TPC meeting place (map). (1st Thurs.) Time: Doors open at 6:30 pm, meeting starts at 7 pm, presentation from 7:30 pm. Around 9 pm, after meetings, we go to a nearby Shakey’s.
All welcome! No reservation required! Meeting fee. 

The TokyoPC meeting on Thurs. Mar. 2 will cover choosing and using digital & video cameras—bring your own to show us, if you wish—also photo-retouching and other photo-related software.

The new hands-on PC Help Desk will run concurrently.

To help in choosing a camera, we will describe web sites such as DP review and kakaku.com, camera features such as image stabilization, white balance, macro, display grid for alignment/panorama, 3CCD video, and accessories such as polaroid filters.

We will briefly show cameras such as the Panasonic FX8/FX9, the Canon A95, the award-winning Fuji F-10/F-11 compact, the Fuji S7000, and the Victor GR-X5 mini DV/still camera combo. Canon, with its EOS brand, is the export-market leader, followed by Nikon. Panasonic (e.g. FX9 & FZ7), Sony, and Fuji brands are also quite popular in the local market.

Some interesting new compact cameras that have just been announced, and should be on the market soon, include the Panasonic DMC-TZ1 (available locally by April) and DMC-FX01 (in March), and the Fuji F30 (available overseas in May).
The larger Canon S3 IS (a follow-up to the extremely popular S2 IS) also looks interesting.

We will also briefly cover photo-retouching software like Adobe’s inexpensive, easy-to-use, and versatile Photoshop Elements*—with photo album, web photo album, panorama and slide show features—and software for recovering images from corrupted flash memory. *Free trial download available.

New Hands-On Help Desk: We hope to have several IT professionals supporting our concurrent hands-on help desk. Legal fine print: This service is provided on an “all due care taken, but no liability” basis—apart from the meeting fee, which goes towards room rental, there is no charge for this service. Pack your PC well to avoid damage in transit!