A flurry of new DSLR announcements came out today; they seem to come in droves when they do arrive but I reckon that upcoming photography shows might have something to do with it. Canon replaced its entry level offering with the 12.2 megapixel EOS 450D. Yes, I know that megapixels aren’t everything but a goodly number does make a rather good impression and Canon’s range looks a bit lop-sided again with the entry level DSLR on the surface of it having the potential for recording more detail than the next one up in their range, the EOS 40D. It almost seems that it would have been more sensible to delay the arrival of that camera until after the 450D and give enthusiasts a really impressive option. As it stands, they might end up playing into the hands of Nikon with its D300, a strong contender if I were on the market looking for a DSLR. Pentax displays no such idiosyncrasies with it 10.2 megapixel K200D and 14.6 megapixel K20D, and Samsung has also presented their variant of the latter: the GX200. It will be interesting to see reports of how all of these new arrivals perform. Launches like this do not take long to make your once shiny acquisitions look dated and that fate certainly seems to have befallen my K10D. For some reason, that reminds me that my trusty old EOS 10D needs to be sent away for cleaning, a job that has been on the to do list for while.

The websites of Amateur Photographer and Tech.co.uk are good places to find out what is happening in the world of digital cameras, which is just as well given the recent camera launching frenzy. It all seemed to start off with Canon’s EOS D40 and EOS 1Ds Mark III. The former seemed to be a case of playing catch up but I still think that Canon should have used the opportunity to pull ahead, at least in the megapixel stakes; Sony is working on a 12 megapixel offering and could be about cause of 12 megapixel sensors becoming the norm for consumer digital SLR’s like they did with the 10 megapixel level. I realise that megapixels aren’t everything but it has seemed to go like that thus far. Playing catch up doesn’t apply to the 1Ds Mk III with its having a monster sensor resolution of 21 megapixels and, needless to say, the improvements to the favoured DSLR of landscape photographers don’t stop there. Nikon were also in the fray with new 12 MP offerings: D300 for the enthusiast and D3 for the professional. The sensor in the latter interestingly features a sensor that sits between full frame and the more usual APS-C sizes. Panasonic have also announced a new DSLR but a number of manufacturers have new digital compacts on the market too. All of the previous makers have something as does Olympus. It was amazing to see this all happening at once but I suppose that’s how it goes. IFA has been on over the last week but some launches preceded this; it’s usually something big like Photokina that results in this sort of thing…

Update: I have discovered since the Nikon’s D3 has a sensor sized in the full frame domain. It might be 36mmx23.9mm rather than 36mmx24mm but the FX format comes extremely close and the advent of full frame DSLR’s being purveyed by a number of manufacturers may be upon us.