Cameras

Kids these days don't know how good they've got it. When I was a kid, you were lucky to get one megapixel in your camera, and that megapixel would be written to a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. We didn't have MP3 players or pocket camcorders or any of those fancy things. The only moving pictures we had were on our CRT monitors. And don't get me started on the regular ritual of taking the mouse ball out of your beige mouse and picking lint out of the rollers.

Today, kids have their Facebooks and Myspaces … Read more

Panasonic has a handful of new Lumix cameras on the way for spring, and they're coming in all shapes and sizes. They all have Leica lenses and Panasonic's Mega Optical Image Stabilization, but beyond those features, they vary wildly, from inexpensive point-and-shoots to hefty, high-zoom cameras.

The company claims that the Lumix DMC-FX30 is the slimmest wide-angle lens camera on the market, and at less than 0.9 inch thick it might be right. The 7-megapixel FX30 has a 28mm-to-100mm-equivalent lens with optical image stabilization, so users can take nice, wide photos. The FX30 ships in February and … Read more

Casio announced two new digital cameras today. They're quite different in price, resolution, and features, but both cameras share the same characteristics as every other Casio Exilim we've seen so far: they're small and slim.

The EX-Z75 is a follow-up to the company's budget-priced Casio Exilim EX-Z70. The 7-megapixel shooter is essentially identical to the Z70, except for its slightly larger 2.6-inch LCD screen. The Z75 has the same sensor, 3X lens, digital image stabilization, and 34 scene settings. The $230 camera might be worth a look when it hits stores in March, but you … Read more

So you think you've got megapixels? Try one of Hasselblad's cameras on for size. A year after releasing the world's first 39-megapixel camera, Hasselblad has introduced a "more affordable" model at 31 megapixels and a shooting rate of 1.2 seconds per image, as well as a bevy of other features. But affordability is a relative term: The H3D-31 goes for $24,995, according to Pocket-lint. Which means we may be hanging onto our Kodak Instamatic a bit longer.

It might not be a spy bot per se, but it's still too close for comfort--in fact, it might even be worse because it could sneak up on us under water. Neatorama says this "spy sub," a father-son project featured on Popular Science, was done for $300--but, considering how sophisticated it is, that's a relative bargain.

The remote-controlled sub can reportedly send images from an on-board home-surveillance camera from as deep as 250 feet for more than a quarter-mile. We still don't like the idea of all this spying, but we suspect that another Craver … Read more

Samsung has announced two new digital cameras for this spring, the L74 Wide and the NV11. Their names are mundane, but they sport some interesting features.

The Samsung L74 Wide is a 7-megapixel digital camera with a lens that fits its name. It has a 28mm-equivalent wide-angle lens with a zoom factor of 3.6x for getting both wide and close-up shots. It was built with the traveler in mind, offering a Tour Guide feature that provides information about 4,500 regions in 30 countries. Also notable is its 450MB of internal memory, the most we've seen on a … Read more

Thanks to the efforts of 500,000 digital-imaging enthusiasts and professionals--as well as some folks who actually got paid to work on it--Adobe Lightroom 1.0 today left its beta status behind to begin its new life as a $299 retail software package. Slated for availability in mid-February, early adopters of the raw-workflow tool will be able to snap it up for $199 until April 30.

I spent some quality time with the final software last night, and for the most part like it very much, both for its workflow capabilities and its nondestructive retouching tools. What struck me, however, … Read more

Not everyone needs a Webcam with a 7x zoom lens, especially if you just want to have a conversation. And if you're as video-challenged as we are, you might appreciate the "Talkcam Tracer Webcam" from V-Gear, which has one simple but important featire that separates it from the pack: It keeps you in the picture. In fact, the 1.3-megapixel camera will even follow you around by using its auto-focus sensors, according to Gizmowatch. (The downside: No more PJs while videoconferencing.) In her day, we're certain that JenniCam would have died for one of these.

If there's one technology that continues to remind us of the bad old days of dial-up modems, it's Webcams. The grainy transmissions often look only slightly better than night-vision camera images of a decade ago--especially if you try their useless digital zooms. But riding to the rescue is Hanwha's "Digital Cowboy" (with a name like this, it has to be Japanese). Its new offering, the DC-NCP130, is essentially a 1.3-megapixel telephoto Webcam with a removable 7x optical zoom that connects to your computer's USB port, according to CNET Asia. The camera is going … Read more