Digital Camera News: Shutterbook Sharing Service, Expanded Nikon Battery Recall, Shooting in RAW

Shutterbook Launches New Online Photo Sharing Service

Entering an already crowded market, Shutterbook touts the "most intuitive online photo sharing service".  With an impressive list of features, Shutterbook offers a premium service for $49 per year (they also have a free service with fewer features).  As a registered user, you get access to up to 20GB of storage space, a file uploader that accepts multiple files, unique tagging capabilities, password protected sharing, and slideshow tool that allows you to add music.

Garnering a "Site of the Day" award from Macromedia, the Shutterbook service uses a Flash application that offers a rich user interface that is cross-browser and cross-OS compatible.  Colors can be customized and it's easy to create albums.

To check out the service, visit www.shutterbook.com.  Visit the "gallery" and "community" sections to experience their interface.

Nikon Battery Recall Notice Revision

Nikon has posted an update to their battery recall that was originally announced on November 8.  They omitted a few lot numbers, that were not distributed in the US, but were distributed in  Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina with the purchase if a Nikon D50.  Please see their updated service bulletin.

Shooting In RAW Format

For those of you who have considered shooting in RAW mode (if your camera has this option), Dave Johnson over at PC World has completed part 2 of his "Shooting in RAW" series.  For those of you who don't know about RAW format, most cameras capture the image and the electrical signals from the sensor are converted and compressed into a JPEG format.  All exposure settings, color settings, white balance, etc., are taken into account to create this JPEG image.  If your camera can save a RAW image, the files consist of the "raw" data from the image sensor.  You need special software to even read this RAW format and there is an art to manipulating them.  Check out the article (and part 1) at PC World for more info.