This press event was held at Caesars Palace from 7 to 10 PM and covered the latest in digital cameras, digital video, projectors and digital printing. Jim Bennett and I carried some of this technology with us as we visited this event - see "taking IT on the Road". DigitalFocus was held at the same time as MobileFocus.

The following sponsors were scheduled to exhibit at DigitalFocus:

Canon BJC-8200
This new Canon printer will be shipping in December. It features a 1200x1200 resolution has bi-level inks and 4 picoliter drop size which makes the output look incredible. Couple that with photo glossy paper and you'd swear the picture came from a photo lab.

iXLA SuperPro 640
This new low cost digital camera features a flash, USB and serial interface, runs on 4 AA batteries and includes PhotoEasy software.

Kodak/Lexmark Personal Page Printer
Kodak teamed up with Lexmark to create this new photographic printer which allows consumers to more easily print pictures from their Kodak digital cameras (naturally) without requiring a PC to access, store and print the digital data. After $50 rebate, this unit retails for $149. Looks like a 21st century, digital equivalent of the Polaroid Land camera of the sixties, except this one can do an 8x10 enlargment at the same time.

Antec PhotoChute box
The Antec PhotoChute is a USB drive that can read and write CompactFlash, SmartMedia and Type II PCMCIA memory devices. I used this drive on our the way back during our Comdex road trip and during Comdex show itself. It WAS able to transfer data from 32 megabyte SmartMedia cards (unlike the Clik! drive which can only copy 16 megabyte SmartMedia cards) and 96 megabyte CompactFlash cards (Clik! has a 40 megabyte limit) to a USB laptop. (Clik! doesn't require a laptop to transfer data, but the PhotoChute does). PhotoChute was incredibly FAST as well and I even transferred documents between laptops using the 96 megabyte CompactFlash as media.

If you have a computer with USB port and are running Windows 98, I highly recommend the Antec PhotoChute to quickly grab data off the SmartMedia or Compact Flash memory cards. Directly transfering the pictures from a camera to a computer will allow you to keep the "in camera" filename and not having the download software rename the file. I feel that it is easier and faster to navigate the folder structure created by your digital camera using a larger Windows Explorer screen than the "in camera" file browser in any digital camera.

Casio digital camera with 8X zoom

QuickStitch 2.0
Enroute Imaging displayed the latest version of the award winning QuickStitch 2.0 and demonstrated a preliminary version of their upcoming, professional version of QuickStitch, PowerStitch. QuickStitch allows you to create panoramas from digital pictures. Read our review of the previous version of QuickStitch.

Epson Stylus Color 1160

Epson Perfection 1200U Photo scanner

Epson Digital camera

Minolta 3D 1500
The Minolta 3D 1500 can capture photorealistic 3D images and utilizes the detachable lens design of the Minolta Dimâge EX camera series. By integrating MetaCreations' MetaFlash technology between the camera body and the lens, Minolta has created a compact, portable 3D image device.

To create a MetaFlash 3D image, you take pictures of several views of the object, using the built-in, structured, light-based triangulation system. This series of pictures, taken at a succession of sizes, is then processed by the FlashPoint Technology's DigitaScript software to become a 3D image that is viewable on the built-in monitor.

The Minolta 3D 1500 uses CompactFlash for storage. For power, the camera portion (Dimâge EX unit) uses 4 AA batteries and the 3D processing portion (MetaFlash unit) takes 4 AA Alkaline, NiCad, NiMH or Lithium batteries.

Being a 3D camera, this seems to be another truly 21st century product!

Minolta Dimâge RD 3000
The Minolta Dimâge RD 3000 is a professional SLR camera that combines 2.7 megapixel resolution, interchangable Minolta Vectis lenses and advanced digital functions in a rugged, compact body. It accepts Advanced Photo System Vectis and Maxxum system accessories and uses CompactFlash memory. For power it uses rechargeable NiMH batteries and can output either JPEG or TIFF file formats.

Agfa ePhoto CL30 Clik!
Agfa introduces $549 (esrp) 1.5 megapixel digicam with built-in Clik! drive. Using 40Mb Clik! media instead of more expensive CompactFlash media gives this inexpensive camera the capacity for extended shoots at a reasonable price.

Ricoh MP9060A DVD/CDR drive
One of the first DVD/CDR combo drives, the $400 MP9060A lets you playback DVDs (at 4x speed), read your existing CDs (at 24x) and burn your own CDRs and CDRWs (at 6x and 4x respectively). Expect this to turn up in many new PC configurations next year.

Intel Microscope

Read our review of the Intel Play QX3.

Tektronix Phaser Printer

Copyright © 1999 Rick Smith All rights reserved.