“Keep it simple, Stupid!.” That’s a principle exemplified by Apple’s industrial design, but sometimes is nowhere to be found when it comes to compact cameras. Panasonic, however, seems to be on the same wavelength with the Lumix FP7 they just unveiled at CES 2011. The physical buttons normally found on the back of point-and-shoots are missing, replaced instead with a sleek 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD. The only physical buttons that remain are found on the top of the camera — power, shutter, and zoom (dial). With the simplicity comes 16.1 megapixel photographs, 4x optical zoom, and 720p video recording. No word yet on pricing or availability.
The stories are often the same — you spend some time saving up money for the perfect piece of gear that you’ve spent hours reading reviews about and comparing. You finally order it, and spend some days checking the tracking information every few minutes to see if your package is still traveling according to schedule. Finally, the big day arrives, and you eagerly stay fixed at home, unwilling to step out for a minute or take a shower lest the UPS delivery person arrives. After something forces you to step out of the house briefly, you arrive home and are crushed to discover a “failed delivery” slip affixed to your door.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into why this always seems to happen.
Yesterday we got a sneak peek at a strange multi-dimensionally swiveling Casio TRYX camera, and today it was officially unveiled at CES 2011. The TRYX is a 12.1 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p HD video at 30fps or 240fps slow-motion video at 432 x 320. The unique thing about the camera is that the 3-inch touchscreen LCD can both bust out of its “frame” and also swivel, allowing the frame to be used as a stand and for the screen to point in all kinds of random directions. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s interesting (though some might say infuriating) to see how photographers are depicted in some police training videos. Lesson learned? Don’t carry camera gear and sleeping bags together in the back seat of your car.
In case the video doesn’t start at the right place automatically, photography-related stuff starts around 4:30.
Kodachrome film officially died at the end of last year when the last developer — Dwayne’s Photo Service — stopped accepting the film. Before that final nail in the coffin was pounded in, 53-year-old Jim DeNike drove from Arkansas to Dwayne’s in Kansas to have 1,580 rolls developed. The total cost for the 50,000 slides? $15,798. All of the photographs were of trains.
Lexar posted this interesting behind-the-scenes video showing how they make memory cards from start to finish. May the ingenuity and engineering-prowess of man amaze you and cause you to appreciate your memory cards more. Imagine what it would be like to watch this video back in the early 1900s…
Lexar has announced two new SDXC memory cards ahead of CES 2011 that tip the scales at a whopping 64GB and 128GB. The Class 10 cards have transfer speeds of up to 20MB/s, meaning a full 128GB card would take nearly 2 hours to unload. Ordinary photographers won’t likely need storage capacities anywhere near what these cards offer, but people who work primarily with HD video may find these sizes useful. The capacities aren’t the only way these cards are massive — the costs are up there as well, with the 64GB priced at $400 and the 128GB at $700. They’ll hit the market sometime in early 2011.
Reynaldo Dagsa, a local councilman in Manila, Philippines, was celebrating on New Year’s Eve with his family when he was shot in the chest and later died on the way to the hospital. His family later discovered that Dagsa had accidentally captured his killer on camera while taking a picture of his wife and daughter moments before he was shot.
The photo was handed over to police and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which published the photo on its front page. This resulted in the identification and arrest of the assassin, a suspected car thief named Michael Gonzales whose arrest was ordered by Dagsa last year. A lookout named Rommel Oliva was also captured on camera (seen to Gonzales’ right) and is being hunted by police.
Back in 2010 we featured an interesting documentary about what the life of Pete Souza — President Obama’s official photographer — is like. Now, here’s a look at a different kind of official photographer: the team photographer of an NBA basketball team. Layne Murdoch has been shooting sports for over 30 years, and is the official photographer of the New Orleans Hornets. In this video he provides an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into what his coveted job involves.
CES 2011 is still a couple days away, but camera gear announcements are already making their way out of Vegas, both intentionally or unintentionally on the part of the manufacturers. Engadget outed one of the soon-to-be-announced cameras, the Casio TRYX, after spotting massive advertisements outside a CES building. Apparently it’s a compact camera that sports two hinges — one on the frame and one on the display — that allow it to swivel in funky ways. Presumably the frame swiveling provides a simple stand, while the swiveling display could aid in self-portraits. See more of the shots over on this blog post.
