Hasta La Gadget!

Two years. Thousands of entries. 99ish jaw-dropping winners. Today is our 100th Shooting Challenge. Your assignment? Watch that video of all our past winners. Then, try to be our next. More »

We can’t say that we were too keen on Sony’s DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars at first look — it really is hard to get past that $2,000 price tag. But after Sony finally allowed us to shoot photos and video (albeit for a mere three minutes) at the company’s CEATEC booth, we were pleasantly surprised at the image quality, at least some of the time. The images we shot were in 16:9 format, and were roughly 5.3 megapixels in size (the camera’s maximum resolution is 7.1 megapixels). With only a few minutes to play around, we didn’t have time to switch the menu from Japanese to English (CEATEC is held just outside Tokyo), so we had no choice but to use the default settings.

Still, images shot at f/1.8 appeared crisp, even with moderate shake (it’s difficult to keep a heavy pair of binoculars steady when holding them at eye level), with accurate exposure and white balance. When zooming to 10x, however, still photos appeared very noisy, as you’ll see in the gallery below. So are they worth the sky-high price tag? Well, it’s safe to say that we’re not ready to whip out the credit card, though they did perform better than we expected, based only on what we had initially seen through those dual high-res viewfinders. Jump past the break for an HD sample clip, or click the more coverage link below for the untouched samples.

Continue reading Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars sample photos and video

Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars sample photos and video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know who doesn’t look good in pictures? You, probably. Me. Most of us. Sure, sometimes you’re Gerard Butler, but most of the time you’re Gerard Depardieu. You know who does know how to look good? Supermodel Shalom Harlow. More »

“See What You Print” (SWYP) is like a cross between an iPad and a printer. The concept — from Artefact design — shows us printers as they should be, not the hideous, hard to use devices we are forced to use today.

SWYP is incredibly simple, both in design and use. Once loaded with photos from your camera, you can swipe and pinch the images on the printer’s touchscreen until you are happy with the layout. Then hit print, and the exact same image you see on screen is deposited onto a sheet of paper.

Because the printer has its own screen, the two can be calibrated together to make sure the print reflects what you see on the monitor, and driver issues disappear as there are no longer two separate devices talking to each other.

If this printer was ever actually made, I’d probably start printing my photos again. It could even be made as an iPad dock and I’d be interested — after all, I don’t need to buy yet another screen. As it is, I’ll probably stick to sending my Instagram photos to Blurb and having them send me back perfectly printed books.

SWYP: See What You Print [Artefact via PetaPixel]

See Also:

• For Printers, 'All-In-One' Really Means 'Way-Too-Much'
• Print Wirelessly From iPad to Any Printer? There's an App for That …
• good-looking printers

Sony’s imaging wing has been on a roll lately, with the brilliant NEX-7 and equally impressive Alpha A77 DSLR simply blowing us away with brand new features and excellent image quality. But these $2,000 digital binoculars? Yeah, we’re not so sure. We went hands-on with a pre-production sample of the 3D binocs, which replace the traditional optical finders with a pair of high-res LCD EVFs. But when you consider that high-end binoculars are a joy to use because of their excellent optical viewfinders, swapping in an electronic version puts the DEV-3 ($1,400) and DEV-5 ($2,000) in a completely new category — if an excellent (and traditional) viewing experience is what you’re after, these “cost-competitive” optics really won’t hit the spot. Jump past the break for our impressions.

Continue reading Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars hands-on (video)

Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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