Digital cameras and Death Valley

PMA07, one of the biggest trade shows for the digital camera and imaging industry, ended recently. And Consumer Reports' Tech Editor, Jeff Fox, blogged daily from the show floor in Las Vegas to keep us up-to-date with developments and news of new cameras. (You can find his — and our all our PMA show-related posts — by clicking on this link.)

But for a different take on what happened at PMA (and in nearby Death Valley), Helen Popkin and I are joined in this 20-minute podcast by Senior Project Leader Kerry Allen and his team. Kerry, Artur Pietruch and Maria Grimaldi are the Consumer Reports technicians who test all of the digital cameras that we buy and report on for the magazine and Web site. But more than just "lab rats," they're also pro photographers who really know how to put a camera through its paces — in real world situations. (More on that below.)

You can listen to the podcast while you're reading this blog, or you can download the 9.6-megabyte file (ElecPod-0704.mp3) to your computer and/or MP3 player by right-clicking on this link.

In the first half of this podcast, Kerry and Artur reflect on some of the big news from PMA. Most notable were the Olympus 18X "super zoom" camera and those that had "facial recognition" features. But we also discuss how cameras (including digital SLRs) are becoming more "idiot-proof," smaller and more "stylish."

In the second half of the show (at just about 10-minutes into the podcast), we get to what Kerry calls "the highlight" of their trip out to Las Vegas — an excursion out to nearby Death Valley. Their purpose: To test digital cameras with a new feature — GPS, or Global Positioning System. 

As we mentioned in our last podcast, these cameras can capture images as well as actual map coordinates from space-based GPS satellites, typically used for navigation. Maria and Artur explain in this segment of the podcast how such location data can be used with Web sites such as Google Earth. You can see screen shots of what Maria was talking about during the podcast below:

 

(Click on each image for a more detailed look.)

As you can see, this kind of capability would be really handy if you want to share your pictures with others, so they can see — and be envious of — where you've been on vacation. Or as Artur and Helen mentioned, it's also a good high-tech way to help you remember where exactly you were for that once-in-a-lifetime moment.

But how well did they work? Kerry gave us some hints in the podcast, but a full report on these cameras will be in Consumer Reports magazine and on the Web site soon.

In the meantime, Kerry, Artur, and Maria were more than happy to close the podcast by sharing with us some of the pictures they took during their 10 hours in Death Valley. We've posted thumbnails of some of them here. To see them in all their glory, click on them for the full-size version. (BUT be warned: Each image is at least 2.5-megabytes in size, so you'll need a fast Net connection.)

The image on the right (a 2.7-megabyte file) is one of the four photos that were taken using a camera with GPS. By clicking on the first thumbnail image on the left above, you can see that this hollow shell of a building is located about 5-kilometers west of the junction of Nevada's state route 374 and U.S. Interstate 95.

In the full-size version, you'll see photo details the erosion of the building's bricks even though there's not a lot of light. Speaking of which, how about that sky as a backdrop, huh? Marvelous!

I love this image that Kerry took on the left. Take note of the subtle shades of colors of the sand dunes in the foreground. And that black "blotch" on the right? If you download the larger version (Warning: It's an 8.5+ megabyte file!), you'll see that it's a bird.

Kerry says that bird was the only living thing (aside from his fellow humans from the tour bus) he saw out there. (Umm, hence the name "Death Valley," Kerry?)

On the right is another great photo captured by our crew while out desert trekking. I'm not sure how that railroad caboose car on the right got to where it was in the middle of the Death Valley desert. (And there are no obvious train tracks around.) But its faded red color is a nice visual contrast to the bleak scrub brush around it.

If you download the full version (4.2 MB), you'll see the photo has good depth of field, meaning there's good range of focus. You can read the lettering on the caboose (and almost the sign near its door) as well as the sign on the foreground.

Our last photo shows just how impressive a digital SLR camera can be in the right hands. Open up the larger, nearly 8.5-megabyte version of the image on the left and you'll see there's a good amount of detail captured, despite the lack of light from a setting desert sun.

And as we mentioned in the podcast, this image was printed out on a 13- by 19-inch sheet of photo paper that just looked absolutely stunning to me and Helen.

If you're interested in knowing more about these photos — how they were composed, what settings to use, what resolution, etc. — drop us note using the "Comment" link below. Or, you can check out our  Web site for photography tips for winter and summer settings. (Please note, the summer photography guide is available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only.)

We hope you enjoyed the podcast. As always, if there's a topic you'd like to hear our experts discuss, of if you have suggestions or questions, leave us a note below or send us an e-mail: podcaster "at" cro.consumer.org.

If you want to find and listen to all our previous podcasts on Electronics, click on this link.

— Paul Eng

PMA07 Roundup: Products that caught our eye

In this final report from PMA07, here are some briefs on a few notable products that caught the attention of our market analysts. While none of these are revolutionary, they do illustrate continuing trends and new directions in digital imaging products. 

Canon PowerShot TX1 - High definition video 

This 7-megapixel camera looks more like a camcorder than a digital camcorder. That’s appropriate, because it is the first digital camera we’ve seen that can record high-definition video (1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second). A component output lets you play videos directly to an HDTV. You can use its 10x zoom and optical image stabilizer while recording video (as well as while shooting stills). The 1.8-inch LCD flips out and tilts at various angles. A Canon representative told me that it can shoot video segments up to about 13 or 14 minutes each; the specs say it can record video files up to 4 GB in size. 

Fujifilm FinePix A900 – More megapixels for less 

At $199, this is the cheapest 9-megapixel point-and-shoot we’ve seen. Why you’d want that much resolution in a camera this size (it can’t have as large an image sensor as SLRs do) is not immediately obvious. But if you want it, you got it. A graphical user interface helps explain shooting modes and settings. The A900 should be available in late April. 

Olympus and Nikon - Smaller, lighter SLRs 

Cameras makers have begun catering to people who want and SLR, but don’t want something big and heavy. The Canon Rebel XTi and Nikon D40 had already established this market. 

At PMA07, we saw a new entrant from Nikon, the D40x, which is identical to the D40, but costing $799 and offering 10-megapixels instead of 6. 

We also saw the Olympus Evolt E-410, shown above on the right (with its larger sibling, the E-510): 

The E-410, which will be available in May, costs $699 and offers 10-megapixels. The E-510 has the same resolution, but offers sensor-shift image stabilization. It costs $799 and will be available in June. Both offer a live-view LCD.

New cameras save face

If there’s a champion buzzword at PMA07, it’s probably “face detection.” Point-and-shoots from most major manufacturers now include this feature (sometimes calling it “face recognition”), with the promise of better portraits and family shots. The basic premise is that, for many photos, the human face is the subject of primary interest and should be well-focused, well-lit, and color balanced even at the expense of other subjects in the shot. (Landscape-only photographers: You can safely skip the rest of this posting).

That makes sense, because so many photos are shots of friends and family. How often have you reviewed a photo after the opportunity to reshoot it has passed, only to find the faces were out of focus, underexposed (as in the photo above), or off-color? Probably too often.

If you’re well versed in photographic technique, you know how to avoid such flaws: Using a camera’s manual exposure mode (that’s what the little “M” on the dial stands for) and metering on a face, for example, can avoid underexposing it when there’s strong backlight. Focusing on a face that’s not initially in the center of the frame, then locking that focus while you recompose, can avoid shooting it out of focus. Some cameras even let you change the focus point to someplace off center, so you don’t have to lock and recompose.

But let’s face it: Most people have neither the time nor interest to master such techniques. If you’re one of those people, face detection can fix the faces in your shots for you.

To find out more about the technology, I met with representatives of Fotonation, a company that supplies face detection technology to camera makers such as Samsung and Pentax. Fotonation won an innovative product award at this year’s show for technology that can track up 9 face simultaneously on a mobile phone. As of the show, no mobile phone manufacturers had announced the addition of this technology to their products, but I would certainly expect some announcements soon.

Here’s an example of a camera with Fotnation’s technology recognizing multiple faces:

 

As the Fotonation people explained, there are two main ways a camera with face detection technology can work with faces in a photo.

Face detection is the ability to detect that one or more faces are present somewhere within the image. The presence of the face is often indicated by framing it on the LCD with a small square. That alone is valuable, even if the software doesn’t “know” exactly where the face is within the frame, because if there’s strong backlighting, the software can increase the overall exposure of the image with some assurance that the faces will be better exposed. Below is an example Fotonation provided showing how its face detection helps fix exposure for the underexposed shot shown earlier:

 

Face tracking is the ability to keep track of one or more faces, even if they move within the frame or turn. That’s important, because it can help the camera adjust focus and exposure to keep up with the changing composition. Just because someone turns partially away from the camera doesn’t mean they should be treated as if they disappeared. When you use a camera with face tracking, you’ll see the little squares framing each face move within the frame as the person moves. That’s your assurance that the camera is tracking those faces. If someone’s face isn’t framed, it’s a warning that you should try to make adjustments (have them move, change the lighting, etc.) so that the camera will recognize them.

Of course, face detection isn’t limited to real people. In Fotonation’s exhibit, they trained a camera on a group of Barbie-sized dolls to demonstrate the ability to track multiple faces. So, if your kids like to photograph their dolls or human action figures that have faces large enough to recognize, face recognition will help them, too.

With so many cameras including this technology, it has become more important to know which ones work most effectively. As we test new cameras in the coming months, we will be testing and reporting on their face-detection features.

— Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

Race to be the smallest reaches new low

A silly millimeter thinner?

What’s in a name? In late January, the Casio Exilim EX-V7 appeared to lay claim to being the world’s smallest 7-megapixel, 7x zoom camera. Now Samsung says that its new L77 is the world’s thinnest 7-megapixel, 7x zoom. What’s the story here?

It doesn’t take a multimillion-dollar testing laboratory in Yonkers to answer this one: The Samsung is the smallest hands down. Based on the manufacturers’ published specs, I estimate that the L77 is a whopping 4-mm thinner. (For the metrically challenged, that’s an advantage of about one-sixth of an inch.) What’s more, the L77 is about 3-mm narrower from side to side and 1-mm shorter from head to toe. But, hey, who’s counting?

Bragging rights aside, what are some more important differences between the two? The Samsung will cost $349 when it’s available in April, while the Casio should be available for $399 later this month. The Samsung can shoot at up to ISO 1600, while the Casio goes up to 800. (Our recent tests of other point-and-shoots at such high settings have found images to be very noisy.) The Samsung shoots at shutter speeds as fast as 1/1,250 of a second, while the Casio’s fastest is 1/800, which may not matter unless you’re trying to freeze some very fast action.

One area where the Casio excels is in its image stabilization, important for a camera this small with a zoom this strong. The Casio has mechanical stabilization, while the Samsung uses software, which isn’t as effective a way to compensate for camera shake. I saw some other Samsung models at the booth with true image stabilizers, so clearly there was some compromise in the design of the L77.

I tried both of these cameras out on the PMA07 show floor yesterday. Personally, I find these small cameras, with their sometimes impossibly tiny controls, awkward to use. Especially frustrating were the zoom controls. With both cameras, I had to ask the sales staff to tell me where they were.

The Casio’s zoom (circled in the image on left) is a little button or knob that you slide vertically, while the Samsung’s (circled on the right) is what appears to be a little thumbwheel that you lift or lower, but don’t rotate. (Click on either thumbnail image for a closer view.)

So much for intuitiveness.

If you’ve got to have something tiny yet powerful, I guess you can accept these kinds of compromises. But surely there’s a way to design these sorts of cameras that makes them easier to use.

— Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

The killer "shoebox scanner" you can't buy

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a desktop scanner that could, in a few hours,  digitize all the old snapshots you keep in that shoebox in your closet? I talked about it with my co-workers in our podcast because I’d heard pre-PMA rumors about such a device. But I was still surprised to find it in plain sight on the PMA07 show floor yesterday. It’s called the Kodak i1210.   

What makes this scanner different than the ones in Staples is that, unlike a flatbed scanner on which you must carefully place a small group photos side by side, this baby has an automatic document feeder into which you can place a healthy batch of photos of various sizes all at once. It scans up to 30 letter-sized documents per minute at 200 dpi, a decent resolution for snapshots. (At higher resolution, the rate drops a bit but it’s still miles ahead of a flatbed scanner in terms of convenience.) And you can keep adding snapshots as scanning proceeds.

I watched the woman at the booth scan the three photos shown in the picture I snapped from the show floor and posted for this blog. (Click the thumbnail image for a larger view.) The photos went through the scanner in just a few seconds. And should an occasional snapshot go through slightly askew, the scanning software will rotate the digitized image so it looks like you fed it in perfectly straight. Kind of like orthodontia for snapshots.

So let’s see: Thirty per minute times 60 equals…1,800 per hour! That’s overly optimistic, especially since Kodak’s recommended daily volume is 1,500 pages. Still, even if you scan in a mere 500 in an evening, how long would it take to put your family’s entire history on a DVD that you could then duplicate for all your relatives? Less than a week?

So what’s the catch? Well, the cheapest version of the i1210 (which scans only one-sided documents) costs $799. Pricey, but about the same as Epson’s priciest flatbed scanner.

And you can get 500 or more photos scanned for 39 cents each at DigMyPics.com or up to 1,000 scanned for $49.95 at www.ScanMyPhotos.com But with those kinds of services, you must ship your precious photos through the mail and hope they don't get lost.

Why Kodak won't sell you one

The i1210’s price is moot for now because Kodak won’t sell it to consumers. They won’t even sell it to someone else to sell to consumers. This is strictly a product for business use. After chatting with some of Kodak's executives at PMA07, I think I understand their business strategy. They’d rather a consumer pay for scanning services and buy lots of the profitable goodies that go with it — such as photo books and mugs — than own his or her own “printing press.” Sounds a lot like what Kodak’s business model used to be in the film days, before cheap inkjet printers freed us all from paying for developing and printing billions of snapshots we didn’t want, on top of the ones we liked.

It’s particularly ironic that Kodak should be treating consumers this way, because the company just took an opposite, pro-consumer approach in entering the inkjet printer market with consumables priced below entrenched players like Canon, Epson, and HP. A Kodak exec told me that they took this approach because their research showed that pricey ink was one of consumers’ biggest gripes about inkjet printers. I guess when you’re a newcomer to a market, it’s good business to put the consumer first, but when you’re established in one, you can take a “what’s good for us is good for the consumer” approach.

Still, now that the scanner is out of the bag, so to speak, isn’t only a matter of time before HP or Epson or some other scanner maker brings out a product so many of us would love to have and, eventually, gets the price down to $100 to $200? The history of the technology market indicates that this is inevitable. It’s just not clear how long we will have to drool over the Kodak i1210 before someone liberates all those shoeboxes in our closets.

-- Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

How versatile is an 18x zoom?

Shooting Vegas with the Olympus SP-550UZ

Megapixels may be overrated these days, but zoom range is another matter. The lens on a point-and-shoot can’t be changed the way an SLR’s can, so the wider the built-in range the better. Most compacts have 3x or 4x zooms, so that the widest angle you can shoot is equivalent to about 35 mm for a film camera and the longest telephoto is about 105 to 140 mm. If you’ve ever tried to use such a lens to shoot a closeup of more than a few people, capture a landscape, or get closer to a sporting event, you know how limiting this range is.

We’ve tested some cameras with 12x, and even 15x, zooms, but Olympus’s new 7-megapixel SP-550UZ goes further than anything we’ve seen. Its 18x optical zoom is equivalent to a 28- to 504 -mm lens for a film camera. Its range is wide enough for shooting in both tight quarters and at great distances. Although its lens doesn’t match the quality of the ones professional sports photographers use, a 504-mm telephoto is in the same ballpark, so to speak.

The SP-550UZ is surprisingly compact when turned off. Its lens automatically retracts like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell. But even extended at its full 504-mm zoom capabilities, the lens protrudes just about 2.5 inches from the front. Here’s what it looks like next to (on its left) a full-sized Nikon D100 SLR. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the image.)

To get some idea of how versatile such a lens is, I took an SP-550UZ to the intersection of Las Vegas’s Strip and Tropicana Avenue, where the MGM Grand and New York-New York hotels face each other, connected by a pedestrian bridge. It was dusk, so natural light was weak, which made shooting crisp images harder than it would be in bright daylight. And I didn’t use a tripod, which would also help when shooting at 504-mm. While the sun was still up I spot metered on the landmarks themselves to minimize the effect of the backlighting, later switching to a metering mode that balanced the entire image. Image stabilization was turned on for all shots.

These shots don’t measure the SP-550UZ’s image quality. For that, we’ll have to await results of our lab tests. But they do give you some idea how close it can zoom and how wide it can shoot.

The first photos, shown below, were a wide angle shot of the New York-New York skyline and closeups of its individual landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and Chrysler Building, all of which are many stories tall and were hundreds of feet from me. ISO was set at 800 and resolution at 6 megapixels.

You can click on each thumbnail below to see the full-size version of the image. (Warning: Each image is over one megabyte in size.) For detailed shooting specs (such as the shutter speed) download each JPG image to your hard drive and inspect the file’s EXIF properties. (Note: Multiply the focal lengths shown in properties by a factor of 6 to convert from digital to the film equivalent.)

      

Next, I shot close-ups of subjects nearer to me — a statue above and some tourists on the pedestrian walkway over the Strip. With subjects so near, I found it harder to minimize camera shake, so I cranked up the camera’s ISO to 5000 (yes, you read that right) to allow for a faster shutter speed. The camera automatically reduced its resolution to 3 megapixels. I also turned spot metering off.

(Click on each thumbnail for a larger — over one megabyte — version.)

   

I shot both the collage-style image and the scene on the pedestrian walkway shown below at wide angle, so I was able to drop back to ISO 800:

(Click on each thumbnail for a larger — over one megabyte — version.)

 

My final two shots were taken from the pedestrian walkway over the Strip, looking north. Both, I believe, suffer from being shot at ISO 3200 and at a resolution of 3 megapixels. I’d expect crisper images in bright sunlight, with a lower ISO and higher resolution setting. Still, in the telephoto shot, the signs for Caesar’s and The Mirage — which my maps tell me were about a mile away — are quite readable.

(Click on each thumbnail for a larger version. These are under one megabyte in size.)

   

The SP-550UZ has other nice features, such as the ability to store a shot as both RAW and JPG files, and the ability to shoot continuously at speeds up to 15 frames per second (at a very low resolution). For a more thorough assessment of the SP-550UZ based on precise lab tests, check our First Looks on the ConsumerReports.org Web site in the near future.

— Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

HP Photosmart R837: Wrinkles and blemishes be gone!

Tired of deleting your digital shots because someone says, “That makes me look old,” or “I look too fat”? Now your friends and family can appear nearly as perfect as photo-retouched models on magazine covers: HP’s diminutive new Photosmart R837 has in-camera tools to remove wrinkles, blemishes, and excess weight. It can even has "pet-eye fix," which can make your pets look better by removing red-eye (or green, blue, white or yellow eye, depending on the pet).

Here’s how the wrinkle and blemish removal feature works: Display the shot you want to fix on the large LCD and navigate the menus to “Enhance Photos.” If you then choose “Touch Up,” you’ll see a display similar to the one shown above. 

You move the little yellow square to the spot on the photo you want to fix and, with the press of a button the blemish or wrinkle is gone. The camera saves the original photo as well as the altered one on its storage card.

Here are before and after shots for a blemish-removal I did using the R837:

The tool is similar to Photoshop’s “spot healing brush,” except that putting it in the camera makes it more convenient to use. Other choices on the Enhance Photos display include Slimming and Brightness/Contrast.

When I told Lisa Lee Freeman, editor of ShopSmart, our shopping magazine, about the R837, she asked me to use the slimming feature to make her look thinner. Here’s the result:

Not bad, but Lisa’s face seems a bit too thin.

I also did a shot of Lisa by holding the camera in portrait mode (sideways). When I applied the slimming feature to that shot, the “slimming” feature became a “chubbying” one:

This happened because the camera still adjusted the image as if it had been shot in landscape orientation (we've rotated the images here so they can be viewed properly). Sorry, Lisa! (This less-than-complimentary shot is being posted here strictly in the cause of consumer education ;-)  The solution to this unintended result is to rotate a portrait-oriented shot you’ve already taken (which the R837 can do) before applying the slimming feature.

The R837 has 7-megapixel resolution and a 3x (39- to 118-mm) zoom. It turns off and on via a sliding lens cover; personally, I prefer a conventional on/off button. And it came without a printed user manual. To learn about its controls and operation, I had to display or print the 56-page manual that’s on the included CD in the form of a PDF file.

— Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

PMA07 Preview: Bring on the camera show

Christmas comes not in December, but early March, for camera lovers. That’s about the time each year when the photo industry struts its latest toys for shutterbugs at the show called PMA (this year’s version is, cleverly enough, named PMA07. How many megapixels might Santa leave for you when the real holiday season rolls around in late 2007? This is where you find out.

Quite a bit of the suspense has already been let out of the industry’s balloon, as manufacturers have one-upped each other over the past few weeks by pre-announcing some of their latest marvels. We already know about, for example, the world’s first 18x zoom point-and-shoot, the Olympus SP-550UZ, a new Canon camera — the PowerShot TX1, that shoots high-definition video, and a 9-megapixel point-and-shoot, the Fujifilm FinePix A900 that lists for only $199. (Whether that kind of resolution is necessary, or even desirable, in a point-and-shoot, remains to be seen.)

The show doesn’t open until Thursday, but I will be off to the early press previews shortly. In the meantime, here are some of the trends and the news I’ll be following:

• I’ll be blogging about the three new cameras I mentioned above, as well as others that have been announced or will be. Curious about what an 18x camera can shoot? I’ll also be posting actual photos that I shot here in Vegas, using that Olympus 18x camera.
• Face Detection: Promising to do away with those shots where your best friend’s face is out of focus, while the trees in the background are knife-sharp, this technology recognizes faces in a picture and is supposed to keep them in focus even if you recompose the shot. It’s the rage this year in point-and-shoots. I’m planning to meet with a company that is putting this technology into camera phones.
• Super-slim camera with punch: Samsung has announced what it says is the world’s slimmest camera (21 mm. thick) with a 7x optical zoom, the L77. I’ll have photos of it and more information.
• Other trends that are prominent are the continuing proliferation of image stabilization and anti-shake features, the continuing megapixel arms race, higher ISO capabilities in point-and-shoots, friendlier user interfaces, and continuing competition among the lowest-priced SLRs.
• New players: General Electric has entered the digital camera business, albeit a bit late. Are their cameras unique — or will they merely be ubiquitous? And camera giant Kodak has done a quid pro quo with HP. Last year, you’ll recall, HP encroached on Kodak’s retail photo kiosk business by introducing HP kiosks. (Speaking of which, I haven’t seen a single HP kiosk in a store yet; I’ll try to find out where those kiosks are.) This year, Kodak returns the favor by introducing its own line of inkjet printers that are supposed to turn the business upside down by offering cheaper ink.

It’s going to be an interesting few days for anyone who likes cameras or is planning to buy one as a gift. Buckle up and come along for the ride.

— Jeff Fox, Technology Editor

A peek at PMA: Digital cameras and much more

The PMA 2007 International Convention and Trade Show is a haven for all things related to digital cameras, photography and imaging. In this edition of our podcast, Consumer Reports experts talk about the news and new developments they hope to see at -- and blog about from -- the trade show, held in Las Vegas during March 8 to 11.

After a 90-second intro with my guest co-host, Helen Popkin, Web Associate Editor for the Home & garden section of ConsumerReports.org, we get right into the heart of the discussion.

Kerry Allen, our Senior Project Leader for digital camera testing, and Jeff Fox, our Tech Editor, provide entertaining insights into what's happening in digital cameras, imaging, and the photo industry. Some of the topics discussed:

1. Megapixel sensors and how much resolution do you really need in a digital camera?
2. Smaller cameras with much more powerful lenses -- both wide-angle and zoom-in (or telephoto) capabilities. One new camera even sports the digital equivalent of a 28- to 504-mm film lens. For non-camera buffs, "504-mm" is a powerful telephoto lens used by sports photographers!
3. New cameras being tested by Kerry and "his crew" with GPS satellite location based technology.
4. In-camera processing: Built-in software that removes red-eye, spot faces in a crowd, or even make people look slimmer!
5. Our (non-existent) "dream" product: a scanner that would automatically convert all our old snapshots into digital images.

Click this link to listen to a streaming version of the podcast right now. Or download it by right-clicking this link, choose "Save Target as" and download the file (ElectPod-0703.mp3) to your computer's desktop or to your MP3 player.

Then, as we mentioned at the end of the podcast, feel free to send us e-mail (podcaster "at" cro.consumer.org) or post your comments about our podcast here on our blog.

And check back here daily where you'll find blog posts from Jeff, Kerry and others while they're attending PMA. Better yet, subscribe to our blog so you never miss a single post or podcast! (More info on the right!)

If you want to find and listen to all our previous podcasts, click on this link. 

— Paul Eng, Web Senior Editor