Just a heads up for anyone looking to buy a Canon 40D. I purchased a 40D last week, took it home, slapped on a lens and couldn’t get it to focus. It didn’t matter if I used autofocus or did it manually - something wasn’t calibrated correctly (I think). Even though the image looked sharp through the lens, the photos themselves were uniformly blurry.

I called Canon for assistance and they told me to send the camera in for repairs, complete with a letter documenting the problem and printed samples that illustrated the focusing error. I just got an e-mail saying the 40D would be repaired and that I could expect to receive it in 5-7 business days.

A quick search of some other websites showed that a couple of other people are having this problem, too. If you’re in the market for a 40D, be sure to put it through its paces carefully and look for any potential problems. It’s a bit frustrating that Canon launches have been so buggy recently…

Sometimes bigger is better…

Check out this story about the world’s biggest digital camera, which will be used to scan the skies looking for asteroids that pose a threat to earth. The resolution? 1.4 billion pixels - or 1400 megapixels.

“This is a truly giant instrument,” says John Tonry of the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) at the University of Hawaii, who led the team that developed the camera. “It allows us to measure the brightness of the sky in 1.4 billion places simultaneously.”

Read the full story here. (Via NewScientistSpace)

Thanks to Pedro Pinheiro for the tip.

Harboring any illusions of being a photojournalist and getting your chance to photograph some of the biggest celebrities? Better be quick about it.

A photographer from The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland was assigned to photograph Beyonce at a local concert. His window of opportunity? Fifty seconds. Check out this classic quote:

“Beyoncé gave us officially 50 seconds, and that’s all it was,” Shaw said. “She came up in a cloud of mist, and the first 30 seconds she was just standing there. She was silhouetted by backlight, stood still, turned around, and started to sing. She sang like two notes and then a stage hand got up in front of me and said, OK, that’s it. That’s the best shot you’re going to get.’”

Yikes. At the few concerts I’ve photographed, we’ve always had at least a few songs to snap off our shots. That’s ridiculous.

Check out the full column. (Plain Dealer)

Not to be outdone by Canon’s recent announcement of the Canon 40D, Nikon announced its own new, midrange digital SLR today. It looks like a winner.

The key stats?

12.3 Megapixels
6/8 FPS
51-point Autofocus System
3″ LCD
Live-View Shooting Mode
$1800

Ken Rockwell is covering the release in-depth here. The D300 looks like a fantastic professional/advanced amateur option with a few more features than the Canon 40D, although the Canon 40D is a few hundred bucks cheaper.

Microsoft updated the plugin for their new high definition photo format, tentatively titled JPEG XR. We covered the initial announcement here. With the update, Mac users can now play around with the format for the first time.

The new JPEG XR format promises to improve dynamic range in digital images and offer more efficient file compression on lower-end digital cameras. Microsoft plans to role out the format in the near future.

Click here to get the plugin.