Hasta La Gadget!

There are two sides to every story, but photos only contain a single image. The dual-imaged diptychs from this week’s Shooting Challenge show us perspectives otherwise lost…along with a very strange trend/phenomenon. Can you spot it in the results? More »

Playing James Cameron at home is set to get cheaper and easier as Fuji introduces a point-and-shoot 3-D digital camera that can click high-resolution 3-D photos and high-definition 3-D movies — all at a price where regular compact cameras were about four years ago.

“We are launching a camera that will bring 3-D from the niche market to mainstream consumers,” says Jim Calverley, senior product manager at Fujifilm.

Fuji’s new 3-D camera has two 10-megapixel CCD sensors and two lenses capable of 3x optical zoom spaced 2.9 inches (75 millimeters) apart to create images with the added perception of depth. It has a 3.5-inch 3-D capable display that lets users watch photos and movies without requiring special glasses. The sleek gadget measures 0.8 inches at its thinnest and weighs 8.5 ounces with battery and memory card.

The camera, called the FinePix Real 3D W3, will cost $500 and will be available starting in September.

And if you want photos to stick on the fridge or send to grandma, Fuji has a photo printing service that offers pricey yet good-looking 3-D prints. The 3-D prints are priced at $7 for a 5″ x 7″ print.

The FinePix Real 3D W3 is the second iteration of a 3-D camera that Fuji first offered to consumers last July. It is also $100 cheaper than its predecessor.

3-D’s popularity in Hollywood has spurred consumer electronics makers to create 3-D devices for consumers. Major TV makers such as Sony, Panasonic and Mitsubishi are betting on 3-D TVs to capture consumer interest this year. Meanwhile, cellphone manufacturers are looking at adding 3-D screens to smartphones. Even laptops are now available with 3-D displays.

In this hype around 3-D, it is amateur content that many industry experts say could be the real catalyst for 3-D’s popularity. Last July, YouTube has started offering a 3-D display option for videos uploaded on its site. Hobbyists and 3-D enthusiasts are rigging everything from cameras, iPod nanos and Flip cams and using software tricks to produce 3-D short films, postcards and home videos.

Fuji hopes to offer an off-the-shelf camera that will appeal not just to 3-D enthusiasts, but will open the door to 3-D for ordinary consumers. The company is betting that an easy-to-use 3-D camera might be a real hit at your next birthday party, a baseball game or vacation.

The new 3-D W3 camera steps up from its predecessor with the ability to shoot photos at up to 10-megapixel resolution. The camera can switch between 2-D and 3-D modes with the click of a button. It can shoot 3-D movies at 720p and has a mini HDMI port for playing back the videos on a 3-D TV.

The camera’s 3.5-inch lenticular LCD screen creates a parallax effect to show 3-D images. It’s similar to the 3-D display on Nintendo’s recently introduced 3DS system.

The 3-D W3 camera can also take photos in the regular 2-D mode. And in 2-D mode, you can have some fun with the gadget. Thanks to its dual lenses, users can shoot tele/wide photos so the camera can zoom in on the subject while also simultaneously taking a wide-angle shot of the same scene.

The camera also has a two-color simultaneous shooting mode that with the single press of the shutter lets you take photos of the same scene with different color tonality — such as vintage black and white and standard black and white.

Check out more photos of the 3-D camera below.

The 3-D camera has simple-to-use controls that should be familiar to most point-and-shoot camera users.

Fuji also offers a 3-D photo printing service for its customers.

The 3.5-inch screen on the camera lets users see 3-D images without special glasses.

See Also:

• 3-D Goes DIY With Amateur Photos, Videos
• Camcorder Lets You Shoot Home Videos in 3-D
• 3-D: Coming Soon to a Cellphone Near You
• 3-D PCs Will Make a Splash at Computex
• Sharp Plans 3-D Cellphone This Year

Photos: (Priya Ganapati/Wired.com)

We’ve definitely seen new Nikon gear leak in the foreign press before, and it looks like the cycle continues: that rumored Nikon D3100 SLR just made an appearance in the pages of Germany’s Foto Digital magazine, along with an updated Coolpx S1100pj projector-cam and a new Coolpix S5100. The D3100 is obviously the main attraction — it has a 14 megapixel sensor with up to ISO 12800 sensitivity, a new 1080p video mode, and an improved processor and autofocus system, for a body-only price of €650 ($831). Not bad — although we don’t know if it has that rumored continuous autofocus mode for video yet. We don’t know nearly as much about the new Coolpix S1100pj, except that it’ll retain the projector from the S1000pj, come in colors and add a touchscreen and remote control the mix; the Coolpix S5100 is less of a mystery, with a 12 megapixel sensor and a 28-140mm zoom lens pegged in the magazine. Of course, none of this is officially official yet, but we’d imagine we’ll be hearing more real soon — stay tuned.

Nikon D3100 SLR, Coolpix S1100pj and S5100 compacts leaked in German magazine originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inon’s monstrous X1 is a tough aluminum alloy housing to keep the Panasonic GF1 from getting its little feet wet. The underwater shell will keep the mirrorless camera safe down to a cochlear-crushing 75-meters (the limit for recreational diving is just 40-meters, or 130-feet).

The GF1 turns out to be well-suited for underwater use. While the X1 case dwarfs the camera body, it’s not so much bigger than a naked pro-SLR. And because it is designed to use the rear-LCD screen as a viewfinder, you don’t have to peer through an actual viewfinder or use a top-mounted rangefinder.

What about the price? It will cost you a stomach-sinking ¥186,900, or around $2,200, and the grips on either side will be another $115 each. That’s not cheap, but then, if you dive to these depths you don’t expect it to be. My friend Pieter told me the story of his father’s deep-diving camera strategy: He buys a waterproof housing first, and then buys a few identical SLRs to fit inside. One is used, and the others are kept in their boxes as spares. Pieter’s dad is both an airline captain and a deep-diver, so he officially counts as awesome and his advice should be accepted without question.

The X-2 is available now, complete with accessories for using almost all your Lumix lenses.

On a related note, I’m in the market for a cheap (sub-$200) underwater camera. It should shoot decent images and HD video, but otherwise simple is best. Any suggestions?

X-2 housing for GF1 [Inon via Engadget]

Confirm depth for recreational dives.

The sun will rise, pigeons will annoy, and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber will get inside scoops on Apple product releases. So it goes. This time he’s touching on, erm, the iPod touch, making an offhand (though firmly declarative) comment on a post about the Dell Streak: “if you wait a few weeks to buy the Touch, you’ll get one with a Retina Display and dual cameras.” The man’s not one to fool around with such matters, so we tend to believe him here. It also helps that nothing he’s saying would be really surprising — a new iPod in September? With features trickled down from the most recent iPhone? Then again, that camera has proved elusive before.

iPod touch coming in a ‘few weeks’ with dual cameras and Retina Display, suggests John Gruber originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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