahead with the current uranium enrichment and current nuclear policy," said Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor of political science at Tehran University. "Therefore, Mr. Ali Larijani had no option but to resign."

Enriched uranium can be used to power electricity plants or, if highly concentrated, become explosive material for an atomic bomb.

President Bush has said Iran should not have the know-how to create such a weapon. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran halt enrichment until questions about its past nuclear activities are cleared up.

The West, led by the U.S., accuses Iran of using a legal nuclear energy program to mask an illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies. Iran says its program is only for generating electricity.

Reacting to the resignation, White House spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said, "We seek a diplomatic solution to the issue of Iran's nuclear program and hope that whomever has this position will help lead Iran down a path of compliance with their U.N. Security Council obligations."

Larijani had tried before to tender his resignation.

"Larijani had resigned several times, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finally accepted his resignation," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said Saturday, according to IRNA .

Elham downplayed the resignation, saying that Iran's policies would not change and that Larijani resigned for personal reasons to pursue other political activities. But a former advisor to the Iranian government on the nuclear issue said that "the gap between him and Ahmadinejad had reached a point that he simply had to resign."

Larijani has long been considered a relatively moderate voice. In 2005 he pushed for a two-year suspension of Iran's enrichment program, and this year he played a key role in defusing the crisis that erupted when Iranians seized a group of British sailors and marines in disputed Persian Gulf waters.

Diplomats say Larijani had a fruitful line of communication with Solana, the EU point person on Iran's nuclear issue.

The Fars News Agency reported that Saeed Jalili, deputy foreign minister for European and U.S. affairs, would fill the post for now and attend the Tuesday meeting with Solana in Italy.

"I think this is a very risky move that lightens Iran's diplomatic clout -- because for one thing, Jalili is too young and inexperienced to handle this big job, which means he will be at the president's beckoning," the former government advisor said, describing Ahmadinejad as "equally a novice on nuclear diplomacy."

Elham said Larijani might join the delegation. A Supreme National Security Council official said the post would be permanently filled within days.

Some analysts pointed out that style rather than substance characterized the differences between the two camps on the nuclear issue.

"Larijani was not advocating making major nuclear compromises, but he appreciated the need to retain constructive dialogue with the EU and felt Ahmadinejad needlessly undermined Iran's case with his blusterous rhetoric," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.

Replacing Larijani with Jalili buys Iran more time to pursue its ultimate goal of becoming a nuclear power, said Saeed Leylaz, an Iranian analyst and economist.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is in a race against time with the West," Leylaz said. "All in all, Iran is going toward more radicalization and full nuclear power."

SOURCE : http://www.latimes.com

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