Engadget believes they have found the Canon 400D, but believes its a replacement for the 30D. The camera seems most likely to be a replacement for the 350D, uses a 10.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, and is quite awesome.
Update: I was right, it is a 350D replacement.
The EOS-1Ds Mark II is a very nice camera, 16.7 megapixels, 35mm CMOS sensor, almost $7,000. This is the elite of digital cameras. Canon describes the body of the camera as…
Durable Magnesium Alloy Body: The EOS-1Ds Mark II meets the demands of professional field photographers. Lightweight and highly rigid, its magnesium alloy chassis & external covers (top, front, rear & memory card slot covers) contribute to excellent durability and electromagnetic shielding. Moving parts are tightly sealed to ensure water and dust resistance on a par with the EOS-1Ds.
What Canon is really saying…
Our Armageddon Hide armour plating will ensure protection from even the fires of Hell itself. No foul Demons from the Pit will tarnish your images of our final days.1
I soooo want one. Anyone need a kidney? I’ll sell mine for $7,000.
[1]: As said by Jon “Salty” Hall.
I earlier wrote that CafePress sucks ass. Well, don’t worry, it still does. I’ve investigated two others, Zazzle, and DeviantArt Print.
Quality, based on what they require from the artist, and how badly they require the artist to mangle the art, is low from all three.
Limited DPI: CafePress limits prints at 300 DPI for all print sizes, and Zazzle limits the print at 100 DPI for all print sizes. CafePress’s limit shouldn’t have quality issues with any of their three sizes of poser, or their three sizes of framed prints, but it may produce medium quality prints high contrast art work… 300 DPI, though, is considered high enough quality for mass production by most. Zazzle’s limit, however, will damage all artwork on any size print; it will lack detail, and makes it almost worthless to print on any size below 23×35″ or so. DeviantArt Print also limits at 300 DPI.
Non-print Colorspace and limited color precision: All three require the source image to be in the sRGB colorspace at 8 bits per channel (ie, a 24 bit image). sRGB is a colorspace designed to match the average monitor, and it lacks a wide gamut; combined with the a low color precision of only 8 bits, it ends up being very hard to define precise colors. It also, unfortunately, is totally unsuited to do print artwork with. Most print artists prefer using a very wide gamut, one exceeding their printer’s, as to be able to use their printer to it’s fullest potential, and also to not lose quality when printing using an ICC profile for their printer and choice of media; also, only DeviantArt Print even provides ICCs, the other two don’t allow you to soft proof your work before hand.
Lack of format choices: DeviantArt is at the extreme end of this, they don’t allow anything but JPEGs, and if you give them an image in any other format they will convert it to JPEG before hand due to their print servers not being able to handle any other format. CafePress accepts a bunch of formats (including PSDs), but as I mentioned before, they have to be in 8-bit sRGB. Zazzle handles a few formats, but lacks PSD.
These three problems are pretty much deal breakers. Zazzle’s 100 DPI limit, all three’s lack of other colorspaces, and DeviantArt’s convert-to-JPEG-beforehand problem are all unacceptable for quality print artwork.
Now, not all printing shops are this way, quite a few understand how the common digital artwork workflow works, and can accommodate my needs, but they don’t offer what these three do: they print, box, and ship the artwork for me, and they also handle the money and merchant end of things. Also, most printshops for large media require you to order in bulk up front, which requires spending money up front and waiting a long time before breaking even.
What I’d like to see is a printshop that does both… accommodates my workflow style, and can act as the merchant on my behalf. I’m afraid I just might be waiting awhile.
I’ve been toying with the idea of putting my art (the stuff I show no one) online for people to purchase as large prints and whatnot. Well, CafePress seems to be the most chosen store, and apparently, they suck ass.
As noted by this trio of flickrs, CafePress t-shirts suck ass: they severely fade after one wash; however, also noted apparently Zazzle is worth using. I’ll have to check them as a possible printing company to do my art via.
Canon has a series of products under the “Glossy Photo Paper” name, with the forumla identification number of GP 401. They used to make many different types of paper under this forumla, but now it seems they only make the credit card sized paper.
The paper is flawed in that it has a slightly reddish tinge, which makes pictures a tad warmer than they should be. Compared against Canon’s PR 101 Photo Paper Pro (which is an almost neutral white, very slightly on the warm side), GP 401 can be described as pink.
This pink color shifts flesh tones and anything that uses magenta ink to print out to be shifted over to the pink side as well. Unfortunatley, the only way to get Canon branded credit card sized paper is to use this paper.
So, I just spent the last two hours slowly tweaking an existing ICC profile for a similar paper (Canon’s Photo Paper Plus, which isn’t nearly as red) to work correctly with this paper.
To get you close to the correct colors, set your “Media Type” to “Glossy Photo Paper”, and use the manual color adjustment dialog (click “Color Adjustment: Manual”, and click on “Set…”) to increase cyan to 35, magenta to 10, yellow to 25, and decrease intensity to -10. These alone increase the quality of output on GP 401 a lot, and make it similar to Photo Paper Pro.
Also, if you’re using Photoshop, or any similar professional printing application, disable ICM and use “Print Type” set to “None”. In Photoshop, you typically use Photoshop’s built in color management.
To use said color management, use “Print With Preview”, and select “Color Handling: Let Photoshop Determine Colors”, “Printer Profile: Canon i9900 SP1″, “Rendering Intent: Preceptual”, and turn “Black Point Compensation” on.
Now, this isn’t as good as just having an ICC profile for the GP 401, but it is about the best you’re going to get, it seems.