Cameras and Imaging
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The world's smallest and lightest 1080 HDV Camcorder
August 4, 2006 If you’re one of those people who bellyache all the time about having just purchased a widget for US$1000 only to find that the next model will cost less and do twice as much, just remember that we’re living through the most exciting period of technological progress in human history. Indeed, it’s unlikely that there will ever be such a quantum leap in understanding, productivity and creativity again in history. What’s brought on this soapboxing? Canon’s HV10 HD Camcorder – that’s what! It’s a 500g camcorder capable of 1080 HD (high definition) video and it’s roughly the size of a cigarette packet at 56x104x106mm. The HV10 HDV includes 10x optical zoom, Super Range Optical Image Stabilization, the DIGIC DV II image processor, and a Full HD resolution (1920x1080 video) CMOS sensor, similar to those found in Canon's Digital SLR cameras. Additionally, new "Instant AF" auto-focus technology, and the ability to take 3.1 megapixel photos, makes this one powerful device that fits comfortably in the palm of the hand. Scheduled to land in stores in September, the Canon HV10 HDV camcorder is a veritable "Best of" compilation of Canon technologies, and will sell for an estimated US$1299. (read more...)
World’s First 100+ Megapixel chip
June 20, 2006 Now here's something to bring a smile to the dial of photographic enthusiasts. Hot on the heels of Hasselblad's 39 megapixel camera comes the news that the 100 megapixel barrier has been broken. DALSA Semiconductor announced yesterday that it has successfully fabricated and delivered the world’s highest resolution image sensor chip to its customer, Semiconductor Technology Associates (STA). The CCD device (pictured), which measures approximately four inches by four inches, has a total resolution of over 111 million pixels (10,560 pixels x 10,560 pixels). It is the world’s first imager to break the 100 Megapixel barrier. (read more...)
Fully digital HD movie camera to invigorate the market
June 20, 2006 Digital technology is invading the world and one of the most exciting areas we forsee in the coming years is that of film-making. Silicon Imaging, Cineform, Inspired Minority Pictures and Atomic-VFX are busy at the moment shooting a feature film, entitled “Spoon”, on a HD camera that is implementing a system never before used. The SI-1920HDVR combines a digital cinema class 1920x1080P camera with CineForm's revolutionary Visually Perfect CineForm RAW codec in an embedded PC architecture under Microsoft Windows XP. The camera is connected directly to the computer, so expensive tape stock is no longer an issue. It is also possible to attach a 160GB notebook hard drive to the camera for up to 4 hours of free-roaming shooting. The camera uses modern cinema PL mount lenses, as well as affordable F and compact C mount lenses that is connected to a single large format 2/3” CMOS sensor with an on-chip 12-bit A/D converter. This is then fed through wire into a Wafian box and into the PC. Originally developed for the independent film maker, the camera provides superb image quality at a low cost. With release during the third quarter of the year the SI-1920HDVR camera will cost around US$20,000 (that’s right – there are only four zeroes in that figure). Still in the Beta phase of development, but already exceeding everyone’s expectations, the SI-1920HDVR looks to be a landmark development in HD filming and could potentially invigorate the medium globally. At very least we’re certain it’ll be on every film-maker’s wishlist. Links to all major sources inside and an excellent image library. (read more...)
Philips 42 inch 3D Display wins Gold Award at SID2006
June 16, 2006 “3D-TV is the next frontier for those in the professional display market seeking differentiation to gain a competitive edge, and for consumers seeking the next level in the immersive entertainment experience.” So sayeth Philips Jos Swillens at the annual Society of Information Display 2006 (SID2006) where Philips showcased its latest 3D displays, picking up a Gold Award in the process for ‘Display of the Year’. The award, given to the Philips 42-inch 3D Intelligent Display, recognises the display with the most novel and outstanding features, including Philips proprietary technology which produces 3D images without the help of specialised content or glasses. (read more...)
Ricoh Caplio 500G Wide covers even more terrain
June 13, 2006 Over the last few years Ricoh has developed a lucrative niche in the form of the ruggedised digital camera and the latest incarnation of this range for adventurers and extremists will hit the shelves in August. The Caplio 500G Wide is a water, dust and shock resistant wide angle camera that shoots 8-megapixel images even in the most challenging of photographic locations. (read more...)
Sony enters the digital SLR camera market
June 8, 2006 Sony has taken a long time to enter the digital single lens reflex (D-SLR) camera market but the somewhat belated release of the DSLR-A100 system has been both decisive and with enormous commitment. The system uses a 10.2-megapixel APS CCD image sensor and combines advanced SLR features with other Sony digital imaging innovations, most notably Super SteadyShot image stabilization, a new technology that shifts the image sensor to compensate for camera movement – the first time that image stabilisation has been done inside the camera rather than in the lens. It was introduced with 19 high-quality Sony lenses, and will be compatible with most of the former Konica-Minolta Maxxum mount lenses. (read more...)
Nikon overcomes the issue of digital image authenitication
June 3, 2006 Nikon this week upgraded its 12.4 megapixel D2X digital SLR to become the D2xs and though the raw numbers remain the same apart from the larger 2.5” LCD screen, the release of two software packages to create and enhance camera usage were the real story. New Camera Control Pro software enables the remote control of Nikon digital SLRs from a personal computer which is cool but not nearly as groundbreaking as Nikon’s Image Authentication Software which can legally verify image authenticity for the media, insurance companies ad infinitum. Although the software only works with the D2xs, it’s a significant move forward for the digital photography business in general and we suspect that unless other manufacturers follow suit quickly, the D2xs will become a raging top seller due to this unique ability to determine whether an image has been processed or edited after being shot. (read more...)
CyberTouch Announces 32-inch Touch Screen LCD Monitor
May 25, 2006 Digital signage continues to offer greater bang per buck per minute. We like bigger and higher-res so we were pleased to see the continued growth in size of the touchscreen this week when CyberTouch announced the Orion 32 -- the latest and largest touch LCD monitor. The 32"diagonal (16x9 aspect ratio) touch screen LCD monitor is ideal for electronic signage, hospitality, kiosk and point-of-purchase applications. This larger size touch monitor allows designers to display more information and reduce the number of screens while increasing interactive efficiency. (read more...)
Wireless Digital Signage Media Player based on IPTV technology
May 11, 2006 With very large flat panel display systems getting cheaper by the day, the capabilities, cost-effectiveness and downright firepower of digital signage is beginning to make a lot of sense as this marketplace unfolds. Yesterday Hong Kong-based 1-2-1VIEW Corporation announced a new Linux-based wireless media player with some very useful features. The M210 relays content and display management information wirelessly and plays back video content stored in its built-in hard disk. It enables location owners and operators to deploy a full digital signage system to pinpoint audiences with targeted content such as advertising and promotions, without the hassles of wiring or laying cables – ideal for shopping centres, temporary show installations, or reconfigurable systems for department stores. Based on open standards and flexible IPTV technology, the M210 is built on a consumer electronics platform as opposed to commonly used PC technology, offering a very competitive price/performance ratio compared to other media players. (read more...)
European Imaging Oscars awarded for 2006
May 9, 2006 The photographic industry’s version of the 'Oscars', are the European Photo & Imaging Awards of the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA), and they’ve come earlier this year, having last been awarded in August 2005 at Photokina. Every year, TIPA editors vote for the best photo & imaging products introduced in Europe during the previous 12 months, taking into account innovation, the use of leading-edge technology, design and ergonomics of the products and, naturally, their ease of use and price/performance ratio. The main winners in the digital camera categories this year were the Canon EOS-5D (D-SLR Professional), Nikon D200 (D-SLR Expert), Nikon D50 (D-SLR Entry), Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1 (D-Superzoom), Fujifilm Finepix F30 (D-Compact), Canon Digital Ixus 65 (Ultra Compact), the Hasselblad H2D-39 (Medium Format D-system) and the remarkable Sinar M system (High end professional camera system – PICTURED.) (read more...)
Dual lens Bluetooth-enabled 6 MPX, 10X optical zoom pocketsize digital camera
April 26, 2006 Eastman Kodak once owned the world photographic market and since the advent of digital cameras, it has been fighting the good fight attempting to maintain its leading role, largely focussing on ease-of-use as its point-of-difference. Yesterday, the US-based company celebrated the fifth anniversary of its first Easyshare consumer digital camera and docking system which has seen the company reclaim number one digital camera market share in the U.S. To mark the occasion, it released details of a new compact (4.4 x 2.2 x 0.9 inches) US$449 V610 model with the company’s now trademark dual lens, but also with Bluetooth, 6 megapixels, and a 10X optical zoom. Even with its whopping 38-380 mm equivalent zooms lens it is less than an inch thick. It combines two Schneider-Kreuznach C-Variogon all-glass, non-protruding prism lenses to deliver the long zoom range and incorprates anti-blur technology to enable novices to handhold the high zoom in low light and still produce excellent images. (read more...)
Wireless control for LED lighting systems
April 21, 2006 A devilishly clever combination of wireless and intelligent LED technologies will make life easier for photographers. Zylight’s ZyLink technology allows lighting professionals to wirelessly link together multiple Z50's to create large, soft sources of calibrated tungsten light, daylight, or any color of the rainbow. The Z50 produces a soft, wide output with no hotspots - when linked together the lights act in concert as if they were one unified LED source, with adjustments made on one light changing all lights in the group. Used individually or in an array, the system will offer any output you need (Tungsten, daylight, colour), as large as you need it. (read more...)
New Digital Imaging Software imparts added depth, realism, and a natural ease of vision in all imaging formats
April 12, 2006 DarbeeVision is a software technology that enhances digital images, and provides an unprecedented level of near 3D realism, covering both 3D and 2D approaches. DVn software enables the depth cues of stereo pair images to be naturally expressed for any 2D media (without glasses or expensive hardware) and naturally "smuggles-in" 3D depth cues into 2D created media, resulting in stunning realistic 2D images. Check out the sample images inside. DVn processing has already been used in three major films: Academy Award Winner, Robert Altman's Oscar-winning motion picture "Gosford Park," "Images," and "The Company." Robert Altman said that DarbeeVision is like, "putting on a new pair of glasses." Technical director For Kodak's Cinesite digital effects and digital intermediate businesses, Steve Wright, declared, "Wow! The Darbonized shots had a sharpness, clarity, and scene depth that gave them a 'hyper-realism' compared to the originals...that would make any feature film stand out." Wes Adams from GP Color Imaging Group, a part of the Macintosh desktop publishing revolution from its infancy affirmed, "DarbeeVision is one of those products that is at the cusp of innovation." (read more...)
Philips launches 16.5 cm, high definition photo display for the home
April 11, 2006: 74 million digital cameras sold worldwide in 2004 passing film camera sales and that’s before we factor in the digital cameras available in every mobile phone. Most mobile phones now have a camera and people upgrade regularly. A billion phones will be sold this year. Around the turn of the deacde, half of all the people on the planet will have a phone and henceforth most human beings will be permanently carrying a digital camera. Mobile cameras are everywhere and the financial barriers to taking a photograph (i.e. the cost of a bunch of silver-halide based chemicals and photographic paper and labour in order to get a hard copy print) has been completely removed. Forty billion digital snapshots were taken in 2005 according to Kodak, the company that used to own the photography business. Philips today staked its claim to putting those 40 billion images on show. The Digital Photo Display, a 16.5 cm, high definition, full colour panel designed to digitally reproduce photos at their very best with print-like picture quality and full 16-bit colour and adjustable brightness of up to 200 nits. Digital images too often get filed to a PC hard drive or CD, rarely to be seen again – Philips aims to remedy that. The Digital Photo Display’s 137 x 91mm, 720 x 480 pixel LCD screen delivers a quality that matches colour prints in a traditional picture frame. (read more...)
The 8 cm DVD-R mini-disc Slim
April 6, 2006 The 8 cm DVD-R mini-disc is growing in popularity with the advent of the DVD camcorder, so we thought it was worth showing the latest incarnation of the miniature media – the 8 cm DVD-R mini-disc Slim. At half the thickness of other mini DVD-Rs, these new media will take up less of your precious camera-case space, and the reduced material costs means half the weight so they ship for the price of one 39-cent stamp. The savings appear to be passed on to the consumer in several ways, as the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the mini DVD-R Slim is aggressively set at US$1.00 per disc, much lower than current market prices. (read more...)
FACE TRACKER locks into faces in camera phones for optimal focus, exposure, and white balance
April 6, 2006 Faces are usually the most important part of any photo, so it makes sense to ensure that the face is captured to the best of the camera’s ability. That’s the reasoning behind the development of a new technology by imaging and connectivity solutions company FotoNation. Face Tracker for camera phones uses a radically new approach to identify and lock onto human faces in a camera phone’s preview image, tracking them as they move around within the frame and automatically adjusting focus, exposure, and white balance before the image is captured, ensuring that faces are optimally taken and that skin tones are reproduced with exceptional accuracy. (read more...)
The Scalar DG-3 - third generation Portable Digital Microscope
March 31, 2006 A fortnight from now, Scalar Corporation will begin shipping the DG-3, the third generation of what was the world's first portable digital microscope. If you’re unaware of the capabilities available in a touch-and-view, portable microscope, we suggest you might review the following, as it seems to us that it has application in almost every production, maintenance and non-destructive testing process known to man. The strength of the DG-3 is its extreme portability, meaning it can be used in the field or factory, in a fuselage, on animals … basically anywhere. Surfaces are magnified with its LED illuminated lenses from 25x to 1000x and then imaged by its 2.3 megapixel sensor complete with calibrated measurement (micron) bars in the image. Scalar microscopes are used for sophisticated and mission-critical inspection by companies such as NASA, Boeing, the United Space Alliance, car manufacturer s, airlines and the military but as the unit has matured and become more readily available, we envision the DG-3 being used wherever it’s important to understand what’s happening on a micron level. (read more...)
The world’s largest digital graphic
March 29, 2006 The main Boeing factory building in Everett, Washington is the home of the 747, 767, 777 and 787 airplanes, and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest building in the world by volume. The building now holds a second world record as it has just been adorned with a new mural which comprises more than 100,000 square feet (9,290 square meters) of pressure-sensitive graphic film, and has been recognised as the largest digital graphic in the world. The mural covers all six factory doors on the south side of the building. The doors comprising the mural are 82 feet (25 meters) high and range in width from 300 to 350 feet (91 to 107 meters). Each is about the length of a National Football League (NFL) field. (read more...)
The EyeBall tossable surveillance device
March 28, 2006 The Eye Ball is about the size of a baseball (roughly 3.25 inches), weighs less than one pound and is encased in a rubber and polyurethane housing that enables it to be thrown through windows or doors and bounced off walls. It’s when the Eyeball lands that it becomes incredibly useful as it can capture video up to 25 metres distance and audio up to five metres, and then wirelessly send that real-time info up to 200 metres to handheld device. An omnidirectional lens rotates at 4 rpm and provides a 55-degree horizontal and 41-degree vertical field of view. It doesn’t even need daylight as it also has night vision capability. Warfighters or Law enforcement officers can roll, toss, or drop the rugged Eye Ball into virtually any hazardous situation - providing the immediate visibility required for users to make safe, intelligent decisions in dangerous environments. (read more...)
The diamond encrusted US$20,000 Kodak Easyshare camera
March 2, 2006 Being nominated for an Academy Award is an indication of excellence at the highest level in the profession of filmmaking. Landing a nomination for one of the major awards also brings with it a bag of goodies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars including trips, stays at exclusive hotels and some exclusive jewellery, clothes, and gadgets. For example, each Best Actress nominee in the upcoming 78th Academy Awards will be treated to the “Ultimate Luxury Suite at The Four Seasons Hotel” which brings with it an array of goodies including a KODAK dual-lens EASYSHARE V570 digital camera. Normally, the V570 runs to US$400 but each of the five nominees (Reese Witherspoon, Felicity Huffman, Keira Knightley, Charlize Theron and Dame Judi Dench) will be getting a camera personalised with their initials in 75 brilliant-cut diamonds raising the cost to around US$20,000. What we'd like to know is why everybody (including the bookies) seems to think that Reese Witherspoon (those are her initials on the camera) is going to win. See the links at the bottom of the article and you'll wonder along with us! (read more...)
Sony adds high zoom models to Cyber-shot range
February 26, 2006 The high zoom prosumer digital camera marketplace continued to heat up at the PMA Show with Sony announcing two new Cyber-shot models in the category. Clad in black, the new DSC-H5 model has a 7.2-megapixel CCD imager and extra-large, three-inch LCD screen. It also shimmers in silver along with the stage-worthy DSC-H2 model, which has a six-megapixel imager and two-inch LCD. Both cameras flaunt Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 12x optical zoom lenses and focal length ranges of 36 to 432 millimeters (35 mm equivalence). "High-zoom cameras are one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry," said James Neal, director of digital imaging products at Sony Electronics. "They are powerful enough to get those hard-to-see distant shots, and have the easy-to-use functionality of point-and-shoot cameras. (read more...)
TI DaVinci Technology for the Digital Still Camera Market
February 25, 2006 Giving digital still camera (DSC) manufacturers the benefits of full software programmability with the performance of hard-wired solutions, Texas Instruments today introduced DaVinci technology optimised for the digital still camera market. The technology includes a new highly flexible processor, a software suite that simulates a full digital still camera system and third parties offering camera-specific algorithms. (read more...)
New Pentax 10mpx and 18mpx digital SLRs at PMA 2006
February 26, 2006 Pentax Imaging Company will announced two new digital SLR cameras at the upcoming PMA 2006 which will open tomorrow(February 26 to March 1) in Orlando, Florida. Pentax has confirmed that the company will unveil a yet-to-be-named 10 megapixel digital SLR camera body, tentatively scheduled for a formal launch in Autumn 2006. Pentax also will preview the Pentax 645 medium format digital SLR camera for the first time in the United States. Offering professional-quality digital image reproduction with 18 effective megapixels, a Kodak-developed extra-large CCD image sensor with 18.6 total megapixels (tentative), a Pentax -original 645AF lens mount, the 645 Digital will maintain compatibility with existing smc Pentax 645 interchangeable lenses. (read more...)
The world’s most advanced LCD TV - 56-inch and 3840 x 2160 pixels
February 24, 2006 Taiwanese Chi Mei Optoelectronics is a name you may not know, despite the company being the third largest LCD TV panel supplier in the world. At CEBIT in Hannover in mid-March, the company will display the world’s first 56-inch LCD TV panel. Perhaps more startling than the size of the mega-telly is the definition which is known as Quad Full High Definition (QFHD) with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and an astonishing 8.29 million pixels. The new panel features resolution that is four times that of currently available products (1920 x 1080), and the highest ever achieved. The new panel consists of over 24.8 million units of transistors, with a data transmission speed of over 1.4 gigabytes per second. To achieve this breakthrough result, the Chi Mei Optoelectronics research and development team overcame a number of significant technical challenges, including the development of special new driver methods and scanning procedures and solving massive heat generation problems caused by the alignment of so many transistors. (read more...)
New high definition video 1080i Camcorder is world's smallest
February 21, 2006 Changing the notion that high-definition video recording is for "advanced videographers only" Sony today announced the HDR-HC3 HDV 1080i Handycam camcorder. Compared to its predecessor, this new, high-def camcorder is 26 percent more compact, packed with easy-to-use features, and more affordable. (read more...)
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