Hasta La Gadget!

What is this strange pendulum hanging below the camcorder? An external battery? Some eccentric fashion accessory from the Far East? Actually, this is the ReadySteady: a camera stabilizer (and potentially a stand) designed for use with various pocket camcorders such as the Flip Mino, Sony Bloggie, Sanyo Xacti (like our HD1010 here) and Kodak PlayTouch. The device really is as simple as it looks — it consists of just a two-part 3.5-ounce aluminum disc and a flexible camera stand, the latter of which can be stored within the disc. Likewise, the instructions are pretty straightforward: simply poke the stand through the disc, screw it into your camcorder, put a grip near your camcorder’s bottom, and then apply some force onto the disc with your other hand (as pictured). Voilà! So, does this $29.99 device work? And is it worth it? Read on to find out — an extensive test video awaits you after the break.

Continue reading ReadySteady pocket camcorder stabilizer review

ReadySteady pocket camcorder stabilizer review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At Gearlog, we love Takara Tomy’s
lighthearted tech toys, and the latest 3D Shot Cam is no exception.

A kid version of Fujifilm’s FinePix
Real 3D W3 camera, the 3D Shot Cam camera is very a basic 0.3 megapixel camera with two separate lenses.

To get the 3D
magic, you will need to print out the two pictures that are shot
side-by-side, and view them through a special viewer to get the 3D
effect. The 3D Shot Cam is bundled with two 3D viewers in the box.

The camera has a slot for
a microSD card, but it supports only up to 8GB. That’s still a whole
lot of 3D images.

Designed for kids 12 years and under,
it is expected to sell for $70 when it launches next spring.
While there’s no international release announced at this time, if it
turns out to be popular in Japan, a US release may not be far behind.

via Ubergizmo

We thought Nikon just wanted to join the burgeoning ranks of mirrorless interchangeable lens shooters that bridge the gap between full-fledged DSLR and pocket-friendly compact cameras. But oh no, as company president Makoto Kimura puts it, Nikon wants to create a whole “new market” with its next big idea. Noting that his lab lackeys have tested all sorts of eccentric possibilities, such as a head-mounted display, Kimura says it’s time for digital cameras to move with the times and Nikon will be ready to take up its usual leadership position. When might that be, you ask? Well, in classic bigwig style, he keeps the roadmap tucked firmly inside the breast pocket of his smoking jacket, but at least we know that Nikon won’t be sitting on the sidelines and letting whippersnappers like Sony’s NEX-5 steal customers away.

Nikon wants to create a ‘new market’ with its new concept originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olympus has just made a pair of new, limited edition kit options official for its PEN E-P2 shooter. Both include an M. Zuiko Digital 17mm F2.8 prime lens and an all-black paintjob, with the choice for the buyer being between a a Special Black (or just black, if you’re talking to humans) EVF Edition that brings you the V-F2 viewfinder, and an equally noir Flash Edition, which will enrich your life with the FL-14 external flash. Prices are €1,079 ($1,371) and €1,049 ($1,332), respectively, and launch is scheduled for October of this year. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be crazy to buy these, but it’d help.

Olympus E-P2 dons all-black garb for limited edition pancake lens kits originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In what’s a sure sign that the megapixel race in cameras is out of control, Canon has announced that it has developed a 120-megapixel image sensor.

That’s 13,280 x 9,184 pixels packed into a rectangle about 29 millimeters x 20 millimeters–or 1.4 inches x 0.7 inches . It’s the highest level of resolution in a sensor of its size, says Canon.

Most cameras today used either a CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor or a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) sensor. Canon’s latest innovation is for a CMOS sensor.

The 120-megapixel sensor is about 7.5 times larger and offers a 2.4-fold improvement in resolution over Canon’s highest comparable commercial sensor. Canon’s highest-resolution commercial CMOS sensor is currently the EOS-1Ds Mark III and EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR cameras. That sensor incorporates approximately 21.1 million pixels.

Cramming more pixels into a sensor is not necessarily indicative of the quality of the photos. Many consumers think more megapixels in a camera means better photos. But sometimes packing more light-sensitive pixels on a tiny sensor can result in greater noise in the photos. Cameras also require strong processing capabilities to take all the data from the sensors and translate into a beautiful picture.

With most CMOS sensors, camera makers use parallel processing to read data at high pixel counts. But that has to be balanced against problems such as signal delays and deviations in timing, all of which can affect image quality.

Canon has modified the method to control the readout circuit timing to get about 9.5 frames per second. This can support continuous shooting of ultra-high-resolution images, says Canon.

The newly developed CMOS sensor also includes full HD video (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) output capability.

For now, the 120-megapixel sensor is a proof-of-concept. It’s an engineering flight of fancy but it shows camera makers are trying to find ways to pack in greater capability into increasingly smaller sensors.

See Also:

• Fuji Introduces Compact 3-D Camera for Consumers
• Camera Software Lets You See Into the Past
• Why the iPhone 4 Camera Is So Promising
• Quantum Technology Promises Wedding Photos From Phone Cameras
• Do Mirrorless Cameras Spell the Death of DSLRs?

Photo: CMOS sensor/Canon