El Illuminati Landscapati has posted an update to their Leica X1 field-report, addressing auto-focus and manual-focus related issues. The original review is above the update for those who may have missed it earlier on.

And this brings up an interesting point that goes to show the "SLR Traditionalism" in play. Photographers had been clamoring loudly and clearly for years that they wanted compact-cameras with larger sensors. Their requests were mostly falling on deaf ears as the companies better-equipped to make such cameras ignored such requests because of the "SLR Traditionalist" mentality.

There are three companies that are now offering compact (fixed-lens-sensor) cameras with larger-than-small sensors, and all three are not exactly in the list of top camera sellers: Sigma with its Foveonesque DP-series, Ricoh with its new GXR macro-block, and Leica with the X1.

Can any of the SLR manufacturer apologists justify this? :) Sigma, Leica and Ricoh are better equipped than Canon, Nikon, Sony, et al to make these type of cameras? Leica is still fighting the auto-focus wars of the last century, and Sigma is making cameras with the operational performance of a 1999 digital camera (exaggeration for emphasis). These companies were better equipped than the SLR makers?

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Zone10.com has just published a three-page article looking at the current and future state of affairs in sensors and pixels and the potential for improvements. Diagrams are included!

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We compiled a "best of the current" specials at the Camera deals blog (shortcut url: NoisyDeals.com), so be sure to check it out if interested. The internet is big, and obviously we can't find every single special and deal while it is still live. If you do find any and want to share, please let us know.

And speaking of shortcut urls, here are some handy ones if you want to quickly access some of the main noisy pages:

+ 1001nc.com - front page of this blog (aka the "main blog")
+ NoisyReviews.com - the DSLR Review Organizer
+ rawsumer.com- front page of the RAWsumer blog
+ NoisyDeals.com - front page of the Camera Deals blog
+ NoisyMall.com - the Noisy Mall where you can help this blog with your holiday shopping. This blog is like a seasonal tourist attraction, but it operates year-long. Your support during the holiday shopping season can help this blog year-round!

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And now time for a seasonal look at the Canon 7D! DC Watch's Bugs Bunny (see photographer's picture at bottom of page) has taken the 7D out and about to take in the fall colors and take in it did. Plenty of full-size JPEGs are available. Most of the pictures were taken either with the EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 or the EF 70-400mm f4L. There's even a bridge to nowhere :)

But wait, there's more! Towards the bottom of the page they have a full-size JPEG comparison of the same scene with these camera+lens combos:
+ 7D with EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 (.CR2)
+ 5DMk2 with EF 24-105 f4L (.CR2)
+ Nikon D300s with 16-85mm f3.5-5.6 DX VR (.NEF)
+ Pentax K-7 with 12-24mm DA (.PEF)

But wait, there's more! The RAW files of the comparison are available for download in compressed format (raw.lzh). The link is right above the last picture on that page, look for the link on a single line with this text: "Simultaneous recording of RAW data download is here".

We have just refreshed the stock status matrix and the current situation is as follows:
+ body-only ships for $1700 at J&R World, OneCall, et al
+ kit w/EF 28-135mm ships for $1900 at Abe's of Maine, Adorama, et al
+ see the stock-status matrix for the complete picture

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Photoscala (summarized in english at TOP) says that the company who bought some of the Franke and Heidecke leftovers is gearing up to start production again of some of the previous Rollei products. Details and legalese not finalized (yet).

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Kamera & Bild has posted a 80-second video preview of the huge Sigma 200-500mm f2.8 lens from a trade-show floor. The lens is obviously not hand-held, unless you are King Kong or Godzilla :) Please note that their video starts with a 20-second commercial first. Below that video, they also have picture-links to video-previews of the E-P2, Ricoh GXR and many other recent cameras. Page down (on their site) to see them all.

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A recent blog post at Strobist sparked an interesting discussion in the comments section (200 and growing) on the involvement of the female population with the Strobist blog and gear-talk in general. There are many comments there, some interesting, some cliche, some thought-provoking, some Mars/Venus, etc, etc. It is at least half a coffee-pot if you want to read through all the comments.

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If you are w[o/a]ndering how the camera bodies of the E-P2 and the GF1 compare, then you can check a gallery of pictures of the two cameras at Photography Blog. The first half of the gallery focuses on side-by-sides, and the second half is an E-P2 body preview.

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A number of you out there have websites and blogs, so this is something you may want to test if you are using Feedburner for your blog's RSS feed. Google has recently (last few hours perhaps) began appending Google Analytics type of tags to blog-post links in Feedburner-created RSS feeds. When one of your readers clicks on your blog-posts to visit your website, your web-servers/blog-servers may not be configured to accept these as valid urls and your readers may get an empty page instead of the actual page.

The easiest way to check if you have a problem is to go to an RSS reader (eg Google Reader) and click on the blog-links of your own blog-posts. If they do not load correctly on the newly opened browser window, then you probably need to take action. I'm sure if you check on webmaster forums or the google-support forums others will be having the same issue.

If we notice any websites with this issue, we'll try to send emails to their owners/webmasters.

Here is an example, using Google Reader and the RSS of this crazy blog:

Actual blog url
http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2009/11/exciting-new-camera-from-leica-coming-at-photokina.html

Url "decorated" by Google's services via Feedburner through RSS news readers
http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2009/11/exciting-new-camera-from-leica-coming-at-photokina.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+1001NoisyCameras+(1001+Noisy+Cameras)&utm_content=Google+Reader

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