Digital Cameras

Shooting movies and television shows using digital SLR (DSLR) cameras that also record high definition video is becoming much more widespread - in fact, the Season 6 finale of House was shot using Canon's EOS 5D Mark II camera, and Philip Bloom is said to have shot a number of scenes for the upcoming Lucasfilm World War II film Red Tails using the very same model. If you're looking to make your own DSLR epic, then you'll want to keep things steady while chasing someone down the stairs or running after your star through a busy city street. The Mount Kestrel Duopod concept from designer Ben Millett is a solid-looking shoulder-mounted steadicam rig that can also double as a floor-standing, two-legged camera platform. Read More

It’s a conundrum every serious photographer faces ... do you set your exposure so that the brightest objects in a scene are properly exposed but the darkest are underexposed, or so that the darkest are properly exposed but the brightest are overexposed? Or do you go with some compromise, where only the half-way-between objects look right? That’s where high dynamic range (HDR) cameras come into play. Combining several levels of exposure in one shot, they act like the human eye, allowing properly-exposed dark and bright objects to co-exist within the same picture. Now, New Mexico’s Contrast Optical Design & Engineering is set to release its AMP camera, for shooting HDR video. Read More

Pentax has announced the first pocket-friendly interchangeable lens camera to sport its new bayonet lens mount. The company says that its Q mount is about a third less in diameter than the more familiar K-mount, thanks to a reduction in the distance from the lens mount surface to the image sensor and by tweaking the size of the lens image circle to be proportionate to the sensor. The Pentax Q also makes use of a compact camera-sized sensor and sacrifices the onboard optical viewfinder, mirror box, focusing plate and autofocus sensor to help keep proportions to a minimum - making it about the same size as my Umbra credit card case. Other features of note include a programmable dial on the front for quick access to frequently-used settings, the ability to shoot full high definition video and a built-in flash that can pop up to help reduce red-eye. Read More

For those of us who grew up with film cameras, even the most basic digital cameras can still seem a little bit magical. The ability to instantly see how your shots turned out, then delete the ones you don’t want and manipulate the ones you like, is something we would have killed for. Well, light field cameras could be to today’s digital cameras, what digital was to film. Among other things, they allow users to selectively shift focus between various objects in a picture, after it’s been taken. While the technology has so far been inaccessible to most of us, that is set to change, with the upcoming release of Lytro’s consumer light field camera. Read More

While digital cameras have made it easier to take self-portraits thanks to the inclusion of self-timers, face, smile and motion detection, and the positioning of displays on the front of the camera - as seen with Samsung's DualView camera - changing the framing or altering settings still requires the user to run back to the camera itself to get things right. Now researchers at the University of Tsukuba's Department of Computer Science in Japan have developed technology that lets shutterbugs put themselves in the picture and snap a pic using Kinect-like hand gestures. Read More

Panasonic has added to its ever growing – yet ever shrinking – stable of Lumix Micro Four Thirds cameras with what it claims is the world’s smallest and lightest digital interchangeable lens camera with a built-in flash. The new DMC-GF3 is 16.7 percent smaller and 16.2 percent lighter than its predecessor, the DMC-GF2, which was itself 19 percent smaller and seven percent lighter than the preceding DMC-GF1. The GF3’s size and weight reductions are largely thanks to the elimination of an optical viewfinder and mirror-box, which also means there’s no electronic viewfinder. Read More

Ricoh has announced the first in a new PX Series of compact digital cameras. Benefiting from some rugged, go-anywhere qualities, the new camera also features technology capable of doubling the available optical zoom, is quick to start up, and has a good selection of scene-based setting optimization options. If you're not happy with the choice of three colors, Ricoh has also created some brightly colored protective jackets to slip over the top. Read More

While I've been lucky never to have actually misplaced a lens cap for my digital SLR, there have been times when I've been lost for somewhere to put it between shots (no suggestions please). Chicago's Mark Stevenson has designed a simple solution to allow photographers to secure the wandering lens cap to a camera strap or camera bag. Read More

ZionEyez are a Seattle based company bringing to market a Ray-Ban-like pair of sunglasses equipped with a micro video camera that delivers first person video recording in 720p. There's 8GB of flash memory inside the frame, a micro USB charging and data transfer port and the Eyesz can also connect to a computer via Bluetooth. If only Don Johnson had a pair of these ... those Miami drug lords would have had no chance. Read More