As far as the cameras built into smartphones have come, they still can’t quite compete with a dedicated shooter in terms of image quality and control. But Sony thinks it’s found the solution. Instead of waiting until they can cram the capabilities of a DSLR or a mirrorless camera into a phone, these convincing photos from SonyAlphaRumors reveal the company might be releasing a pair of accessories that work alongside a smartphone
     |
Your city has a beautiful skyline, and with a couple of cameras you can capture a truly unique perspective of the office towers and skyscrapers that give it its distinctive silhouette. But why stop there? For this week’s Shooting Challenge we want you to capture an image—anything you can think of—as reflected in your camera’s lens.
| |
A rental house in Munich modified their digital camera to take Stanley Kubrick’s f/0.7 lenses, which NASA commissioned from Zeiss to shoot the dark side of the moon. Meaning you can go out and shoot photos with, essentially, historical artifacts.
| |
In 1840, Joseph Petzval invented an optical portrait lens, which for the rest of the century would be used to take loads of photos. Now, the retro-fanatics at Lomography have reengineered the lens from the ground up for today’s Canon and Nikon cameras. And the photos are incredible.
| |
It hasn’t exactly been a runaway hit with consumers, but on a technical level the Lytro camera
| |
Normally, images of beautiful things are going through camera lenses, but you can’t deny that there’s something uniquely beautiful about the lenses themselves. The contrast of the colors on black, the sharp-yet-simple linear designs. It should be no surprise they make super slick bracelets.
| |
This week the team at ZEISS have announced that they’ll no longer be branding their lens family with the name of their founder. Though we’re not sure how Carl will look upon this decision himself, we’ll light a flash bulb in this two-word brand’s memory for sure. Carl Zeiss AG and ZEISS will move forward with the one dominant word from here on in – and a history of the brand has been recounted by the company as well, splits and reformation and all.
What we’ve got here are a couple of images of some lovely ZEISS lenses that are becoming ZEISS-ised in name. You’ll find the technology behind these amalgamations of plastic, metal, and glass to be the same – it’s just the power of the name that’s being updated. And it’s certainly not the first time this sort of thing has happened with the company.
As spoken of by ZEISS this week in a bit of a celebratory gesture for the update, the brand as well as the logo has made some major change-ups over the years.
The big news here is that the lenses made by the company – microsopes, eyeglass lenses, measuring machines, binoculars, and of course camera lenses – will all be working with ZEISS where they’d otherwise be including the name Carl.
“Throughout the company, the label ZEISS can be found on products in most markets and product areas. The lenses have for the most part been the exception here for historical reasons. The decision to also label all lenses “ZEISS” with immediate effect provides an opportunity to retell the history of the brand name.”
You’ll know the name Carl Zeiss if you’re a smartphone fan from such recent gems as the Nokia PureView brand lineup and the Nokia 808 PureView, the first and most stand-out entry from the pack. You’ll also see the Carl Zeiss two-name brand on the Nokia Lumia 720, the larger (yet smaller) Nokia Lumia 925, and essentially every Lumia in-between.
Masses of Sony cameras work with the Carl Zeiss brand – and have been making a transition for some time, as well. The camera you’re seeing here is the Sony CyberShot RX100 II, working with both the Carl Zeiss name on its lens and the blue/white ZEISS banner logo below.
You’ll find oddities in the history of this brand as well – the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer Plus video headset works with the Carl Zeiss brand on its lens (and a “Works with iPhone” logo on its box).
The grid of logos you’re seeing here comes from ZEISS in order – the original trademark of the company now known as ZEISS being the Carl Zeiss Jena label. This is what ZEISS calls its first “lens-shaped label” as well, this circular shape appearing throughout the brand’s history.
After a variety of separations including those in the Carl Zeiss Oberkochen and VEB Carl Zeiss Jens split saw such oddities as the OPTON “West Germany” differentiator. Carl Zeiss East and West were reunited in 1991 and in and around 1993-1994 the logo you’ll see today – blue with white lettering and a lens curve at the bottomn – were made real.
The first set of lenses that’ll be released with the ZEISS name are the ZEISS Touit lenses. According to ZEISS, some of these lenses were made with the old logo, the rest with the new.
“For production-technical reasons, some Touit lenses were produced and placed on the market with the label “Carl Zeiss.” Perhaps these will one day become coveted collector items. Both versions are original lenses and do not differ from each other in any other respect.” – ZEISS
Time to pick a few up? Certainly a situation in which odd bits and pieces collectors will want to jump on the ebay wagon – or head to their local lens shop. Hop to it!
Carl Zeiss no more: classic nomenclature gets short is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Camera-equipped smartphones aren’t quite the perfect replacement for a digital camera just yet. They lack manual controls, use tiny sensors, and their simple lenses lack the ability to zoom. (And no, digital zoom doesn’t count.) But if you’ve already got yourself a powerful set of binoculars, this simple adapter will turn them into a powerful telephoto lens for your phone, as long as you don’t mind some unwieldy bulk.
| |
There are a handful of camera lenses that you can get for the iPhone, which allow you to take a number of unique photos using a fisheye effect or better macro focus. Olloclip is one company that offers these types of lenses, and they’ve come out with an accompanying iPhone app that corrects distortion in photos created by the add-on lenses.
The app also includes a shooting mode, so it’s essentially a camera app on top of being a photo-editing app as well. It includes a number of shooting modes that can fix the distortion that the Olloclip’s lenses cause, since the lenses are essentially bending the image to get a fisheye effect and what have you. The app also lets you control various parameters manually, something that the default camera app lacks.
The app includes a Mesh Editor Tool, and it’s used to adjust the effect created by using one of the wide-angle lenses, and it allows you to remove barrel and pincushion distortion made from the lenses. There’s also a feature called Reticles, which allows users to adjust focus and exposure manually, either independently or together.
As for the different modes, you have Video Mode, Normal Mode, and Macro Mode. Video Mode is essentially just a mode where you press record and capture your video. Olloclip says that this mode “allows you to shoot comfortably and easily while using your olloclip,” so take that however you want. As for Macro Mode, this will allow you to adjust the focus when you’re close up on objects, which is something you couldn’t do with the default camera app.
And of course, Normal Mode is essentially nothing but a traditional camera app that’s optimized for Olloclip use. Once you take a photo in the app, you’ll then be able to edit and mess around with it right in the app. However, the app also supports photos not taken in the app, so if you have any Olloclip-ified photos lying around, you can import them into the app to fix the distortion.
VIA: Cult of Mac
SOURCE: iTunes App Store
Olloclip iPhone app fixes distortion from camera lens kit is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
As awkward and dumb as it looks, people take photos and videos with their iPads whether you like it or not, and Photojojo — the company behind a line of popular smartphone camera accessories — is taking advantage of that fact. They have released the Photojojo telephoto lens that you can attach to your iPad or iPad mini.
There are two different versions of the lens, one built for the full-size iPad and the other built specifically for the iPad mini. The full-size iPad version sports a 10x zoom, while the iPad mini lens has a 12x zoom. The lens also comes with a minimalistic case for your iPad that allows you to attach the lens to the tablet.
The two lenses also have manual focus rings on them so that way you can adjust the photos to your liking, offering you a bit of manual control over the iPad’s camera app, which leaves a lot to be desired in that respect. The lens is about the size of a small handheld flashlight, and it quickly screws on and off the iPad shell for easy storage when you’re not using it.
As for price, you’re looking at $25 for one of these lenses, which isn’t too terrible, considering that a smartphone lens from the same company is around the same price. As far as compatibility, Photojojo says that the full-size iPad lens will only work with the 3rd- and 4th-gen iPads, although you may be able to squeeze it on the iPad 2 if you really wanted to.
Photojojo telephoto lens offers up to 12x zoom for the iPad is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
