Noorderlicht 2006 Photofestival
LEEUWARDEN, THE NETHERLANDS SEPTEMBER 10 through OCTOBER 29 2006
OPENING SEPTEMBER 9 FRIES MUSEUM
Focus on South and Southeast Asia
In 2006 the 13th edition of the Noorderlicht Photofestival will be held at various locations in and around Leeuwarden, with the main exhibition in the Fries Museum and Museum Het Princessehof. Just like Africa Inside (2000), Mundos Creados (2002) and Nazar (2004) before, the event is structured so as to devote attention to non-Western photography: South and Southeast Asia.Although interest in this particular quarter of the world has increased sharply since the tsunami, Asian photographers still enjoy little recognition in the West. Submissions & more
The judging sessions started on Saturday 28 January and will continue until 9 February. This year 4,448 professional photographers from 122 countries entered a total number of 83,044 images; 182 photographers more than in 2005. The jury will award prizes in 10 theme categories and select one image as the World Press Photo of the Year 2005. The theme categories are: Spot News, General News, People in the News, Sports Action, Sports Features, Contemporary Issues, Daily Life, Portraits, Arts and Entertainment, and Nature. The world premier exhibition of the award-winning photographs will open at the Oude Kerk, Oudekerksplein in Amsterdam on Monday 24 April 2006. The exhibition will be on show until 18 June 2006 and will subsequently travel to over 85 cities around the world.
On Nov 1 2005, Nikonusa introduced two new Wireless Close-Up Speedlight Systems — the R1C1 and the R1 — both designed to seamlessly fit within Nikon’s i-TTL Wireless Creative Lighting System. Comprised of the SU-800 Wireless Speedlight Commander, two SB-R200 Wireless Remote Speedlights and a host of useful accessories and mounting adapters all neatly packaged in one complete kit, the R1C1 offers photographers using Nikon i-TTL capable SLRs, including D2x(TM), D2hs(TM), D2h(TM) and F6(TM) a compelling new way to get outstanding results with their close-up photography while bringing an amazing level of simplicity and automation to the lighting process. 
Digital SLR’s are quickly becoming the fastest moving segment of the digital camera market, this means more new digital SLR’s, more competition and lower prices. The Nikon D50 is introduced as a more affordable and easier to use version of the D70 which was released just under fifteen months ago. Anyone who has seen or handled the D70 will immediately see a strong resemblance in the D50, it’s only when you start to examine the camera in a little more detail that you notice the differences (we’ve detailed them below). Clearly the D50 is designed to compete with other affordable digital SLR’s such as the Canon EOS 350D (Digital Rebel XT), Pentax *ist DS and Olympus E-300. 
The Nikon D200 was announced on 1st November 2005, some three and a half years since Nikon revealed their first prosumer digital SLR, the D100. It’s fair to say however that the D200 is a completely different beast altogether, it shares far more with its ‘bigger brother’ the the D2X than its earlier namesake. The D200 has the robust build quality of the D2X, a 10.2 million pixel CCD sensor and a compact design more like the D100. Just as the D100 the D200 has a CCD sensor, unlike the D2X which utilized a CMOS sensor. It’s clear that this camera is aimed at the same kind of market as the recently announced Canon EOS 5D. From a features, control and performance point of view the D200 is closer to the D2X than any other model. 
The EOS-1Ds Mark II is the sixteen (point seven) megapixel successor to the EOS-1Ds which was announced almost exactly two years earlier. Carrying on from the EOS-1Ds the Mark II has a full size 35 mm (36 x 24 mm) sensor which means it introduces no field-of-view crop, an 18 mm lens on this camera will provide exactly the same field-of-view as it would on a 35 mm film camera. At first glance it’s clear to see that Canon has stuck (as they did with the EOS-1D Mark II) with the same body and control layout. The timing of the EOS-1Ds Mark II’s announcement was interesting if not totally surprising coming just five days after Nikon announced the twelve (point four) megapixel D2X, the megapixel one-up-man-ship continues. Despite the significant jump in resolution from the EOS-1Ds (11 mp) to the EOS-1Ds Mark II (16.7 mp) the camera maintains an impressive four frames per second shooting rate and a buffer large enough for 32 JPEG or 11 RAW images. The EOS-1Ds Mark II’s internal bus throughput of approximately 67 megapixel/sec is virtually identical to the eight megapixel EOS-1D Mark II. 