Cameras

Mamiya, along with competitors such as Pentax and Hasselblad, is working to bring the digital revolution to the higher-end, medium-format camera industry. On Friday, the company plans to announce a $9,999 technology bundle for a 22-megapixel camera.

The bundle includes Mamiya's 645AFD II camera, the 22-megapixel ZD Back and the 80mm f/2.8 AF lens, which is equivalent to a 50mm lens in terms of field of view of a more ordinary 35mm camera.

Medium-format cameras often use separate interchangeable "backs" that in the old days housed film but now house an image sensor. The … Read more

This seems like a lot of money to do some time-lapse photography, but if you're an aspiring science teacher it will undoubtedly produce better footage of plants growing than the reel-to-reel films we were subjected to in grade school. This all-in-one system from Harbortronics can also provide a lesson in alternative energy because it runs on solar power.

The package includes a Pentax K110D Digital SLR, two 2GB memory cards and an automatic shutter controller for $2,300, according to Uncrate. Let's hope the photos look better than the system itself, which resembles a camera stuck in a … Read more

If you've been playing with Google's new Street View feature--that $25 billion time suck--you may well have wondered how the heck they took those 360-degree images while driving down the street.

Well, wonder no more. Thanks to our good friend Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, we now know that many of the images, at least those shot outside the San Francisco Bay Area--were shot using this fairly disco-ball-esque device by the outside contractor, Immersive Media.

What's not clear just yet is if Google used the same kind of camera in the Bay Area, where the company … Read more

Update, 5/30/07: I knew this wasn't the first concept of its kind, and sure enough, our own Candace Lombardi had covered one in a previous life. Cedric Tay's 360 Degree Digital Camera even won a European design award.

While it lacks the visceral impact of the film version shown to the left, designer Ye Chen's hypothetical digital camera optimized for shooting 360-degree panoramas has the advantage of being a lot smaller and cooler looking. The camera concept, posted today on the Yanko Design site, incorporates a rotating camera lens, essentially turning the entire camera body … Read more

You'd think catching movie pirates would be as easy as preventing anyone with a camcorder from entering a movie theater. Or throwing a net over Johnny Depp's house.

Instead, Malaysian theater workers are employing a high-tech strategy. According to a Reuters report, the Motion Picture Association is training Malaysian theater workers to strap on night-vision goggles to catch pirates in the act of filming.

And it's working. In the past two months, 17 illegal movie-tapers have been caught by begoggled Malaysian ushers.

Could New York City be the next test bed for the night-vision goggle probe? According … Read more

Canon on Wednesday began shipping its EOS-1D Mark III, a high-end SLR (single-lens reflex) camera geared for photojournalists, photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith said on his blog Wednesday.

Galbraith quoted Canon spokesman Chuck Westfall as saying the 1D Mark III will arrive at dealer sites as soon as Thursday and that supplies should be steady after that.

The 1D Mark III is expected to cost at least $4,000 with no lenses. It's weather-sealed, can shoot as fast as 10 frames per second and has a new, more sensitive image sensor.

In a move bound to surprise no one after both Casio's and Sony's recent announcements, Panasonic has announced a new 12-megapixel compact camera called the Lumix DMC-FX100. However, this new Panasonic distinguishes itself from the competition with a 3.6X optical, 28mm-to-100mm, f/2.8-to-f.5.6 zoom lens, which should prove useful for snapshooters trying to compose photos of friends in tight quarters, such as a crowded nightclub. The new Lumix also includes Panasonic's Mega O.I.S. optical image stabilization, as well as a 2.5-inch, 207,000-pixel LCD screen.

Panasonic has reached new heights … Read more

BOSTON, Mass.--Eastman Kodak plans to release its own CMOS sensor in a Kodak camera and several Motorola cell phones by the end of the year.

Kodak President Antonio Perez shared the info at the JPMorgan Technology Conference in Boston on Monday.

While Perez would not release details on the camera phone, he did say that the new Kodak camera would have a Kodak-developed CMOS chip and be a 5-megapixel camera. The Kodak CMOS camera will be released in time for the holiday season and the Motorola-Kodak camera phone with a Kodak CMOS chip will follow close behind.

Kodak has been known to be developing a CMOS sensor … Read more

Casio has announced its plan to participate in the latest round of the camera world's now-futile megapixel war with its forthcoming Exilim Zoom EX-Z1200. The company's next top model will sport a 1/1.7-inch, 12-megapixel CCD imaging sensor. A 3X optical, 37mm-to-111mm equivalent, f/2.8-to-f/5.4 zoom lens will funnel light toward that sensor, while a 2.8-inch, 230,400-pixel LCD will let you view your work.

More exciting than this new camera's abundant pixel count is Casio's decision to include CCD-shift image stabilization. This is the first time the company has offered … Read more