lens

Though Steve Jobs, after handing out free Bumpers to current iPhone 4 customers, assured users waiting for the white version of the iPhone 4 that the device is still on schedule to ship at the end of July, reports around the Web suggest Apple could see some major supply issues and availability could be limited.

Translated from Chinese newspaper 21st Century Business Herald, manufacturing issues for the white iPhone 4 are apparently related to problems with painting the glass surfaces of the device at the Lens Technology manufacturing plant (where iPhone 4 glass is processed, pressed, and painted).

According to Engadget, &… Read more

It doesn't take a genius to guess that the first relatively mainstream large-sensor camcorder would come from one of the big three manufacturers of both cameras and camcorders: Sony, Panasonic, or Canon. And it looks as if Sony's going to cross the finish line first, in September, with its Handycam NEX-VG10. The VG10 is based around the same sensor and lens system as its Alpha namesakes, the NEX-5 and NEX-3, but in a body designed for prosumer/entry-level pro videography.

Though Panasonic, too, announced an interchangeable-lens camcorder a few months ago, the company provided very little information about it. Even the preliminary brochure (PDF) posted on Panasonic's site fails to illuminate. There's enough detail to figure out that the AG-AF100 is targeted at professionals more than Sony's--it has stereo XLR mic inputs and an SDI connector, plus a broader selection of resolution and frame rate options--but without even a ballpark price you can't make any meaningful comments about it. Plus, it's not slated to ship till the end of the year.

Here are the basic specs for the VG10 and what little is available for the AF100:… Read more

For photography gearheads who want detailed tests of lens performance, a significant new option is joining the likes of SLRgear.com, Photozone.de, and Digital Photography Review.

The new kid in town is from an established player in camera measurements: DxO Labs. The company, which performs detailed tests of cameras and sells software for editing raw photos, is revamping its DxOMark site to offer lens tests as well as the earlier image sensor tests.

It's got some significant differences over established reviews sites. First, it adds a parameter the others lack, transmission, which measures how much light actually makes it through the lens. For example, Canon's EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens actually has an effective maximum aperture more like f2.1, DxO's tests show.

Second--and this is the bigger difference--the tests show how each lens works on a wide range of camera bodies; existing lens sites typically run tests just on one or two bodies. Seeing how a lens works differently on different bodies can help inform prospective buyers whether a high-end lens is worth its premium on a lower-end camera, or how well an existing lens collection will work on a new camera body. … Read more

The developers of a tiny silicon chip that can be embedded in cell phones say it could detect and then map the location and extent of gas leaks and toxins in the air.

"Cell phones are everywhere people are," says Michael Sailor, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California at San Diego, who heads the research effort. "This technology could map a chemical accident as it unfolds."

Sailor's team at UCSD is working with a San Diego start-up called Rhevision to develop the tiny sensor. They're currently building a prototype that … Read more

Canon's PowerShot S90 continues to be one of the most popular cameras on CNET, but it is expensive and really targeted at a prosumer user. The SD4000 IS announced Tuesday brings some of the S90's features--primarily its f2.0 lens--to the masses in a body design intended to be stylish or, in other words, less serious-looking than the S90.

The camera is also the company's first to feature a high-speed backside-illuminated CMOS sensor, though it's still the typical compact camera-size sensor, 1/2.3-inch type. This sensor means Canon is finally able to offer features that … Read more

Eagerly anticipated ever since Sony floated its wood-block concept designs at the PMA show in February, Sony's Alpha NEX-5 and NEX-3 have finally arrived. Its debut models are the smallest entrants to date, and are pretty aggressively priced given their features.

The cameras are nearly identical, differing only in two ways. They have slightly different body designs, with the higher-end NEX-5 composed of magnesium alloy, and the NEX-5 offers full HD AVCHD video recording. For those perks you pay about $100 more. Both cameras come in kits with either an 18-55mm ($299.99 standalone) or 16mm pancake prime lens ($249.99 standalone). We received a production-level NEX-5 just before launch, which gave us time to test it and get some shooting done before the announcement--you'll be able to get yours in July. The full review with more testing experience and ratings for that model should follow relatively soon. (Read about the NEX-3.)

Overall, the photo quality is really good, and the camera has a very nice noise profile and dynamic range for its price class. But there are caveats. For one, it has the same unfortunate issues with Sony's Creative Styles that all the company's dSLRs do: the default renders inaccurate colors, which isn't helped by the overly cool automatic white balance, and there's no natural Creative Style option. Not even in the bundled raw software. Also, though the 18-55 kit lens is pretty sharp, it has some of the worst distortion I've seen on a non-point-and-shoot camera of late. That includes barrel distortion at the 18mm end and pincushion at the 55mm end. As a result, not only are lines curved, but there's some fringing around the edges of the scene.

Video is sharp and the lenses are really quiet, both for zooming and focusing, but you have practically no controls beyond a background defocus scroll. For instance, it wouldn't let me spot meter a backlit subject; instead, I had to crank the exposure compensation all the way up, guessing based on a hard-to-gauge display. While it has built-in stereo mics that are reasonably separated physically, the audio sounds a bit tinny. And the camera really needs a wind filter. … Read more

The entry-level model in Sony's duo of interchangeable-lens debuts ranks as the smallest model in its class to date. Nearly identical to its slightly more expensive sibling, they have two primary differences: slightly different body designs, with the higher-end NEX-5 composed of magnesium alloy compared to the NEX-3's polycarbonate, and the NEX-5 offers full HD AVCHD video recording. For those perks you pay about $100 more. Both cameras are slated to ship in July and will come in kits with either an 18-55mm or 16mm pancake prime lens. (Read my hands-on with the NEX-5 for a description of the features, lens and menu system.)

As an aside, Sony also indicated that it's working an interchangeable lens camcorder with APS-C HD CMOS sensor that will use the same lens mount on a more traditional camcorder design. There are no real details as yet.

At its lower price, these are the models against which the NEX-3 will compete and how its specs stack up:… Read more

As promised when it announced the GXR system back in November 2009, Ricoh has introduced the P10 megazoom module to slide into the GXR camera back. It features a 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens (35mm equivalent) plus 10-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS sensor. The result will essentially be a compact 10x zoom camera with specs similar to popular point-and-shoot models from manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic, and Canon. Unfortunately, pricing and availability are still up in the air.

To refresh your memory, the GXR system comprises a housing that includes the basic pieces of a point-and-shoot--920,000-pixel 3-inch LCD, controls, hot shoe, and flash--into which you can slide slide a series of modules incorporating various lens/sensor combinations. In theory, that lets Ricoh optimize the characteristics of the module by choosing different sensors to match the different tasks for which one would use different lenses.… Read more

With automatic lens corrections appearing in Photoshop CS5, it didn't take a genius to forecast Adobe Systems would add the feature to Lightroom 3.

But Adobe hadn't committed to the feature--until Tuesday.

"Below is a preview of lens correction technology that will be included in Lightroom 3 and the Camera Raw 6 plug-in that's part of Photoshop CS5...The easiest application of lens correction is to apply the lens profile technology that encompasses geometric distortion (barrel and pincushion distortion), chromatic aberration, and lens vignetting characteristics," Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty said in a blog post. Chromatic aberration, caused by the different paths that different colors of light take through a lens, can produce red and blue color fringes in high-contrast areas; distortion makes parallel lines bow inward or outward; and vignetting causes the corners of images to darken.

Lightroom 2, the current version, provides some manual controls over lens correction. The automated corrections in Lightroom 3 promises to remove some drudgery from the photographic process and illustrates a new trend: computational photography, in which computers step in to address camera weaknesses or expand their horizons. Image post-processing, whether in the camera or on a computer, is increasingly essential to the photography industry.

Lightroom, like Apple's competing Aperture, uses a nondestructive editing approach that overlays editing changes onto an unaltered original. The changes are stored as metadata that can be easily changed since the underlying original image is unaltered.

But nondestructive editing is computationally difficult as multiple adjustments are layered in. Distortions are particularly complicated: when a photographer edits an image, for example by brightening a couple faces, the computer must apply those changes not to the underlying grid of pixels, but to the mathematically warped version that the distortion correction produces.

Adobe will supply support for a "handful" of lenses, but also will let users create and share their own profiles through Lens Profile Creator tool that the company plans to post on Adobe Labs, Hogarty said. In a video demonstration, Hogarty said the company will support a number of Canon, Nikon, and Sigma lenses. The demo showed 18 Canon lenses at one point, though, so it sounds like more than a handful to me. I'd also expect the company to add more support with Lightroom updates, the same way it adds support for new proprietary raw image formats from newer cameras. … Read more