Hasta La Gadget!

There are some cameras that we absolutely love, some we find downright disappointing and others that get the job done, albeit with mediocre results. Samsung’s digital imaging devices typically fall within that last category — they’re moderately innovative, generally affordable and often well-designed, but when it comes to image quality and performance, we’re left… underwhelmed. So, when we first had a chance to try out the CE giant’s new NX200 at IFA in Berlin, we weren’t expecting a mind-blowing imaging device.

The NX200 is Samsung’s latest entrant into the interchangeable lens (ILC) category — it’s a mirrorless model, to be more precise, and a fairly impressive one at that — at least when you glance at the spec sheet. It’s the company’s latest ILC to use an APS-C size sensor, which is the largest we’ve seen in a mirrorless cam. This sensor type implies that the NX200 may have a chance at competing with Sony’s NEX-C3, which has been our top pick in the category, and its 20.3 megapixel rating suggests that Samsung wants to be taken seriously here, with a true contender on its hands. But has Samsung delivered a winner? Jump past the break for our take.

Continue reading Samsung NX200 interchangeable lens camera review

Samsung NX200 interchangeable lens camera review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One one side of the field was a team of former pro soccer players. On the other, a squad of visually impaired amateurs. The two sides laced ’em up, stretched out their quads and went head to head in a scrimmage, though the matchup was a lot more even than you might expect. It’s all part of something called the “Sound of Football” — the latest experiment from the Pepsi Refresh Project. The idea was to level the playing field, so to speak, by forcing both teams to play a match using only their ears, and a pretty nifty tracking system. Created by Tracab, this system was comprised of 16 cameras covering the entire pitch (including two stereovision cameras placed at mid-field), and used jersey colors to distinguish the home team from the away team, and to identify the referees. This set up, which was deployed during the last World Cup, essentially tracked the position of each player in real-time. This information was then funneled into an iPhone attached to each player’s headset, and converted into a surround-sound landscape, using an app created by a company called Society 46. Unique sounds were assigned to both the ball and the goal; turning your head in the direction of one goal would produce one sound, facing the ball would result in another. This allowed each player to get a better idea of his surroundings and of his spatial positioning, though, as many of the pros found out, it wasn’t quite as easy as it looked. The designers of this system are now looking to use their technology in other, non-sports arenas, in the hopes of helping the blind and visually impaired “see” more of the world around them. Check out a pair of videos on the match and the technology behind it, after the break.

[Thanks, Martin]

Continue reading Pepsi’s ‘Sound of Football’ project lets visually impaired players see the pitch with their ears (video)

Pepsi’s ‘Sound of Football’ project lets visually impaired players see the pitch with their ears (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We managed to sneak in a bit of hands-on time with the Powershot S100 here at PhotoPlus in Manhattan.The followup to Canon’s S95 is a fairly slick point-and-shoot. It’s not the most compact camera in its space, but the new Powershot is surprisingly lightweight. It’s got a healthy 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor with improved low-light performance and a 5x optical zoom, the latter of which could certainly do with a bump. The S100 captures 1080p HD video and sports a convenient, dedicated movie button (no switching modes here). The high-end point-and-shoot doesn’t pack too many surprises, but it certainly seems like a worthy successor to the highly-regarded S95. Sadly, Canon still wouldn’t commit to a firm release date, only saying that it’s due out in November for around $430.

Terrence O’Brien contributed to this report.

Continue reading Canon S100 hands-on (video)

Canon S100 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most of the interchangeable lens cameras we’ve seen to date seem to follow a standard mold: they have similarly sized bodies, comparable designs and either an APS-C or Micro Four Thirds sensor at the core. But recently, some manufacturers — namely, Nikon and Pentax — have begun shrinking camera bodies in an attempt to make them even more appealing to point-and-shoot users. The result: a smaller, lighter, more fashionable ILC — that also happens to have an itsy bitsy image sensor. Sensor size, not megapixel rating, translates directly to image quality, but also lens and body size, so you can either have an incredibly small body with an incredibly small sensor, or a larger body with a larger sensor. Are you willing to pay a premium for the “world’s smallest” interchangeable lens camera, even if it has the same size sensor used in many point-and-shoot cams available for a fraction of the cost? Pentax seems to think that you are — to the tune of $800.

The 12.4 megapixel Pentax Q is tiny — it’s so small, in fact, that you wouldn’t be alone in mistaking it for a toy. There is a fully functional camera inside that petite magnesium alloy housing, though it’s admittedly not as powerful as you’d expect an $800 camera to be. The pricey kit ships with an 8.5mm f/1.9 lens, and you can grow your collection from Pentax’s modest selection of Q-mount lenses, which also happen to have laughably small focal lengths (a 3.2mm fish eye, anyone?), due to the 1/2.3-inch backlit CMOS sensor’s massive 5.5x multiplication factor. So how does the Q fare when it comes to performance and image quality? Jump past the break to find out.

Continue reading Pentax Q interchangeable lens camera review

Pentax Q interchangeable lens camera review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Things are looking pretty rosy for Canon these days, though there may be some difficulty on the horizon. Today, the camera maker published a rather strong Q3 earnings report, just a few months after posting relatively ho-hum Q2 results. According to the company, operating profit grew by 17.4 percent to ¥122.55 billion ($1.6 billion) this quarter, compared with ¥104.42 billion ($1.37 billion) a year ago. Net profit, meanwhile, increased by 14.2 percent over the year, reaching ¥77.9 billion ($1.02 billion) during the quarter, versus ¥68.20 billion during Q3 2010. These results come at a time when the yen is strong, and therefore detrimental to Japanese exporters, though Canon attributed much of its success to strong growth in emerging markets, including China and India. For the year, however, Canon lowered its net-profit outlook to ¥230 billion ($3.02 billion) from ¥260 billion ($3.4 billion), on assumptions that the yen will maintain its strength, and on fears that recent flooding in Thailand may impact production. In fact, the manufacturer said the flooding may cut annual sales by ¥50 billion ($657 million) and operating profit by ¥20 billion. Check out the full report, at the source link below.

Canon posts higher profits in Q3 earnings report, lowers outlook over Thai flood concerns originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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