Digital Accessories

Hauppauge, NY—Long Island-based manufacturer of photographic accessories and brand-name products in the consumer, video, motion picture and television imaging markets, Tiffen introduced its Image Maker Professional Filter Kit series.

The kits were designed using Tiffen’s proprietary ColorCore technology that controls the color and density for optimum consistency. “Image Maker Filter series was created for the emerging and professional videographers,” aid Russ Abelein, vice president, Product Marketing, Tiffen.

The series consists of five kits, each geared for DSLRs with HD video capability and including three 4x4 filters selected for the most common shooting situations. They also offer optical filters used to control light, generally in exterior situations, and aesthetic filters to create a mood that can’t be achieved by lighting alone.

The Image Maker Filter series includes the: Fundamental Kit, Contrast Control Kit, People Kit, Grad Kit and Diffusion Kit. All kits come in a padded carry pouch with belt loop.

The Fundamental Kit, which contains an UltraPol circular polarizer, neutral density 0.9 and pro-mist¼, is geared for outdoor applications. The Contrast Kit includes a soft contrast 2, ultra contrast 1 and low contrast ½, for controlling contrast in bright sunlit exteriors, while capturing lost detail in shadow areas.

    The People Kit contains the nude FX 1, nude FX 3 and 812 warming filter, for portrait photography. The Grad Kit has a clear/cool blue 2 soft edge, clear/straw 2 soft edge and color-grad ND0.9 soft edge (for outdoor applications, these half-color half-clear filters add color selectively with a graduated density transition for smooth blending into the scene. The Diffusion Kit contains a black pro-mist ¼, gold diffusion fx ½ and glimmer glass 1, also for portraits to create diffused images that don’t look like they’ve been shot through a filter. tiffen.com

Rochester, NY—Kodak newest All-in-One (AiO) inkjet printer is engineered to produce Kodak “lab-quality photos, documents that last a lifetime and low total running costs.” The AiO uses Kodak’s proprietary pigmented inks and offers Wi-Fi connectivity.
 “From low running costs to no-compromise, high-quality output and one-touch simplicity, the ESP 9250 printer is a high-caliber printing machine designed to improve every aspect of the printing experience,” said Susan Tousi, general manager, Inkjet Systems, and vice president, Eastman Kodak.

When using Kodak ink and photo papers, prints are said to dry instantly, don’t smear or smudge and are water resistant. Kodak’s ink system has achieved Wilhelm Imaging Research Display Permanence and album/dart storage ratings of greater than 120 years and WIR Unprotected Ozone Resistance ratings of more than 100 years.

Like others in Kodak’s line of home inkjet printers, the ESP 9250 features a bar code system that selects settings for optimal performance, automatically detecting and adjusting for printing documents or photos and customizing ink output to produce the ideal result for the selected paper. The printer also displays how much ink and paper are available both on its LCD screen and remotely on the computer screen.

Other features include: an auto-engaging photo tray that holds three sizes of paper; Wi-Fi and networking capability to print from anywhere in their home or from an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad; an intuitive control panel; and built-in templates to print a variety of forms, including graph paper, line paper, wide-ruled paper, tic-tac-toe, to-do lists, grocery lists and sheet music. To reduce paper use, the ESP 9250 handles double-sided, duplex printing.

According to Kodak, the printer offers print costs of $9.99 for 425 black text pages using Kodak black ink cartridge 10B; $16.99 for 770 black text pages using Kodak black ink cartridge 10XL; and $17.99 for up to 420 color pages using Kodak color ink cartridge 10C. The ESP 9250 retails for $249.99.

Kodak also announced enhancements to Kodak All-in-One Printer Home Center software (v5.4), including social media photo printing from Facebook, Picasa, Photobucket, Flickr and Kodak Gallery sites, to enable consumers to manage these photos from one place. The software also features Perfect Page Image Processing technology to maximize image quality at the scanner, and Kodak Perfect Touch technology, which lets consumers reduce the appearance of skin blemishes and enhance facial features.

In addition, Kodak Gallery will launch about 30 products and designs for back-to-school, end-of-summer and Grandparents Day. “We’re providing users with an easy transition from summer to fall with our unique photo gifts, cards and prints,” said Rachel Heit, senior product marketing manager, Kodak Gallery, “with new save-the-date cards and magnets, a calendar collage and 30 new frames and contact cards.” kodak.com