It's easy being green

Increasingly, Australians are becoming conscious consumers, paying greater attention to their impact on the environment as a result of the products they purchase. Sustainable practice is at the heart of this awareness, as a trend towards recycled materials, fair trade, organic farming and renewable energy sources continues to grow. Since 2009, with the aid of Australian government initiatives and incentives, the movement towards energy efficiency has been strong.

Despite constant debate, solar power is consistently proven to be a reliable, clean and affordable means of energy efficiency. Solar power works by capturing the sun's energy to generate electricity, a much cleaner way of gathering power than traditional black power.  According to the Australian Government Department of Industry and Science, as of February 2015 more than 1.36 million rooftop systems have been installed across Australia.

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer

Xara Photo & Graphic Design has a deceptively simplistic design: tools are located on the left, layers on the right. Experienced users of photo-editing tools will find themselves at home with Designer's toolset, but its friendly Ul conceals a plethora of tools - so many that less experienced some may find it a steep learning curve.

Designer's non-destructive integrated photo tool very useful, especially for quick, simple edits. This is your one-stop-shop for all photo-editing essentials, all of which can be adjusted manually or via presets.

Camera Bits Photo Mechanic 5 for Mac

Whatever area of photography you work in, or even if you're only just starting out in the field of photography, having a decent organiser tool at your disposal will reap untold benefits for your workflow. Applications like Adobe Lightroom or Bridge do the job well enough, but Photo Mechanic 5 truly excels as a photo organiser.

This software is purely for organising your images; aside from rotation and cropping, you won't find any image-editing tools here. But it will take you through every step of the image-organising process, right from when you extract the images. It starts with the Ingest process. Use this to import from multiple cards simultaneously and modify your images' keywords, captions, IPTC data. Mechanic uses IPTC Stationary Pads and variables to make the process more flexible, so you can write contact and copyright information too.

Sigma 20mm f 1.4 DG HSM A

Designed to compete with the best autofocus lenses from the camera makers, Sigma's Art-series lenses are setting new benchmarks, but as the company expands the range, each model becomes a tough act to follow. Ultra-wides are difficult to produce to a high standard at the best of times and high-speed models are harder still.

Perhaps the biggest problem is retaining affordability. With a list price of £849 it's still quite an investment, but you're getting one of the fastest 20mm lenses available.

Sony FE 90mm f2.8 Macro G OSS

Sony's full-frame mirrorless models are wonderfully lightweight and compact. but the body is only half the equation. While the collaboration with Zeiss has delivered some equally compact models, this new lens is at odds with the small size of the bodies. Despite the size, it handles well on the Sony
a7R body used during testing.

Ergonomics are generally good and there's no lens extension, but some aspects could divide opinion. A large focus-hold button and the controls for the built-in stabiliser and focus limiter fall naturally under your left thumb, but the push-pull feature of the focus ring for de-clutching the AF mechanism is the kind of thing you'll either love or hate. Still, the manual focus ring has hard stops at either end, even if it focuses past infinity, as lenses like this are inclined to do. It also has a very short throw from the three-metre mark onwards, making manual focusing on distant scenes quite tricky.

360fly

The 360fly is one of many newly released 360 cameras, so it's becoming clear that this new trend is here to stay. However, what's not so clear is whether these 360 capabilities are just a gimmick to drive sales or if they are actually a worthwhile investment.

Looking like a sci-fi eyeball in coal grey, the 360fly is packed with 32GB internal storage, a 1600mAh battery for up to two hours of HD shooting, 1500x1500 30fps filming and waterproofing up to five metres. The 360fly holds some prospects for the discerning 360 videographer as well as 360 filming in general, but. this being the first incarnation of the 360f ly, the more you use it, the more it becomes evident that it's missing something.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ80

Small but mighty, Panasonic's latest compact comes with a 30x optical zoom and the latest 4K technology, packaged in an attractive retro design. The camera feels very well made, with grips in all the right places for comfortable shooting. There's a bright three-inch LCD that's easy to view in sunny conditions, and it's the first in the line-up to feature touchscreen capability. You can tap to focus anywhere on screen, as well as make adjustments to settings, which considerably speeds up the shooting process.

The only thing letting the LCD down is that it's fixed. We've grown so used to vari-angle screens, which really do help when composing high and low-angle shots, particularly with street photography. There's also a small but serviceable EVF, but it's awkwardly positioned in the top left-hand corner. This means that the eye sensors can easily be accidentally activated by your finger while trying to frame a shot. Thankfully, you can turn this feature off if you prefer.

Olympus PEN-F

You've got to hand it to Olympus. From the original digital PEN released in 2009 to this 2016 re-imagining in the PEN-F, it certainly knows how to make lovely looking cameras that convincingly marry the analogue and the digital.

More than any digital model from this manufacturer before it, the PEN-F delights in tactile rangefinder-style dials and knobs, located on the top plate, the front and the rear, where they can be readily accessed via fingers and thumbs of both hands. In this respect the camera's handling is similar to the Fujifilm X-Pro2. The Olympus is, however, more compact, portable and less brick-like, while
also being some £300 cheaper.

Nikon Coolpix P900

The Nikon P900 is the largest camera in the test, and is in fact larger than some CSCs and entry-level DSLRs with a kit lens attached. However this size facilitates the huge zoom range of 83x, which the P900 boasts - the longest zoom length currently available on the market at the time of writing.

A large and chunky grip on the front of the camera, along with the large lens makes the camera sit proudly in your hands just as a DSLR would.

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000

The FZ1000 is one of the two cameras here to feature a one-inch sensor, which it couples with a flexible zoom range. It's pretty large and bulky, and with a viewfinder sitting in the middle of the top plate, it's also reminiscent of a DSLR. The grip is substantially chunky, with an indent to help your finger sit particularly comfortably.

Indeed, the dials and button layout on this camera is very reminiscent of something from the G-series CSC range, and are large and well spaced out. There's four customisable function buttons, while dials can also be changed to suit your particular way of working.

Olympus Stylus 1S

The smallest camera on test, the Stylus 1S shares a lot of its looks with the retro-cool Olympus PEN and OM-D, the company's Compact System Cameras. The screen on the back is touch-sensitive, while it tilts to be useful for some awkward-angle shots. You can set the autofocus point with a simple tap. while it's also possible to navigate through menus and so on.

There's also a number of dials and buttons on the camera, many of which can be customised to suit your specific shooting requirements and how you like to work. Because of the camera's small size, the grip is relatively shallow, and it's not as comparable to using a DSLR as the others on test here.

Canon PowerShot G3 X

Canon has a range of five different cameras in its well-respected G-series. The G3 X uses the same sensor as found in G5 X and the G7 X. but a more extensive zoom range and larger body styling places it in prime bridge camera territory. It's also one of the two cameras here that features a one-inch sensor which should translate well for image quality.

The camera itself has a chunky grip, with a textured covering that gives it a sense of quality as well as making it feel secure in the hand. The screen at the rear of the camera tilts, making it useful for a variety of awkward shooting positions. The screen is also touch-sensitive and can be used for a variety of operations, including setting autofocus point, and navigating the quick menu.

Failed stars and super-Jupiters

The brown dwarf is seen as a stellar failure, a dropout from the school of star formation. These gigantic objects with their puffy gaseous outer layers, are the universe's students that didn't quite make the grade. You see, in brown dwarfs, nuclear fusion - the process that gives stars their power - has given up the ghost, leaving them relatively cold and some no hotter than the human body. Neither planet nor star, brown dwarfs fall into the grey area between the most massive gas giant planets like Jupiter (which is why they're known as 'super Jupiters' because of their massive, gaseous nature) and the smallest stars. Their existence blurs the lines between what is a planet and what is a star and forces us to question the differences between how planets and stars form.

Stars form when clouds of molecular gas collapse under gravity and condense until the pressure and temperature at the centre of the collapsing cloud is so great, that nuclear fusion reactions - which turn nuclei of the element hydrogen into the heavier helium nuclei - ignite. This kind of top-down formation is one of the key differences between how stars and planets form. Meanwhile, the worlds of our Solar System and many others that astronomers have been studying over the past 20 years form through a bottom-up process, where a core gradually builds up, becoming bigger and bigger For the most massive planets, the core has enough gravity to begin stealing gas from the proto-stellar nebula around it, and this is where gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn got their hefty atmospheres.

Hidden universe

If we just relied on our eyes, we'd find that we would be blind to most of what the universe has to offer. There would be so much that we would completely miss, from the explosive nature of gamma-ray bursts, to the dusty skeletons of galaxies and even the radiation left behind by the Big Bang. This is because the universe emits light that goes well and truly beyond what our eyes alone can see. Visible light, which is the light that we see making up our everyday surroundings, is just one small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This runs all the way from low-energy radio waves through to astonishingly high-energy gamma rays. To us, anything that's regarded as outside of the visible part of the spectrum, we just can't see. You might be surprised to learn that we produce this hidden light on Earth too. Think of infrared night vision goggles, the X-rays you might get to see a broken arm with, ultraviolet security tags or radio waves transmitting music and telephone calls across the planet. In space, these other wavelengths of light are everywhere, coming from all kinds of cosmic objects. It's like a hidden universe, but luckily for us, astronomers are able to tune in to these other wavelengths to make the invisible visible.

Light is a funny thing, it is able to act like both a wave and a particle at the same time. This is why we say that a photon of light can have a wavelength. The longest wavelengths are radio waves, which range from a millimetre in length to many kilometres.

Star quakes

What does a star sound like? It might seem like a strange questioa but every star in the sky is generating sound waves, even if we can't hear them across light years of vacuum. What's more, these stellar waves have frequencies much too low for human hearing - periods of minutes to hours, compared to the 20 to 20,000 cycles per second our ears can pick up.

In effect, these sound waves are the same as the seismic waves that are known to cause earthquakes on our own planet Most earthquakes are triggered in Earth's relatively thin outer oust In a similar fashion, stellar seismic waves are generated by the churning of huge masses of gas in the upper layers, close to a star's visible surface. Both types of wave ripple out in all directions, passing all the way through either planet or star. These similarities mean that just as geologists can use seismic waves to probe Earth's inner structure, astronomers are now finding that sound waves can reveal the inner secrets of the stars.

Supernovas

Stars are large and volatile masses of energy, finely balanced to allow their existence to continue while also emitting large .amounts of energy into their surroundings. Their very presence is one of the wonders of the universe, with these giant hot and dense balls of gas able to survive the harsh reality of space. But when the finely-tuned balance of gravity and pressure within a star is altered, something rather remarkable often happens. Try to imagine an explosion more powerful than a billion suns, and you might start to understand how stars can meet their explosive end when they go supernova.



In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers were astounded when a new star appeared in trfe night sky for 1 eight months. The star appeared from nowhere and was stationary, ruling out the possibility of it being a comet. Although unknown at the time, those Chinese astronomers (and possibly Roman astronomers around the same period as well) unwittingly became the first people to record a supernova, which we know today as SN 185. In 2006, NASA's Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories imaged a remnant called RCW 86, a vast shell of gas seerningry ejected by SN 185. It might have taken 2,000 years, but we're gradually becoming able to observe and understand these massive events like never before.

What are asteroids made of?

Protecting Earth is one of the main reasons why scientists keep a close eye on asteroids, which are space rocks of all shapes and sizes that can be found scattered throughout the Solar System.

It's unclear how meteoroids, the rocks that become meteors when they crash into Earth's atmosphere, were generated from asteroids. Still, NASA isn't ruling a link out and is examining asteroids to learn more about how the Solar System was formed.

How planets form

In a sense, planetary birth is a side effect of a larger birth: the formation of a star. Stars form from nebulas, massive clouds of gas and dust dominated by hydrogen and helium. Now and then, a disturbance in a nebula concentrates an area of gas and dust into a denser knot of material If the knot is big enough and dense enough, it will exert enough gravitational pull to collapse in on itself. The huge volume of super-dense gas concentrates at the knot's centre, and the gravitational energy heats it up to form a protostar. With sufficient mass, the energy of the protostar increases, eventually initiating a nuclear fusion reaction and graduating to a proper star.

Meanwhile, according to the solar nebula theory, surrounding gas and dust form a protoplanetary disc, or proplyd, around the protostar. When the protostar first begins to form, the surrounding material is still an unordered, slowly churning cloud. But the protostar's growing gravitational pull accelerates the cloud's movement, causing it to swirl around the centre.

Winds at twice the speed of sound

We've all got stuck out in or witnessed very strong winds here on Earth, from gusts that turn your umbrella inside out to tornadoes that rip up everything in their path. You might think these winds are a force to be reckoned with, but unless you've had a day floating around the gaseous atmosphere of ice giant Neptune you haven't seen anything yet!



You might think that Neptune's distance from the Sun. which creates temperatures as low as -218 degrees Celsius (-360 degrees Fahrenheit), would mean a world frozen solid by the subzero climate with not much going on in terms of weather. However, you would be incorrect. The winds that race through its hydrogen, helium and ammonia-laden atmosphere can reach maximum speeds of around 2,400 kilometres per hour (1.500 miles per hour), making this dark horse probably the most violently stormy world in the Solar System, and making our most powerful winds look like light breezes.

Hurricanes bieeer than Earth

Easily one of the most famous storms in the Solar System, Jupiter's Great Red Spot is so large that it is visible through many Earth-based telescopes.

The Great Red Spot is thought to have been in existence for at least 340 years. The oval red eye rotates in an anticlockwise direction due to the crushing high pressure on the planet. Winds can reach over 400 kilometres per hour (250 miles per hour) around the spot, however, inside the storm they seem to be nearly nonexistent. And that's not all, this complicated weather system has an average temperature of about -162 degrees Celsius (-260 degrees Fahrenheit).

Dust storms that cover the planet

Now this is really bad weather - a dust storm that doesn't just cover an area, or even a hemisphere, but the entire planet. During summer in the Red Planet's southern hemisphere, when Mars is at its closest point to the Sun, solar heating can drive immense storms that blow up red dust and can obscure the surface for months. In 1971, when Mariner 9 arrived at Mars, it found the whole planet hidden under a veil of dust with only the volcano Olympus Mons visible. More recently, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity would struggle to survive in dust storms as the Sun's light was blocked and their solar panels covered by a coating of dust.

On Earth, moisture arms swirling storms, but on Mars there is only dust. Normally most of the dust is on the ground, but some is found in the atmosphere, where it scatters sunlight and makes the sky appear pinky-red.

Our angry stormy sun

We know our Sun as a brilliantly bright sphere that rises in the east and sets in the west each day. That's a simple way to describe it; what really goes on on its surface is far from the impression that it gives as it hangs, almost calmly, in the daytime sky.

While going anywhere near the Sun would be suicide with the searing heat and penetrating radiation combining to fry you alive in your spacesuit technology has revealed this star to be an angry, bubbling cauldron of solar activity.

Alien volcanoes on Io

In 1979, NASA's two Voyager spacecraft flew by Io, the fourth largest moon in the Solar System and the innermost of Jupiter's four main Galilean moons, and returned some startling information. While moons in the Solar System were once thought to be lifeless hunks of space rock, both spacecraft had directly observed volcanic features on Io. Bearing more resemblance to a pepperoni pizza than a giant moon, it was apparent that Io was one of the most fascinating and significant objects in our Solar System.



Our own Moon is one that appears to have been active in the past but has quietened down to become almost entirely dormant, retaining little to none of the volcanic activity that once sculpted its surface. Indeed only a few planets. Earth included, have changeable environments at all, making the discovery of Io all the more exciting Where once our Solar System was regarded as an ever-present museum of the past, moons such as this one have proven that it is still a lively and effervescent place. So what is it that makes Io so amazing?

Pluto: our last frontier

It has been on a breathtaking journey 4.8 billion kilometres (3 billion miles) long. It has taken nine- and-a-half years. And it has cost $700 million (£460 million). But for patient astronomers working on the New Horizons mission, the spacecraft which is about to make the first-ever reconnaissance of Pluto is more than worth its half-ton weight in gold.

Launched on 19 January 2006. New Horizons is set to spend this summer flying by Pluto and its five known moons. It is already the closest man-made object to Pluto, but very soon it will be within a space whisker and scientists are very excited about the possible discoveries it will enable them to make.

Comets, asteroids and meteor showers

Every 133 years a comet that goes by the name of Swift-Tuttle makes its return to the inner Solar System. It last made an appearance 15 years ago. Each time it nears the Sun this speeding ball of ice, rock and dust grows a tail that deposits a glittering trail in its wake, replenishing it on each visit.



Every year, our very own planet moves through this cloud, causing those dust particles to come crashing through the atmosphere. Most of them are tiny just centimetres or even millimetres across, but as they burn up 100 kilometres (60 miles) above our heads they leave a bright streak of light. We call this a meteor, although you may know them by their more common name of  shooting star. The space between the planets and around Earth's orbit is full of dust, so every night there will be one or two random meteors. But when the Earth travels through the cloudy trail of dust left by a comet such as Swift-Tuttle, there are so many meteors that it is described as a meteor shower. If you have ever seen one. then you'll know that meteor showers are among the most spectacular sights in the entire night sky.

Observing the Sun

Observations of the Sun have been used for both scientific and religious observations for millennia. Civilisations have used the Sun to keep an accurate count of days, months and years since at least 300BC. while scientists such as Galileo studied the Sun through telescopes to discern some of its characteristics.

At the Chankillo archaeological site in Peru can be found the oldest solar observatory in the Americas, a group of 2.300-year-old structures used to track the motion of the Sun known as the Thirteen Towers. These towers provide a rudimentary solar calendar through which the Sun can be traced.

The solar cycle

Our Sun may be a great distance away but its fluctuations and perturbations are still felt here on Earth.

Every 11 years the Sun moves from a period of low activity, known as a solar niinimum, to a period of high activity, known as a solar maximum, and back again. When it is at its most active the Sun is even more violent than usual with a greater number of sunspots appearing on its surface and therefore more solar flares emitted into space. During its minimum point it is still a raging inferno firing material into space but, by romparison, it is much quieter and sunspots, and therefore solar storms, are rare.

Solar storms

Like the Earth, the Sun has an atmosphere, but the two are very different. The Sun's can be incredibly volatile with powerful magnetic activity that causes phenomena referred to as solar storms here on Earth.

Solar storms are violent outbursts of activity on the Sun that interfere with the Earth's magnetic field and inundate our planet with particles. They are the result of outpourings of energy from the Sun. either in the form of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) or a solar flare. The former is a release of a large amount of material, mostly plasma, from the Sun while the latter is a sudden release of electromagnetic radiation commonly associated with a sunspot. While no direct connection has been found between CMEs and solar flares, both are responsible for causing solar storms on Earth. The reason why these two events occur is due to the Sun's atmosphere and its turbulent interior, with all of its components playing a part in bathing our planet in bursts of energy.

All about the Sun

At about 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) from Earth lies a giant incandescent ball of gas weighing in at almost 2,000 trillion trillion kilograms and emitting power equivalent to 1 million times the annual power consumption of the United States in a single second. Since the dawn of Earth 4.6 billion years ago it has been the one ever-present object in the sky, basking our world and those around us in energy and light and providing the means through which environments, and ultimately life, can flourish. We see it every day and rely on its energy to keep our planet ticking, but what exactly is this giant nuclear reactor at the centre of the Solar System that we call the Sun?

Over 5 billion years ago a vast cloud of dust and gas was located where our Solar System is now. Inside this nebula something huge was happening; gravity was pulling together the debris, likely the remnants of another star going supernova, into one central mass. As the various metals and elements were brought together they began to fuse into an object at the heart of this nebula. This dense clump of matter, called a protostar, grew and grew in size until it reached a critical temperature due to friction, about 1 million degrees Celsius (1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit). At this point nuclear fusion kicked in and our Sun was born.

Where is our galaxy?

At the inner limit of the spiral arms, the bar and hub are surrounded by a structure known as the 5-kiloparsec Ring (one kiloparsec is around 3,260 light years). Although we cannot see it in visible light, the ring seems to contain huge concentrations of star-forming nebulas and young stars: it's probably the main generator of new stars in the Milky Way.

Above and below the main disc lies a relatively empty region known as the halo. Many faint, long-lived stars pass through this region on tilted orbits, but the halo's most obvious occupants are globular clusters - dense balls containing many tens of thousands of old, red and yellow stars that are generally found above and below the galactic hub. Similar red and yellow stars dominate the hub and bar - they are relatively poor in heavy elements, which allows them to shine for billions of years without evolving significantly. As a result, they are known as "Population II stars, in contrast to the younger, faster-evolving and heavy-element-enriched Population II stars in the galactic disc.

Journey through the Milky way

Look up at the sky on a dark, clear night and you cant miss the Milky Way - a broad swathe of pale light winding its way around the sky among many of the brightest individual stars. Ancient astronomers saw it as a stream of milk spilt across the sky by the goddess Hera when she suckled the hero Hercules, but today we know the Milky Way is something very different - an enormous disc of stars some 100,000 light years across, containing (at the latest estimate) around 200 billion individual stars.



Unsurprisingly, then, our Solar System is an insignificant speck within the overall scale of the Milky Way - all the planets and other large bodies orbiting the Sun are confined to a region just a few light hours across. In our part of the galaxy, stars are spaced far enough apart that even our nearest stellar neighbours appear as mere specks of right The closest of all, the triple star Alpha Centauri, is still around 4.3 light years away.

Discovering new Earths

Planet hunting is a new and exciting area of astronomy barely two decades old that, thanks to missions such as NASA's Kepler telescope, is revealing more and more data about intriguing new worlds outside of our Solar System, known as extrasolar planets or exoplanets. Only in the last 20 years has sufficient technology been available to allow us to categorically prove the existence of these planets. While we're still some way off seeing detailed imagery of direct exoplanet observations, projects like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will bring Earth-size exoplanets into view and even study the composition of their atmospheres.

The number of bizarre and familiar new worlds just waiting to be discovered is staggering, if estimates prove to be accurate. In our Milky Way alone there could be hundreds of billions of planets, and so far we've found just a few thousand. The ultimate goal for planet hunting is to find an Earth-analogous planet that could help ascertain whether life could potentially grab a foothold outside of our Solar System.

How the universe will end

Without the theory of the Big Bang we wouldn't have much to go on when it comes to estimating what the fate of the universe may be. Thankfully, we can come up with several theories for how the universe might end based on our observations of the cosmos, namely that it appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate, but some theories suggest this won't be the case forever.

For example, the False Vacuum theory states that a so-called 'metastability event' could cause the vacuum of space to "ping" into a lower energy state changing the rules of space, time and matter. If this is the case the entire universe could end at any moment.

What is a black hole?

All sorts of weird and wonderful things can happen when a star dies, such as neutron stars and white dwarfs. Undoubtedly the weirdest of them all, however, are the birth of stellar black holes. Like all the best enigmas of the universe, black holes are as misunderstood as they are mysterious and as hard to observe as they are to comprehend.

Stellar black holes are most commonly formed from the remnants of particularly massive stars when they die - their cores collapsing with a staggering force that defies our understanding of the laws of physics.

Planting gladiolus

Plant deep for strong growth

Dig a trench and fill it with well-rotted manure, which will feed the ground and hold water. If your soil is heavy, add sharp sand or gravel as well as manure, to improve drainage.

Grow strong roses

ROSES are a fabulous addition to the garden, but are vulnerable to many pests and diseases. To keep plants healthy through the growing season, you need to lay strong foundations.

Southern rose growers should have already pruned shrub roses back hard. But gardeners in the north, where it can be several degrees colder, can cut back theirs now.

Overseed the lawn

Make sparse lawns thicker by overseeding

MY back garden doesn't get as much sun as I'd like, and in spite of careful maintenance the lawn grass grows poorly some years and becomes thin. It's typical of many small plots surrounded by high fences or hedges which cast shade. If you have this problem you can rectify it by spreading fresh grass seed over the lawn area to thicken up the sward' in the spring - that's now!

Saving cramped seedlings

Ruth shows you how to prick out young plants that were sown too closely together

IN the two weeks since I sowed a batch of night-scented stock, they have germinated happily on a warm windowsill and are ready to move on. But because the seeds are so fine, my sowing was rather

How to plant mint

Preventing thuggish plants from taking over your borders

Some plants will take over a border if given free rein, and need controlling from the roots up.

Layering plants

Mound layering is a good way to propagate woody plants

MOUND layering is a useful way to propagate plants that have become leggy.

BenQ SW2700PT review

BenQ has been manufacturing monitors for quite a long time, and it has been one of the few to have monitors for high-end graphics and photography. The SW2700PT is a 27-inch monitor specifically designed for photographers.

Design and Build Quality

The BenQ SW2700PT has a sturdy build quality and feels quite solid. Though the bezel and frame are polycarbonate, it feels strong. The pivot stand is made of metal and feels heavy, while the base is polycarbonate. The monitor has a smooth moulding with a matte finish on its exteriors. The shading hood fits perfectly.

Nikon Coolpix A100 review

Nikon has just introduced two new compacts - the 20-megapixel Coolpix A100 and 16-megapixel Coolpix A10. The A100 is available in 5 colours while the A10, in 4 colours. Both of these are low-cost models and hence should be popular with those just starting with photography or those on a really tight budget. Here, we review the Coolpix A100.

Design and Build Quality

The Coolpix A100 is a point & shoot compact. Its exterior is made using a combination of plastic and metal and appears reasonably strong. The camera is shirt pocketable and weighs just 119g with battery and memory card.

Sony Alpha 7S II review

Sony has done well by launching three significantly different versions of the same camera to suit the requirements of various photographers. The Alpha 7-series has been well received by the industry, and the second version of the 7-series is even more interesting. The third variant of the 7 II series, the Alpha 7S II is a low-light specialist with a modest 12.2 megapixel sensor and offering high sensitivity up to ISO 409600 (expanded). We are proud to be one of the first to bring out an in-depth review of this camera.

Design and Build Quality

The Sony Alpha 7S II features all the improvements Sony made to the original 7-series in the 7 II series. These include a redesigned grip, which is now deeper and better than the previous version. There are rubber linings on the grip, the thumb rest and the right side. The mode dial has a lock button, which has to be kept pressed to rotate it. The camera is built as sturdy as the best cameras in the 35mm segment. There are two command dials, one in the front and one at the back, along with a vertical dial with four-way controls. Both lens mount and tripod receptacle are metal.

Samsung unveils 2TB SSD—T3

Samsung Electronics announced a portable SSD—the T3. This solid state drive has a capacity of up to 2TB. The drive boasts read/write speeds of up to 450MB/S with an interface that is four times faster than external HDDs.

Samsung is also offering some more capacity options like 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. This device is protected from unwanted access due to a user-set password, attributed to AES 256-bit hardware encryption.

Micromax unveils 4G enabled tablet

Micromax has joined the 4G bandwagon with its latest tablet—the Canvas Tab P702. It is equipped with a 3000 mAh battery. This tablet features a 7 inch HD IPS display.

This offering from Micromax is powered by MediaTek's MT8735 processor, which is an LTE System-On-Chip (SOC), incorporating features like a quad core clocked at 1.3 GHz.

Canon to launch budget friendly D-SLR

Canon has announced that its new D-SLR—the EOS 1300D—wall be available for purchase in April 2016. The EOS 1300D provides complete access to Canon's range of  EF/EF-S lenses. Nearly 70 lenses in Canon's EF/EF-S range can be used with the EOD 1300D. The EOS 1300D uses an 18-megapixel CMOS sensor and a DIGIC 4+ image processor.

Andrew Koh, Vice President of Consumer Imaging and Information Centre, Canon India, said, "Photography as a hobby and sporting a D-SLR camera is quite a rage in India. So is social media, and everybody wants to share their images online with their friends immediately. We are thrilled to launch the EOS 1300D — a D-SLR camera with inbuilt Wi-Fi & NFC. The EOS 1300D creates great looking images and they can be shared instantly as well — thus meeting the requirements of first time users, social media enthusiasts and hobbyists alike."

Canon expands its product lines and services

Canon has upgraded its product lines and services for the spring season. For instance, Canon launched the image PROGRAFPRO-1000 for professional photographers at a retail price of 159,800 Yen. For general consumers, Canon introduced the SELPHY CP1200 at a suggested list price of 12,800 Yen. This compact and lightweight printer can print images from smartphones, tablets, other image storage devices and social networking sites via a Wi-Fi connection.

CIPA statistics reveal 22% rise in mirrorless camera shipments

Statistics released by CIPA (Camera and Imaging Products Association of Japan) show that total number of shipments of digital cameras dropped by 20% year-on-year in January.

Foxconn continues discussion with Sharp

Foxconn—officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.—should be able to reach a final agreement on the acquisition of Sharp Corp. after both the companies come to a consensus on several terms. Foxconn has been granted the negotiating rights.

The Taiwanese firm has offered to invest nearly 659 billion Yen (US$5.6 billion) in Sharp. Mostly Foxconn will keep the Sharp group intact, only shedding the battery business.

Sony's HX80 to debut with 30х zoom

Sony Electronics has announced that its DSC- HX80 will be available in April for $350. The new camera incorporates a 30x zoom, anl8.2MP Exmor RCMOS sensor and a retractable OLED electronic viewfinder.

The DSC-HX80 is NFC and Wi-Fi enabled. It also features a 921k dot LCD screen that can be tilted up to 180 degrees. This camera uses a 30x Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* optical zoom with 60x clear image digital zoom capability.

Nissin Japan launches new speedlite

Nissin Japan Co. showcased the i60A—a speedlite—at the CP+2016. This new offering features a wireless radio control system called NAS (Nissin Air System). This speedlite can oversee three groups of flashes in its role as a commander. It can also be controlled through a different Nissin flash unit packed with the NAS system or the company's Air 1 commander unit.

The speedlite features a maximum guide number of 60m in the compact body enabling various ways of lighting even with the use of modifiers. Manual control in this speedlite allows 1/3-stop increments from full power to 1/2 5 6th. Auto exposure compensation is available up to +/-2EV. It can cover a focal length from 24-200mm.

Nikon takes wraps off new compact cameras

Nikon Inc. has announced that its new DL series of compact cameras—the DL 24-85, DL18-50 and DL 24-500— will be available in the early summer of 2016 for $649.95, $849.95, and $999.95 respectively.

The DL line uses a 1-inch Type BSI CMOS sensor and an EXPEED 6A image processor. This series further incorporates a hybrid autofocus system featuring 105 phase detect focus points (with 171 focus points in contrast detect AF mode). These cameras can continuously shoot up to 20 frames per second. This line-up also uses a Dual Detect Optical VR technology to correct camera shake.

Tamron to unveil new interchangeable lenses

Tamron Co. has announced that its lens—the SP 90mm F/2.8 Di VC USD 1:1 Macro (Model F017)—is available in Canon and Nikon mounts. The availability of the Sony mount is yet to be announced. Tamron's other lens—the SP 85mm f/1.8 Di VC USD (Model F016J will be available in April 2016. The Sony mount will be launched at a later date.

The SP90mmF/2.8 DiVC USD 1:1 Macro (Model F017) is constructed with 14 elements in 11 groups, which includes an LD element and two XLD elements that correct colour aberration and colour distortion.

Sigma to launch new lenses

Sigma Corp. has announced that its mid range zoom—the Sigma 50-100mm f/1.8 DC HSM/ Art—will be available starting April 22, 2016 at a suggested list price of 155,000 Yen.

This lens is constructed with 21 elements in 15 groups. It uses three FLD (F Low Dispersion) glass elements, one SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass element, one high-refractive index, and high-dispersion glass element The Sigma S0-100mmf/1.8 DC HSM/ Art lens's hyper sonic motor is 30% slimmer and offers quick and accurate autofocus. This lens will be available in Canon, Nikon and Sigma mounts.