Seriously, why would you even click on a story with this headline. Do you have a death-by-eye-wish? The 69 entries to this week’s Shooting Challenge use leading lines to draw your eyes, even against their will, across their own images. More »
Professional photographers know the drill: every few years, Canon or Nikon announces a game-changing DSLR, often prompting top photogs to unload their complete kits and switch to another system in a never-ending attempt to shoot with the best. This time, Canon is first out of the gate, with its flagship EOS-1D X — the latest in a series that dates back to 2001 with the EOS-1D. As you’ve probably noticed, the company’s new top model looks virtually identical to its decade-old ancestor, but is otherwise a far cry from that four megapixel CCD sensor-sporting dinosaur. We’ve been anxiously awaiting an opportunity to check out Canon’s new $6,800 18.1 megapixel full-frame model since first getting word of the beastly camera last week, and just had a chance to go hands-on during the company’s Pro Solutions event in London. Jump past the break for our impressions and a video walkthrough.
Gallery: Canon EOS-1D X hands-on
Continue reading Canon EOS-1D X first hands-on (video)
Canon EOS-1D X first hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tough, good-looking and versatile. The new Hero2 is the James Bond of cameras
GoPro has launched a big update to its sports cam line. The HD Hero2 jumps from 5MP to 11MP, will shoot 1080p video at all angles of view (90, 127 and 170-degrees) and can now beam video via Wi-Fi to a new accessory.
Apart from being rugged and sport-friendly, the Hero line will also mount on just about anything. Reflecting this, the camera can be had in three $300 kits: Outdoor, Motorsports and Surf. These give various combinations of fixings: helmet mounts adhesive pads, bungee cords, pivot-arms, a waterproof housing and even the terrifying-sounding “floaty backdoor.”
Thus secured, the camera will shoot action video and output it through a new mini HDMI port and slurp sound through a jack for an external mic. And if the situation is too dangerous for actual people, the soon-to-be-launched BacPac will come in handy. This clips to the back of the Hero2 and not only streams live video but allows remote control via smartphone app (you’ll need to have some kind of Wi-Fi network to use it).
The GoPro Hero2 HD is available now, BacPac coming soon.
Hero2 HD product page [GoPro]
Wi-Fi BacPac product page [GoPro]
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‘Call that a camera? This is a camera.’ The special edition, leather-clad Fujifilm X100 is the camera Crocodile Dundee would carry
You know how the Fujifilm X100 looks suspiciously similar to a certain brand of rangefinder cameras? Well, it just got even more blatant about copying the Leica look, and this 200-strong special edition is almost Samsung-esque in its copyist ambitions. It is also very, very hot.
The camera is a stock X100, complete with the hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder everybody is so excited about. The difference is that the special edition is swaddled in light tan leather, and comes with a matching leather case.
The camera has been announced on Fujifilm’s Facebook page, and is devoid of pricing information. Don’t expect it to cost the same $1,200 as the regular version, but don’t expect it to reach the $20,000+ heights of Leica limited editions either.
If you want one, you’ll have to fly to Hong Kong, or be prepared to pay a premium to somebody on Ebay.
Fujifilm X100 SE [Facebook]
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The Lytro camera features an ’11 megaray’ sensor
The funniest thing about the new Lytro Light Field Camera is the obsession with megapixels. Despite the fact that the megapixel myth has long been shattered, people still want to know many pixels the Lytro’s sensor contains.
This seems absurd. The Lytro — which lets you refocus photos after you have snapped them — may use a standard sensor underneath its fancy micro-lens array, but it uses this information to feed the “Light Field Engine” that actually creates the image. Counting pixels in this case is like counting the bristles on an artist’s paint brush.
Which brings us to this cool cutaway picture of the Lytro’s insides, which shows us the ƒ2 lens, the sensor itself and the mystery-meat Light Field Engine. It looks a lot like a standard camera design on the inside, with only the outside sporting an unusual, flashlight-like design.
We can also guess at the physical size of the sensor. Michael Zhang of PetaPixel did the math, measuring the image and comparing it to the size of the camera as listed in Lytro’s specs. He puts the sensor at between 7.5 and 10.5mm on a side, similar to those used in high-end compacts.
There is one spec for the number weenies, though. Lytro’s blurb lists the resolution of the camera as “11 megarays.” That makes it sound like something Ming the Merciless would unleash on the world. Awesome.
The Science Inside Lytro [Lytro via PetaPixel]
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A pair of jugs. Left shows the mask, right shows the rather nifty result
Your new iPhone 4S camera might be the best phone camera you ever owned, but there are still a few things it can’t do. One of those is that, thanks to its tiny sensor, it can’t throw a background out of focus whilst keeping the subject sharp.
These days, it’s the fashion to take shots with a super-shallow depth-of-field, and Big Lens is an app that will let you do that with your phone. Kinda. What Big Lens does is post processing, blurring the background and making the subject pop out. It works like this:
First, snap a photo (or open one from your photo library). Then paint over the subject roughly with your finger. Then hit the “auto” button, and Big Lens will attempt to make a mask that perfectly matches the edges of the subject.
Its success depends on how well the subject is separated already, but if the contrast and colors are fairly different, it works very well indeed. You can fine tune the selection manually with brush and eraser tools (hint: zoom in for fine detail control).
Once you have the mask, move on to the next stage. You can choose the aperture of the notional lens being used, and also the shape of the out-of-focus highlights (“bokeh”). And what photo app would be complete without Lomo-fication filters?
These filters can go one better, though. Because the app knows what is background and what is foreground, it can darken or lighten them separately.
The results are pretty great. Above you see a snap I took of a water jug in my office, using the terrible iPad 2 camera. I hand-tweaked the mask and added the “Lomo” filter. Now it’s ready to be sent up to Instagram.
The best part is that Big Lens costs just a dollar. If you are the kind of person that likes to play with their photos, you should go buy it now.
Big Lens product page [iTunes via iPhoneography]
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The Red Hot 16 GB model of the Lytro camera looks completely different from what you'd expect a camera to look like. Image: Lytro
Shooting an image in proper focus is a challenge for most budding photographers. Lytro’s revolutionary light field camera, which was officially unveiled today, aims to solve all the pain and heartache.
The Lytro camera is a light-field, or plenoptic, camera. An array of micro-lenses sits over the camera’s sensor, capturing all the light in the scene being photographed (11 million rays of light, to be precise). The Lytro then saves your image in a proprietary file format to deliver a “living picture” that you can manipulate on your computer, much like a raw file. By manipulating key attributes, you can effectively change the focus of the image. That’s right: After the image has been taken.
“There’s something about light field photography that’s just magical,” Lytro founder Ren Ng said in a previous interview with Wired.com. “It very much is photography as we’ve known it. It’s what we’ve always seen through cameras — we just had to fix it.”
Lytro was founded in 2006, but we first got a peep at its camera and the living pictures it produces in late June.
The Lytro’s industrial design will stop you in your tracks. The camera is essentially a 1.61-by-1.61-by-4.41-inch rectangle with a backlit touchscreen LCD display for composing your shot and setting exposure. On the front, you’ll find an f/2 lens with 8x zoom. The camera has only two buttons: one for power and one for the shutter. All the processing is done with software, which enables the camera to assume a super simple, petite shape.
The camera’s pictures aren’t measured in megapixels. Instead, photographs are 11 “megarays” — the number of light rays captured by the light-field sensor. In actuality, this works out to about 22 megapixels, and if you’re worried about storage space, photos can be stored for free on Lytro’s online servers. The camera comes with editing software to interact with photos, but currently it’s Mac-only (a Windows version is in development).
Two models are available: a $400, 8GB camera (available in electric blue or graphite chassis), and a $500, 16GB version (pictured above) that’s clad in a “red hot” casing. The 8 GB model can store up to 350 photos, while the 16 GB model can store up to 750. The Lytro camera is available for pre-order on Lytro’s website, but won’t begin shipping until early 2012.
We’re live at the Lytro camera launch, getting our first look at the world’s first consumer light field camera. More »
No, the iPhone 4S won't replace your pricy DSLR, but it does take great HD video. Image: Robino Films
The iPhone 4S is receiving rave reviews for its fantastic camera, which can record surprisingly good video at 1080p. One videographer, in fact, was so impressed with the camera’s performance, he decided to test how it measures up to a full-fledged DSLR camera used for HD video capture.
Robino Films compared the HD video shot with an iPhone 4S with the video from a Canon 5D MK II, a popular DSLR, on similar settings. The iPhone 4S, which can shoot 1080p video at 30 frames per second, could theoretically give amateurs a great way to capture high-quality video, even in various tricky lighting situations — much like the iPhone 4 did for still photography.
“I was blown away by how good the video quality was,” said Robino Jones of the iPhone 4S’ video capabilities. “The resolution was nice. There was very little aliasing and moire was not visible. I really think that Apple made an amazing 1080p video camera, and to be able to carry that much power in your pocket is awesome.”
Knowing that the iPhone was “crippled” in comparison to the DSLR, Robino did his best to use similar settings when comparing the two cameras. The Canon 5D Mark II was set with an ISO of 160 to 640 and an F-stop of 7 to 22 (varied to match that of the iPhone). The DSLR was also set to a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second, automatic white balance, standard picture style, and 1080p at 30 fps.
Despite its great-for-a-smartphone camera specs (which we describe below), Robino Films said the iPhone fell short of the DSLR in six areas: compression (the iPhone 4S produces noisy video, even in daytime shots); sensor size (the iPhone’s is extremely small); lens quality (great for a smartphone, but nowhere near that of a DSLR); and the inability to adjust frame rate, shutter speed or picture style. However, Jones said, “the iPhone 4S is holding very well against the 5D’s standard picture style.” The smartphone also produces a warmer image overall.
Jones said the iPhone scores points on resolution (which is better than on the 5D) and portability. He also praised really great dynamic range. The 5D’s video has a softer overall look, and more aliasing and moire.
In a comment on Vimeo, Jones said, “This test is really only to show that the 4S is coming close to the 5D but in NO WAY is it better. The iPhone is a great 1080p pocket camera and shows us where technology is heading. Give it two, three years, and we should see some interesting micro high performance cameras.”
As for the iPhone camera of today, the 4S features impressive specs. It shoots 1080p video with real-time image stabilization (to help mitigate the problems of a wobbly hand) as well as temporal noise reduction (to enhance low-light capture). The camera boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.4 and five lenses for sharper, brighter photos with a shallower field of focus. A backside-illuminated sensor paired with an image-processor on the phone’s A5 chip help things run quickly and smoothly.
Check out the video below to see how the iPhone 4S and Canon 5D Mark II’s 1080p video footage measures up side-by-side. Vimeo’s HD content only goes up to 720p, but you can download the 1080p footage to check it out yourself.
iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison from Robino Films on Vimeo.
via TUAW
Being first on the Internet is serious business. (Or so a hundred million comments would have me believe.) So who posted the first iPhone 4S shots to the Web? More »
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