Quick news roundup

Helluva week for photo news. Each night there’s been some major announcements made, usually around 1am – just after I’ve sacked out. I’m late to the game on all of these, but figure I’ll make the post anyway for those who might be living under rocks:

• Canon announces the EOS 1D Mark IV
  Although this feels much more like a "1DMkIIIn" release to me, it’s still impressive. If you were to throw the 5DMKII and the 1DMKIII in a blender, add in a dash of improved AF and light sensitivity, the Mark IV is what you’d get. For the record, I’ll be waiting until well after the initial guinea pigs have tested, tested, tested the "new and improved 45 point AF system" before I plunk down any dead presidents.

  For those that can’t wait: Pre-order at Amazon.com

• Windows 7 Launches
  In my book, this undoubtedly qualifies as huge photo-related news. Count me in as jumping on the Win 7 bandwagon. I’ve been using Windows XP Pro for almost a decade now, and I’m really looking forward to making the switch to a 64-bit system to goose up my RAM considerably – like 12gigs worth. I’ve had dreams about how fast lightroom and photoshop could run with that amount of memory available to them. My pre-order upgrade for Windows 7 should be arriving shortly – and I can only hope it runs as nicely as initial reports are indicating.

  Your PC, simplified: Win 7 via Microsoft

• Lightroom 3 Beta
  This one really came out of left field for me – I had no idea the folks over at Adobe were working on a new version of Lightroom. Being that I’m a Lightroom nut, and I use it exclusively to catalog, edit and export just about all of my photography you can bet I’ll be downloading this new beta version to kick the tires a bit. The improved importing, sharpening, vignetting, grain, and noise reduction tools already have my ears perked.   

  Via Adobe Labs: Lightroom Beta Download (free, but registration required)

• Viveza 2 announced
  Another left field announcement. Totally cool that the guys out at Nik have been working on an upgraded version of Viveza. I’ve been using the original version for the last year or so, and I love Nik’s U Point® interface. It blows away any type of masking or selections, and makes applying subtle image enhancements a lot faster. The new version adds in "structure" and some global adjustments as well as 64-bit compatibility

  Try it for free here: Nik Software Viveza 2 (I couldn’t get the form to submit correctly, will have to wait a bit)

• 5D Mark II w/ 24fps HD video
  I haven’t used my 5DMKII for much video, but with this announcement about a new firmware I might give it a closer look. I’ve seen the difference between 30fps and 24fps, and it just seems to flow better. The firmware isn’t coming until the "first half of 2010", but it’s good to know that Canon is actually listening to it’s customers.  I’ll be looking forward to it for sure.

• Athentech Imaging’s "Perfectly Clear"
  I’ve had my eye on this one for a while – I believe it was last year at PMA they made an announcement that a Photoshop plugin was under development, but it never quite materialized. Well, today is apparenly the day – they’ve got it online and for sale at their (nicely updated) website. In a nutshell, Perfectly Clear is a time saving plugin that can quickly auto-adjust photos to look their best.

  Check out the details at their site: Perfectly Clear from Athentech Imaging, Inc.