When planning this week’s Shooting Challenge, I hadn’t been so forward-thinking to realize that it coincided with New York’s “Tribute in Light” 9/11 memorial. Having said that, these entries definitely added an unexpected depth to the results: More »
You may remember that last month, Canon’s flagship G12 compact camera was leaked in an accidentally published CNET review. Now, over three weeks later, the same camera is officially official.
One of the annoying things about Canon is the artificial hobbling of features to make its cameras fit into the product line hierarchy. The cameras all use the same processing chips (currently the DIGIC 4), but only have a subset of features switched on. All manufacturers do this, but the G-series has been a particularly bad example: After the G9, released back in 2007, Canon switched off hi-def video in its top-of-the-range compact. Why? Nobody knows.
Now it’s back, and the G12 will shoot 720p video at 24fps. The camera keeps its sensor at a sensible ten megapixels and will shoot up to ISO3200. The rear 2.8-inch LCD has a rather pedestrian 461,000 dots, then optical zoom runs from 28mm to 140mm (35mm equivalent) and the aperture ranges from a fairly wide ƒ2.8 to ƒ4.5.
Mercifully, Canon’s other additions are also useful to the serious photographer. Instead of a slew of gimmicky extras (cough Samsung NX100 cough), Canon has added an EOS SLR-style front control dial, hybrid image-stabilization (which works in multiple planes) and multiple aspect-ratios, so you can shoot wide-screen or square pictures in-camera. These come in addition to the already popular manual control knobs.
The G12 is a very solid (literally) update to the G11, although now it has some serious competition in the form of Nikon’s almost identical P7000. That is, of course, great for us buyers. The G12 costs $500.
G12 product page [Canon]
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Samsung’s new NX100 is a cut-down version of its mirrorless NX10, coming on a like a compact camera to the NX10’s slimline SLR design. Like its older brother, the new camera has an APS-C-sized, 14.6 megapixel sensor and shoots 720p video. What it lacks is the bigger camera’s electronic viewfinder (although Samsung will sell you an add-on which slots into the hotshoe). But that’s not the point. The real news is in the lenses, which use something called “i-Function” to make the camera easier to use.
I-Function puts buttons on the lens itself. Hit the switch and you can then cycle through settings like white-balance, ISO, shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation, controlling them by turning the focus ring on the lens. Yes, it has taken years of research and innovation (the word “innovative” is used six times in the press release) to finally put an aperture ring back on the lens, just where it had sat since time began.
Samsung is also changing the descriptions of its lenses. Now you can buy a “landscape lens” or a “portrait lens”, and these i-Function lenses will tell the camera what they are so the camera can configure its own settings. This is called lens-priority mode, and compatible lenses will have little icons on them to let you know just what they are. I really like the on-lens control idea, but the auto-settings business seems a little gimmicky, and maybe even pointless on a camera clearly aimed at an enthusiast, not a point-and-shooter.
There will be accessories, too. Joining the viewfinder will be a GPS unit, and there are two lenses at launch, a 20-50mm ƒ3.5-5.6 zoom and a 20mm ƒ2.8 pancake lens. Other NX lenses will work, too, but you don’t get the fancy new features.
Pricing and availability are yet to be revealed. Given that an NX10 can be had in a zoom kit for $700, my guess is that the street price will be $500 to $600. The camera will come in black and (as seen in the gallery below) brown.
NX product page [Samsung: Not yet listing NX100]
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Your all-in-one smartphone can’t take photos nearly as well as a DSLR, but there’s something special about that camera you carry everywhere. Every serendipitous or dramatic moment is subject to visual immortalization — so long as you have a fast shutter finger.
Enthusiasm in the fleeting nature of smartphone photography has spawned a subculture called “iPhoneography.” Several iPhoneography blogs and photo groups have cropped up in major cities including London and New York, where smartphone shooters post artistic photos of their local communities.
“Everybody always has their iPhone with them, so you can get these photo opportunities that you’d never have with your giant DSLR,” said Zach Winter, a proud iPhoneographer. “You can be kind of sneaky with it.”
Despite the lack of manual controls on smartphone cameras, their photos can look pretty decent, and you can touch them up easily with photo-editing software sold through the iPhone or Android app stores (e.g. for the iPhone, we’re big fans of CameraBag.)
Winter is just getting started with an iPhoneography blog for the San Francisco Bay Area. He encourages smartphone users visiting or living in San Francisco to submit their best photos to build a stronger Bay Area iPhoneography community. Even though it’s called iPhoneography, Winter welcomes Android shooters to submit their pics, too.
“There wasn’t any sort of community in San Francisco, and I thought that was kind of odd considering that Apple is based in the Bay Area,” he said. “There’s some community struggling with San Francisco, as far as the arts go.”
Winter provided the photos in the gallery above as some excellent examples from photographers who submitted to his site, as well as some pics he shot with his own iPhone. They are indeed impressive.
Inspired yet? Wired.com invites you to submit your best smartphone photos to us. We’ll post the top entries here on Gadget Lab.
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Think your phone takes pretty good photos? Submit your best smartphone shots to Wired’s smartphone photo contest and show the world!
Smartphones may lack the big sensors and low-light capabilities of more serious cameras, but they’re portable, unobtrusive and let you apply some remarkably sophisticated post-processing effects on the fly.
That has inspired a subculture of photographers who limit themselves to using smartphones — usually iPhones. Several “iPhoneography” blogs and photo groups have cropped up in major cities including London and New York, where smartphone shooters post artistic photos of their local communities. And we’ve highlighted some cool shots made by artsy iPhoneographers.
Now it’s your turn. Upload your photos to a website or photo-sharing service such as Flickr, then add their URLs to the form below.
Please submit only photos that have been shot and edited exclusively with a smartphone (any model).
We’ll feature the top photos in a future gallery on Wired.com, and we’ll feature the number one photo in the sidebar of Gadget Lab right here.
Submit your best smartphone photos and vote on your favorites.
hot | new | top-rated or submit your own photo
While you can submit as many pics as you want, you can only submit one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.
Me last week: “A 1080p webcam? Who on Earth would want an HD webcam. This is stupid.” Me this week (after buying a 27-inch iMac) “Hey, my parents look terrible on this Skype call, blown up on this giant screen. What they need is a 1080p webcam.”
And that’s just what Microsoft will sell you, for $100. The LifeCam Studio Webcam shoots its video at 1920 x 1080 pixels and captures stills at 2304 x 1728. The foot is fashioned to either clip over the top of a monitor or to screw onto a tripod, and the box also contains a carrying case so you can make an even better contribution to the landfill this week.
The camera is also auto-focus, and has a built-in microphone (so you can toss that crappy headset, Dad. It doesn’t suit you anyway). Now, all you need is video-calling software that will support hi-def video and you’re done.
The LifeCam Studio Webcam is available now, from Best Buy.
1080p HD Sensor: Closest Thing to Being There in Person [Microsoft]
LifeCam Studio Webcam product page [Best Buy]
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Today’s ridiculous Apple rumor comes from Apple Insider. The claim? That a new FaceTime-equipped iPad will be in stores in time for the holiday season, just six months after the original launch. Bull.
That there will be an iPad with a front-facing camera for FaceTime videoconferencing is certain, and it will probably be there in version 2. But the idea that Apple would bring out a new model so soon after the first one is nonsensical in many ways. First, Apple can barely make enough iPads to keep up with demand. Only in the last few weeks have order-times dropped to a reasonable 24 hours, and with the iPad’s Chinese launch coming soon, it seems that Apple will continue to sell as many iPads as it can make. Introducing a new model so soon would be pointless.
Second, Apple runs its portable devices on a yearly update schedule. Every summer sees a new iPhone, every September a new iPod lineup. And while there is no precedent yet for the iPad, its safe to assume that it, too, will receive yearly updates. One year is long enough that early adopters like me will be happy to buy every new model, and long enough not to piss off customers who feel that their toy has be obsoleted too soon. Remember the fuss about the iPhone price-drop? Imagine what would happen if a new iPad came out in a month or so.
Apple Insider’s source is “a person with proven knowledge of Apple’s future product plans” and says that:
A version of the tablet device with a built-in video camera and support for the new FaceTime video conferencing standard has already progressed to the advanced testing stages.
He also said that “there was an ambitious push inside Apple to verify the refresh for a possible launch ahead of this year’s holiday shopping season.”
Which brings me to a third point. Why rush an update into stores with just one tiny, incremental hardware change? It seems very unlikely that there will be a Retina Display in a new iPad so soon after launch. After all, if the prices of such a big, hi-res screen were already cheap enough to keep to the iPad’s $500 price-point, wouldn’t Apple have put them in there already? The same goes for an SD-card-slot, which I’m guessing will be in iPad 2.0. The price of the rest of the hardware will have to drop before these are added, and six-months into a product cycle seems to soon.
I say this rumor is nothing but a rumor. If you want a new camera-toting iPad, wait until April.
Slightly more credible is Engadget’s report that Target may begin selling iPads on October 3. The gadget blog has a screenshot of a Target point-of-sale device that purportedly shows the inventory information for the iPad.
Apple to move aggressively on FaceTime, camera-equipped iPads [Apple Insider]
Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired
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Photojojo’s Camera Strap Buddy is an almost ridiculously simple widget that could change the way you carry your camera. Nothing more than a small metal bracket and a tripod-screw, the Buddy lets you use your existing camera strap but makes carrying the camera a lot more comfortable.
The usual neck-strap is possibly the worst way to carry a camera. If anything heavier than a pocket-camera around my neck, it starts to get uncomfortable, fast. Use a longer strap and sling it across your chest like a messenger-bag and things get better, but bigger cameras can be bouncy, and knock against your hip. The Camera Strap Buddy lets you run a strap from one of the regular strap brackets to the bottom of the camera.
When slung bandolier-style, even a heavy camera sits comfortably at your side, and is kept out of your way but ready for a quick grab-shot. I haven’t tested Photojojo’s adapter, but I have tried others and it’s possible to carry something like Nikon’s hefty D700 around all day and still be comfortable.
Could you make your own? Indubitably, but why bother? The Camera Strap Buddy is just $15. Just make sure you screw it in tight.
Camera Strap Buddy [Photojojo]
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Panasonic has stopped teasing us with rendered mockups and whispered details for its forthcoming Micro Four Thirds camcorder, the AG-AF100, and has finally released details and photos. Let’s get the shocker out of the way first. It’ll be $10,000.
Why so much? Because it packs in a lot of pro features. Those thinking that this would be anything like the video-shooting Micro Four Thirds stills cameras will be disappointed: the only thing the cameras have in common is the large image-sensor and the lens-mount.
The range of shooting options is almost ridiculously large. You can record in anything up to 1080p (or 1080i) in AVCHD format, with options for the high-bitrate PH-mode. Frame-rates run from 12p up to 60p and sound is 2-channel Dolby Digital. The footage is captured into two SD-cards, and gives up to 48-hours of recording time depending on what quality and size you capture.
A video-camera isn’t a standalone unit. It needs to hook up to all sorts of other gear, and the Panasonic has all the right jacks. HD SDI-out and XLR-input join HDMI, USB, RCA audio-out and a detachable handle and grip for putting the camera into the center of a big rig, and the lenses can of course be changed just like on an SLR.
In fact, it’s these lenses that will likely be the most attractive feature of this camera. Because autofocus is almost never used in professional shooting, and because any number of amazing Leica, Nikon and other lenses can be put onto a Micro Four Thirds camera with cheap adapters, the lens options are almost endless. Fisheyes, super-zooms and fast primes can all be mounted and give filmic images at budget prices. Add to that the fact that by video-camera standards, $10,000 is pretty cheap, and Panasonic might be onto a winner.
Available December.
AG-AF100 product page [Panasonic]
AG-AF100 product page [Panasonic]
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San Francisco-based video production company Soviet Montage is making HDR video. By using a beam-splitter and two Canon 5D MkII SLRs, the same scene can be filmed with two different exposures.
Many people claim to hate HDR photographs, but what they really object to is tone-mapping. HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is nothing more than the capture of more exposure information. The iPhone now does this, and it consists of taking several photographs of the same subject, identical but for the exposures, allowing detail to be captured in both highlights and shadows far beyond the range of any sensor or piece of film. These exposures are then combined:
This is where things usually start to go wrong. If the information in the image is used for good, then you see only the extra detail, replacing a washed out sky with a deep-blue one, for example. If it is used for evil, the it is tone-mapped into a candy-colored, Wizard of Oz nightmare that would have even Michael Jackson moonwalking in his grave.
Soviet Montage got around the complexities of capturing the exact same image with different cameras by using a technique older than color photography itself. The light is split into two beams and each recorded by a separate camera. This is how Technicolor works: the incoming light is sent off to three strips of film, all running simultaneously. Each beam is sent through a red, green or blue filter before hitting the back-and-white film. When printed, the resulting strips are dyed with the correct color and then the film strips are combined. Neat, right?
The Soviet Montage folks used computers for their trickery, of course, and the effects are rather enthralling. The oddest is the HDR footage of a human, which ends up looking a lot like the movie 300. The company is currently shooting an unspecified project with their new technique, and says that one of the biggest advantages is that lighting is much less of an issue. If you ever saw a movie or TV show being shot in the street, you’ll be familiar with the crazy lighting rigs that are even used by day. Video HDR could put an end to that.
HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s [Soviet Montage vi Photography Bay]
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