Hasta La Gadget!

are you passionate about photography? Would you die for the opportunity to shoot side-by-side with a National Geographic photographer? And would you break down in tears of joy if you were given a new Nikon D7000 camera? Well, then this contest is right for you.

Nikon and National Geographic are offering one lucky contestant the chance to win an exclusive photo excursion with Annie Griffiths, a world renowned National Geographic photographer and a new Nikon D7000 camera.  The winner will also receive a private tutorial from a Nikon product specialist.

This contest is part of a sereies that Nikon created to inspire users to capture their memorable moments and share their photos and videos. You can enter one time per day from December 15, 2010 to January 26, 2011 on the National Geographic website and the winner will be announced in February. Good Luck!

You have a phone, you have a DSLR, yet although you love them both equally, the two pretty much never speak. This failure in capturing synergistic value is now at an end, however, thanks to the BlueSLR Bluetooth dongle and its accompanying iOS app. Compatible with iPhones (down to the 3G model), iPod touches (second generation and above), and iPads, this remote control system will let you manually trigger your Nikon‘s shutter release from a distance of up to 300 feet. There’s also GPS tagging, if you’re into that sort of thing, and a toggle in the app for adjusting exposure length. The app itself’s free, though the dongle will set you back a mighty $149. At least it communicates via Bluetooth, which won’t require line of sight like Nikon’s own IR remotes. Compatibility is set to expand to include Canon DSLRs and Android and BlackBerry smartphones in the future, but if you’ve already got a D5000 and an iPhone 4 lying around looking wistfully at one another, you can pre-order your BlueSLR at the source link below.

BlueSLR dongle and app turn your iPhone into a DSLR remote shutter release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 06:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the CompactFlash Association scoots along at a maximum transfer rate of 167MB per second under its just released CF6.0 specification, Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon are already looking to the future. The trio have just officially proposed a new memory card format that switches from PATA to the PCI Express serial interface to achieve data transfer rates of up to 500 megabytes per second with a potential to extend maximum storage capacities beyond 2 terabytes. The proposed set of specifications hints at the high performance requirements we’ll soon face as DSLRs and camcorders are updated to capture continuous burst shooting of massive RAW images and ever higher definition video. Naturally, the spec also enables photogs to transfer their troves of data more quickly to computers for post processing and combines high-speed transfer with a scaling system to extend battery life. The CompactFlash Association has already announced a new workgroup to study the proposal. Canon’s Shigeto Kanda, CFA chairman of the board, had this to say about the proposal:

Future professional photography and video applications will require memory cards with faster read/write speeds. The development of a new high-performance card standard with a serial interface will meet the needs of the professional imaging industry for years to come and open the door for exciting new applications.

Sounds like tacit approval to us. And really, anything that brings Sony and Sandisk together on a future storage format should be seen as a positive step. Unless, of course, you’re the SD Card Association or anyone who recently purchased a CFast card.

Continue reading Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon propose 500MBps memory card with more than 2TB capacity

Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon propose 500MBps memory card with more than 2TB capacity originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is the future of photography painted in Kubrick white? It is if you believe Nikon and Canon. We’ve seen the latter’s concept in much more detail, and now a handful of pics from the Nikon Sapporo Showroom have surfaced, showcasing at least one similarly unpigmented design. The other two models, snapped and found via burner-images, look like more run-of-the-mill DSLRs, but the one that’s causing a stir online is the all-white model that originated from DCHome forums. The original poster chimes in to say it might be the EVIL camera, but we’re not exactly convinced. For starters, the body doesn’t look much smaller or different than the rest of its lineup — not exactly what we’d expect for a “new market” product, as the company reportedly wants its mirrorless shooter to be. Additionally, as noted by a number of Nikon Rumors commenters, that apparently 18-55mm lens implies it’s rocking an APS-C sensor. Of course, if we saw the other side, we could see whether or not it had a viewfinder, which does narrow down the possibilities. So in conclusion, we still don’t know what it is, or if we ever will with any certainty, but we’re making an educated guess as to what it isn’t. Got that? Good.

Nikon concept cameras surface, spark rumor mill originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Nikon Rumors  |  burner-images, DCHome  | Email this | Comments

Is this a Nikon Android tablet? Well, not quite, but it’s pretty damn close. The NF-300i is a 3D, 7.2-inch digital photo frame that runs the Android 2.1 OS. If it had a touch-screen, then it would be a tablet.

Nikon’s frame, available only in Japan, is as full of gimmicks as you could wish for. Aside from the glasses-free 3D, the “photo-frame” also packs a calendar, a clock and weather screens, and you can even browse the web, although with neither keyboard nor touch-screen, this could be a painful procedure (it does at least come with a remote).

But back to the 3D. The NF-300i uses the same lenticular technology as the Nintendo 3DS. It doubles the horizontal resolution and covers the pixels with tiny cylindrical lenses. These lenses split the stereoscopic picture, sending one part to each eye, while obscuring the other.

So how do you get your pictures onto this device? Buy one, along with some fancy new Nikon 3D camera and you’re done? Oh, no. Nothing so simple. First, you sign up with Nikon for the new My Picturetown 3D service, which costs ¥19,950 per year ($247) or ¥1,995 per month ($25). You then upload any 2D photos to the cloud service where you can choose to have them converted to 3D, via an unspecified method that requires no special effort from you. Then Nikon loans you the display with which you can download and view the photos.

Weird, right? It gets worse. These hefty prices include just three conversions per month. If you want more, you’ll have to pay another ¥300 ($3.70) per image, with a minimum order of four images.

Specs-wise, the frame is pedestrian (not to mention that it is styled after CRT monitors from the 1990s). It has a resolution of 800 x 600 in a 4:3 ratio, 4GB of storage, Ethernet and b/g Wi-Fi and support audio and video (H.264) along with the JPEG and MPO (3D) image files.

It seems doomed, but then I’m taking a western point of view. Even given the famous neophilic attitude the Japanese have towards gadgets, though, this seems like a hard sell. In fact, the best feature might be that Nikon demands the unit’s return when you cancel your subscription, hopefully keeping it out of the landfill. Available December.

NF-300i product page [Nikon via DP Review]

My Picturetown 3D [Nikon]