Hasta La Gadget!

This ugly monster is either the most ridiculously niche iPad accessory yet, or it’s a photographer’s best friend. Actually, it could be both. The HyperDrive iPad Hard Drive is an external USB storage box for your tablet, holding up to 750GB of movies and photos and serving them up to the iPad via the Camera Connection Kit.

The iPad is a wonderful device for viewing photos and movies. I have the Camera Connection Kit and its a great way to check, edit and send photos when on a trip away. The problem is that even a 64GB iPad will fill up pretty quick, especially if you’re shooting a lot of RAW files.

The iPad can in fact read files from any USB drive that is formatted the right way. It needs to use the FAT 32 file system (the same as all camera memory cards use) and files need to be in a folder called DCIM. The problem is that there is a limit on the size of the drives that can be used: anything over 32GB won’t work.

The HyperDrive gets around this by only offering photos in 32GB virtual drives that the iPad can see. You load the images onto the dive itself via two card-reader slots (any card will fit) and can browse the file-structure on the built-in screen via an interface even uglier than the unit itself.

If you need something like this, then you’ll already have skipped to the link below and be ordering one. Otherwise you’ll likely be slightly bemused as to what possible point this could have. If you are in the latter group, let me give you another chuckle: the bare-box comes in at $250. Add in a 750GB hard-drive and you’re looking at $600. Ouch.

HyperMac iPad Hard Drive [HyperShop via Digital Story]

See Also:

• IPad Camera Connection Kit Supports External Hard Drives
• iPad USB Camera Connector Works With Keyboards, Audio In-Out …
• Chinese Knock-Off: Two-in-One iPad Connection Kit

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Think Tank’s new Sling-O-Matic camera bag has a rather clever design which lets you switch it between your shoulders instantly. This sets it apart from a regular, one-sided sling-bag which will crunch your left shoulder to a knot of pain while leaving the other side happily load-free. A sling-bag has one big advantage over a backpack: you can swing it around in front of you and, provided the maker put the opening in the right place, you have instant access to your camera.

The Sling-O-Matic has its strap mounted on rails. Take the bag off, slide the strap to the other side and the load is now on the opposite shoulder. The bag comes in three sizes, depending on how much gear you need to pack in, and the largest will hold an SLR with a big 70-200mmm ƒ2.8 lens in its ready-section along with 3-5 more lenses. You can also slip a tripod into straps on the sides, and there is even an external section for a water bottle.

Finally, there is an optional chest-strap. This is billed as a stabilizer, but what it really does is make this a great bag for cyclists: the chest strap will stop the Sling-O-Matic from swinging around as you ride, just like the strap on a messenger bag.

The Sling-O-Matic runs from $130 up to $180, depending on size, and will be available “soon”.

Sling-O-Matic product page [Think Tank. Thanks, Brian!]

See Also:

• Hands On: Kata 3N1 Camera Backpack
• Stealthy ThinkTank Photo-Bags Expand to Fit Everything

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Nikon’s new P7000 compact camera smacks right up against Canon’s G11 (and forthcoming G12). It’s a tough, rangefinder-style camera with looks and specs which are almost word-for-word the same as those on the Canon. And that’s a good thing.

First, the similarities. Both the Nikon and the Canon have 10-megapixel sensors, both of which are a relatively large 1/1.7-inch in size (7.60 x 5.70 mm). Both have a maximum aperture of ƒ2.8, and both go up to ISO 3200 without using any noisy extended modes. Both have hot-shoes, optical viewfinders and lots of chunky mechanical knobs and dials for quickly adjusting settings.

Then things get a little different. The G11’s zoom runs from 28-140mm (35mm equivalent), whereas the Nikon keeps going all the way up to 200mm, and then Nikon continues to pull ahead:

The Canon G-series has notoriously lacked high-def video since the G9, shooting at a pathetic 640 x 480 resolution. Nikon not only beats that, with 720p but adds in a microphone jack for proper sound recording.

Add to this the fact that the P7000 will work with Nikon’s iTTL speedlights and you have a pretty powerful-looking camera, one which can remotely trigger and control a full flash setup, and the $500 price starts to look cheap.

Should you choose this over the (not yet official) G12? Without actually testing one, we can’t say, but if you already shoot Nikon and use off-camera flash, then the answer is a clear “yes”. Otherwise, with the specs this close it will come down to feel in the hand, for which you’ll need to visit an actual, physical camera store. One thing, though: In the pictures, the Nikon viewfinder looks like it might be big and bright enough to actually use, unlike the G-series finders, which are worse than useless.

P7000 product page [Nikon. Thanks, Geoff!]

Nikon Coolpix P7000 digital camera specifications [DP Review]

See Also:

• Nikon Announces P6000: RAW Support, ISO 6400 and Built-in GPS …
• Canon G12: G-Series Regains High-Def Video at Last
• Leaked Canon G11 Specs Show Five Megapixels Less Than G10

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

A software update for Apple’s mobile operating system is due for release next week, and Wired.com has had hands-on time with a major new feature of the OS: high-dynamic range photography.

HDR, an automated processing feature aiming to deliver a “dummy-proof” photography method, will be included with the camera app on all iPhones running iOS 4.1 when it ships next week. When you take a picture, HDR processes three versions of the image: an underexposed version, a normally exposed version, and an overexposed version. Then it combines these three images into one to increase the dynamic range (the intensity of the light) to give you a more accurate representation of the scene you’re shooting.

In iOS 4.1, when you launch your camera there will be an option to toggle HDR on or off. When toggled on, the iPhone will take a few seconds to process a photo in HDR after snapping it. By default, your iPhone will save both a normal, unedited version of your photograph along with an HDR-processed version. (You can tweak the save mode in your settings.)

I ventured outside with Wired.com photo editor Jon Snyder to put an iPhone 4 to the test with HDR photos, and the results were quite pleasing. At times some photos looked better without HDR-processing, but for the most part HDR improved images that were oversaturated with light or too dark with shadows. This feature should come in handy for people who don’t want to spend too much aiming their camera in just the right place to get good lighting. Click through the gallery above to see some side-by-side comparisons of photos we snapped Thursday afternoon in San Francisco.

See Also:

• Apple Announces New Versions of iOS
• Live Blog: Apple’s iPod, Music Event
• Hands-On With New Apple iPods
• The iPhone 4 Takes Gorgeous Fireworks Photos and Videos

You remember the saying about being as dark as a black cat in a coal cellar? Well, it turns out Canon has made a sensor that can photograph it.

The new, super-sensitive CMOS sensor is fresh from Canon’s labs, and measures 202 x 205mm. A 35mm film-frame (and its corresponding sensor) is 24×36mm. This makes the new C-MOnSter 40-times bigger than Canon’s biggest sensor, the 21.1 MP model in the EOS-1Ds Mark III and EOS 5D Mark II. You can see both side-by-side in the above photograph.

To visualize this, imagine a foot-wide circle. This is the wafer from which the chip is cut. This new behemoth is just about the largest square that can be chopped from that wafer.

The chip is suitable for both stills and video, and needs just 1/100th the light of an equivalent stills camera sensor to make the same image. It is, in short, as sensitive to light as Marty McFly is sensitive to being called “chicken”. If you could lift it, a camera with this lens would turn night to day and allow you to take high-speed action shots at night, by moonlight, even if it were cloudy.

It is of course unlikely that you or I will ever use a camera this big. The sensor is much more likely to find it’s way into astronomy-related cameras or even super-hi-def commercial movie cameras. What it does mean for us is that the camera manufacturers are seriously investigating low-light, and that in turn means the end of crappy flash-photos taken on drunken nights out. Hooray for that.

Canon succeeds in developing world’s largest CMOS image sensor, with ultra-high sensitivity [Canon]

Ironically tiny product photo: Canon