Just spent half an hour scouring the web for any mention of Expression Media 2 (EM 2, or iView Media Pro v4 as it might have been). Microsoft have released a public beta of EM 2, but it seems to have excited almost no interest. It's really difficult to see what the development team have been doing for nigh on 2 years. EM is still totally dependent on QuickTime and the Mac OS X support for RAW formats, so unlike competitors Extensis Portfolio or Adobe Lightroom, it cannot preview Olympus E-3 files. It has gained a hook to Microsoft's Google Earth clone. Yippee. Always wondered where I took my photos. Oh, and I can catalog Office 2008 documents. Wonderful. Changes to the light box view to support a second monitor are great, but they seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to single monitor support. There are still vestiges of a once great piece of well supported software in there, but all the evidence is that the customer base has collapsed. Incredibly, there's still nothing quite as good out there for Mac at least, at least assuming you have file formats supported by OS X. I'm going to try Photo Mechanic again. It does seem to do a lot of things I use iView for, and it does seem to be edging towards full DAM functionality.

Lightroom doesn't quite hit the target as a DAM yet. And it isn't quite as useful as Photoshop/Camera Raw for RAW processing. I'm on record as being somewhat skeptical about the principal LR enthusiasts, as they almost all have a vested interest (books, DVDs) etc, and I find it unlikely that they're really as deeply into LR as they say they are in their real work. However...as far as I can see, there isn't anything better. There are alternatives, and all have their pros & cons. LR 1.0 is a leading RAW converter with some interesting extras tagged on - but it doesn't really match the marketing hyperbole. For DAM, iView MediaPro is, or possibly was, a much better solution, apart from one major, major flaw - it can't handle versions - and one less major flaw, that it is all a bit clunky and old fashioned. The versions limitation can be worked around in a very clumsy way using multiple catalogs, but the potential for screwups is all too high, and iView's rather arcane terminology doesn't help. The worst thing about iView is that since acquisition by Microsoft, the priority appears to be rebadging rather than investing into turining it into a real competitor. The future does not look promising for "Expression Media" as a pro tool. There just isn't really a solution yet. I've invested in LR in the hope that it will improve. The fact that is is sickeningly overhyped does not blind me to the fact that it has an excellent engineering and product management team behind it. Aperture is, in theory, better, IF you like it's non-workflow approach (I do), if you have a Mac (I do) and if you have the patience of a saint (I don't) and can put up with it's very limited range of RAW format support (I can't). Great concept though, but somehow it doesn't seem that Apple is nimble enough to turn it into a winner.

Well, it took long enough for Steve & co to see the light. Whatever next ? Revival of Newton ?

The new Panasonic L1 has been previewed by Reponses Photo (excellent French print magazine). As they say, on paper, a collaboration between the makers of the Lumix compacts, Leica and Olymous should be something special. But they're disappointed. Whilst they are quite enthusiastic about the general concept, the build quality, and the degree of control, there are a series of downsides.

• The "Live View" feature simply isn't as useful as the version on the Olympus E-330, mainly because the screen is fixed. However, unlike on the E-330, apparently you can use auto-focus without restrictions.
• The optical viewfinder is dark and cramped, and the physical design, which sticks out 1cm at the back, is simply asking to be damaged. They reckon that the eyecup will be lost within days.
• The handling is a bit clumsy, as balance, with the kit lens attached, is front heavy. Which exacerbates the viewfinder design issue.
• The "Leica" kit lens is interesting, but the aperture ring is awkward to use, it is very heavy, and whilst its performance is good, it does not meet the expectations associated with Leica.
• The camera is very expensive, twice the price of the E-330, which they consider to be a better camera on balance.
• Still stuck with that rather tired old Olympus AF module
• Did I mention too expensive ?

On the plus side:

• Panasonic provide Silkypix RAW software rather than reinvent the wheel (poorly), although arguably it would have been better to also use DNG format.
• The lens isn't all bad: as RP points out, this is the first stabilized zoom lens from any company with a decent maximum aperture.
• They describe the flash design as "genius": it has two positions, the first pointing 45 degrees upwards for bounce flash.
• The image quality is reported to be good up to 800 ISO.
• The camera also includes 3:2 and 16:9 ratio setiings, and this is where Panasonic's implementation of Live View adds an extra dimension. But of course these sacrifice resolution.

At half the price, well, maybe. But at 2000 Euros, though, it looks like Panasonic have screwed up this one. Pity.

I was initially going to post this on the Luminous Landscape forum, in this topic. But finally, it didn't seem appropriate... A recently posted article compares the technical performance of a series of digital camera systems ranging from extremely expensive to jaw-droppingly, c'mon, you're kidding, expensive. The article is perfectly ok as far as it goes (actual it is very boring, but whatever, some people will like it), but there is a wider context. In discussion, in response to a poster who says he's happy sticking with 35mm (I suspect he means the very expensive EOS 1Ds, but anyway) Michael Reichmann, the author, statest that "Many thousands of photographers around the world aren't spending their hard earned money on these tools just on the off chance that they may provide [i]slightly[/i] better images" Well, many thousands of photographers - pros too - around the world are also doing wonderful work with old, obsolete, film cameras (and digicams for that matter). And these may often represent a very considerable amount of [B]their[/B] hard earned money. I don't really know how to express this without coming across as envious (I'm not) or insulting (really not my intent), but as far as I can see the return on investment on these uber-systems, especially in from a fine art point of view, is extremely low. They don't take better pictures, just bigger ones. I always understood that the Luminous Landscape website was mainly aimed at people coming from an artistic perspective, rather than commercial (for want of a better divide). A 5 figure digital mega-system may make perfect sense in a commercial context, but is it really the case that without it, one cannot aspire to make good photography ? I know the answer to this should be "no", but this is not the message I'm getting either from the LL site or indeed the Video Journal DVD in recent months. The message I'm seeing is "if you can't afford this stuff, you're out of this league". It's interesting to see high end stuff - sometimes - and I'm not knocking the article, especially as I haven't read it. But unless the audience of the Luminous Landscape is going to be an exclusive set of millionaires and highly succesful pros, then maybe it might be a good idea to get back to basics now and then. There's nothing terribly educational about saying that a 39Mp back makes very high resolution photos. I could work that out for myself... Some sense of perspective would be nice. I have a good income, above the national average where I live, and a lot of (no, far too much of) my spare income goes into photography, but I could never afford an EOS 1Ds, let alone a 39Mpix back. And I know at least one person who is semi-pro and quite widely published (and extremely talented), who could not even afford a 30D. Somebody wrote recently, I think it was J.C Bechet in Reponses Photo, that a few years ago, it was actually possible for the average person to at least aspire to top end cameras, like Leicas or medium format Hasselblads, Rolleis, Fujis etc. Nowadays the gap is so huge, that on the one hand there is the mass market, topping out at entry level DSLRs, then a yawning chasm, with maybe the odd, but still very expensive midrange offering from Canon or Nikon, then the foothills of the unattainable, then the Himalaya of the wealthy and top professional. Who is catering for, or even tempting, the "serious amateur" these days ? It seems to be a rapidly dwindling sector. It must also impact on fine art photographers, who, in the past, could maybe justify their outlay by selling 20 prints a year, With costs multiplying by a factor of 10, how are they going to make numbers add up in the future ? I can't honestly see that 120 format film is going to around for much longer. It doesn't take much to imagine that there will be a growing perception that if a photo is made using one of these top end systems, it isn't "art". Driven by marketing, and by the often influential owners of these systems, the "fine art" market could well end up owned by an elitist set, who are not necessarily there by virtue of talent (although I'm not claiming any lack of talent by the authors of the article). Maybe I'm over-reacting. I hope so, but I'm far from sure....