Hasta La Gadget!

Most haggard old pros gave their souls up to Nikon and Canon long ago. Too bad for them because the Sony a99 is the kind of DSLR the pros of the future might be looking for: Small, fast, and furious. More »

You love the focus speed, image quality is top-notch and even videos turn out just as expected — still, there’s something missing with your latest DSLR, though it’s just a tad hard to place. What your camera needs is some bona fide bling. Not using that hot shoe for a flash or EVF? It’s time to tuck in a beautiful raised floral cover, elegantly outfitted in a shiny silver finish. It’s sure to stand out against the contrast of an all-black body, though it’ll feel equally at home on your silver Leica. Designed by Jay Tsujimura in Tokyo, Premium Collection includes matching hot shoe and shutter release covers, letting your camera stay coordinated just like your cuffs. They’re priced to fly off store shelves at a mere ¥24,150 (about $300) each — get an up-close look in our gallery and at the source link below.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Premium Collection hot shoe covers are cufflinks for your cam, let you dazzle up that DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Aug 2012 02:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A DSLR camera in the $1,000 range isn’t usually as quick and rugged Pentax K-30. That solid performance inside a well-built shell has had us excited since we first got our hands on its weather-sealed body. This camera is clearly the competitor to Canon’s new T4i—can its photos and videos hold up? More »

Sony’s first-quarter figures for 2012 show that despite the company’s optimism three months ago, it’s made a net loss of $312 million. It pulled in a whopping $19.2 billion in sales for the three months ending June 30th, partly credited to bringing Sony Mobile fully into the family. However, the cost of restructuring the Mobile Products and Communications Division (of which Sony Mobile is a part) came to $143 million, wiping out the additional gains to record a loss of $356 million. Gaming-wise, the PlayStation maker suffered a $45 million loss as falling sales of the PSP and PS3 were only partially offset by the sales of the PS Vita. There was better news in its imaging division, while sales of compact cameras fell, DSLRs and “Professional” products took up the slack, resulting in a profit of $160 million.

In a trend we’ve seen across the Home Entertainment industry, sales of LCD televisions continued to fall, forcing the company to eat a loss of $126 million. Movie and TV recorded a loss of $62 million, although that’s primarily due to a dip in advertising sales in India and the cost of marketing (but not producing) The Amazing Spider-Man, the profits of which won’t be recognized until September. Finally, while it spent big to purchase EMI this quarter, big-ticket albums like Usher’s Looking 4 Myself and One Direction’s Up All Night helped the division make a profit of $92 million. While Sony’s treading water to execute Kaz Hirai’s “One” Strategy, it’s still got $8.4 billion stashed under the mattress, and in the face of lower sales, is hoping that reduced costs will help it make $1.6 billion in profit by the end of March 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Digital Cameras, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Tablet PCs

Sony releases Q1 2012 financial results, eats $312 million loss originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 02:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to name a good reason to buy a budget DSLR now. You can get virtually all of the same features—lenses, image quality, manual controls—from a smaller, more portable mirrorless camera. So how does the Nikon D3200 fit into today’s camera market? More »