Hasta La Gadget!

Redrock Micro makes accessories for movie cameras, and lately it makes add-ons for the latest movie-shooting SLR-cameras. The latest addition is a range of “Nano” kits which turn your stills-cam into a film-making rig, and they do it on the cheap.

SLRs are obviously designed to shoot single photos, and access to the various exposure controls is the premium consideration. A movie camera needs to be focused and moved around as you shoot, which is tricky if you’re using two hands just to hold it up.

The new Redrock kits come in three main flavors: A grip, which is a simple handle that screws into the tripod-mount, a pair of chest braces which let you hold the camera with one hand and focus with the other, and a couple “low-down” kits which put handles on the top and sides so you can carry the camera like a briefcase or an underwater-style rig. The chest rigs come with eye-pieces for the rear LCD-screen to allow live-view-shooting outside.

The prices run from just over $100 to just under $500, depending on how many rods, grips and pads are hanging off the stick-insect structures. This might not sound inexpensive, but in the overpriced world of movie-cameras, it’s an almost dirt-cheap bargain. Available now.

Nano DSLR Rigs [Redrock Micro via Photography Bay]

See Also:

• MicroRemote Uses iPhone to Keep Movies in Focus
• RED Takes Aim at DSLR Market, Photographers Salivate
• High-Resolution External Display for DSLRs

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

No, this post isn’t about a gadget but it is Friday, and the video is the best thing you will have watched all week. What you are seeing is everyday stuff being shot, smashed and shattered, all in incredible slow-motion. The footage is filmed on a Photron SA1.1, a high-speed camera capable of shooting an astonishing 5,000 frames-per-second. To give you an idea of how much information that is, the 1-megapixel sensor needs 8GB of storage for just six-seconds at 1,000-fps.

The movie, titled Tempus II, was made by Philip Heron, a student at Ravensbourne College of art and design in the UK. Make sure you watch it all the way through. My favorite is the shot of the karate guy smashing a cinder-block (or perhaps concrete block) with a chop of the hand. Watch how his fingers bend and distort around the edge of the slab. It looks almost impossible.

Tempus II [Philip Heron/Vimeo via the Giz]

See Also:

• High-Speed Cameras Reveal the World Inside Time
• Super Slow-Motion Camera Catches a Wave
• Casio Unveils High-Speed Compact Camera With 10x Zoom Lens …

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

Not to be outdone by today’s announcements from Nikon, Canon also has a few new cameras out, and one of them is an update to a Wired.com favorite, the S90. The new model is called the S95, and is little more than an incremental upgrade to its low-light-shooting predecessor.

Thankfully, the S95 has kept all that was good about the S90. It has the same large-ish sensor, the same sharp, 3-inch (and 461,000-dot) LCD screen, the same ƒ2.0-4.9 28-105mm (equivalent) lens and the same control-wheel surrounding that lens.

The biggest new feature is 720p high-def video, up from the rather poor 640 x 480 resolution of old. That video is recorded at 24-fps in H.264 MOV format. It also gains “Hybrid IS”, an image stabilization system that works in more directions, and you can now pop in a high-capacity SDXC memory-card.

Apart from a few stylistic tweaks, that’s about it. If you, like many Wired staffers, already bought the S90 then you have no reason to upgrade. It’ll still take great shots, and still uses the big sensor found in the high-end G11. If you are in the market for a pocketable $400 compact, you should check this one out.

S95 press release [Canon]

See Also:

• Canon S90
• Custom Grip Makes Canon S90 Almost Perfect
• Wish List: Canon PowerShot S90 – Video – Wired
• Canon's Svelte S90 Will Make Camera Geeks Swoon

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

Nikon’s new SLR, the D3100, is an odd mongrel of a camera. On one side, it is the first Nikon SLR to shoot proper video, dropping the large file sizes and compromised quality of motion JPEG for full 1080p H.264 video in a tasty AVCHD wrapper. It is Nikon’s first SLR with 1080p, putting it ahead of even its high-end models.

But the other half of this update to the D3000 is aimed at the photography doofus. It has auto modes that take care of everything, including a “Guide Mode” which now, according to Nikon’s PR, “shows you sample images of what you can achieve with certain settings, for example if you change the shutter speed or aperture.”

Not to knock a camera that helps you take better pictures, but if you want “perfect quality, without worrying about settings,” then why buy a bulky SLR? Surely a compact camera would be better, especially as most of these cameras will never have the kit lens swapped out anyway.

Still, ditch the auto mode and you have a great camera, with 14.2 megapixels shooting at up to ISO 3200, 11-point autofocus, and that great video again. The camera captures the MOV files at 24 frames-per-second (just like the movies) and has a new auto-focus mode which will track subjects while you shoot.

The D3100 looks like a good improvement on the D3000, and it’s good to see Nikon finally taking video seriously.The camera will be $700 in September.

D3100 [Nikon]

Loaning out your precious DSLR to a friend who doesn’t know shutter from aperture? Got a classroom full of trainee photographers whose lesson requires they be set to a particular mode? Canon’s hoping you’ll drop an extra $129 on a version of the critically-acclaimed EOS 7D that lets you control how your lackeys fire off shots. The $1,829 EOS 7D Studio Version adds four tiers of password-protected locking controls, plus an optional barcode and data transfer kit (to organize and commit large photo sessions to databases) using a custom version of the company’s WFT-E5A wireless transmitter for just $770 more. We can’t say we know anyone who’d use these features, but hey — if enough corporations spring for the advanced model, perhaps the original will drop in price. PR after the break.

Continue reading Canon’s EOS 7D ‘Studio Version’ features parental controls, barcode mode

Canon’s EOS 7D ‘Studio Version’ features parental controls, barcode mode originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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