Samsung is releasing a new hybrid digital camera system sometime in early January of next year called the NX Series. The idea is that the new series would combine the advantages of DSLR and point-and-shoot cameras. Before we go into some details, here are a couple photographs of the actual camera that were posted to dpreview’s forums.

The camera has the form of a DSLR, but uses an electronic viewfinder, allowing them to remove the traditional mirror system in DSLRs to make the camera smaller and lighter (and probably virtually silent). Though it has the portability of point-and-shoot cameras, it still offers a DSLR-style sensor for higher quality images, and an interchangeable lens system.

The decreased distance between the lens and sensor allows the system to use lens designs that traditional SLR/DSLR cameras could not support (similar to the crop sensor lenses of Canon/Nikon). Here are a couple photographs of the 30mm f/2.0 “pancake” lens that were posted to the k-rumors forums.

If that’s not a “compact” lens, I don’t know what is.

Though DSLR enthusiasts might not be too enthusiastic about the electronic viewfinder, the portability is something that will likely be a hit among people who would like to do DSLR style photography but don’t want to lug around bulky equipment. The company estimates that the hybrid digital camera market will have a 20% market share by 2012.

What are your thoughts regarding the NX Series?

(via Photo Rumors)

Image credits: Camera body images from dpreview, lens images from k-rumors.

At CES 2010 next year, photography automation company Ortery will unveil the Photosimile 5000, a device that they claim is the “next generation imaging device for the office.” Essentially it’s like a copier, except for stock/product photography. You can simply walk up to the machine, place what you’d like to photograph inside, adjust a few settings on the parameter, and walk away with a professional looking product photograph. The computer-operated system automatically adjusts lighting to remove shadows, and takes care of handling white balance.

This isn’t exactly news for photographers, but it’s interesting to see the landscape of what’s out there and what’s to come.

(via The Imaging Resource)

Update: This giveaway has ended. The winner was randomly selected and announced here.

Hello all you awesome readers out there! To celebrate this Christmas season, we’re going to be giving away a Lensbaby Composer lens + a Creative Aperture Kit (a $280 value).

To enter, all you need to do is answer the following question:

What’s the first item on your wishlist for Santa?

There are two ways to send your answer to us, and if you use both ways you will receive two entries in this contest:

1. Leave your response as a comment (on this PetaPixel.com post)
2. Tweet your response, and include the following link to this post anywhere in the tweet: http://j.mp/ppchstms

   If the link appears in your tweet, then the elf Santa loaned us will automatically find it and count it as an entry. If you don’t include the link, then the elf won’t be able to find it and it won’t be counted.

We’ll be picking a winner randomly on Christmas morning – December 25th, 2009. Good luck!

Here’s yet another interesting camera accessory that might make a good present this Christmas season.

Back in April of 2007, Udi Tirosh over at DIYPhotography wrote an article describing how to customize your bokeh using a paper cutout in front of your lens. That do-it-yourself project was so successful that Udi has now turned it into a camera accessory you can purchase. Behold, the Bokeh Masters Kit:

Using the “Bokehtinator” in the kit, you can change the way light enters the lens, giving your bokeh (out of focus light points) creative shapes. Here are some example photographs with custom bokeh:

The full kit costs $25, and comes with both pre-cut and uncut disks that you can place in the disk holder. The uncut disks allow you to create truly custom shapes by cutting them out yourself using an exacto-knife.

We’ll be giving away two of these kits in early January 2010, see stay tuned for that. We wish Udi the best of luck on this new venture!

Bokeh Masters Kit (via DIYPhotography)

Here’s a little DSLR accessory that might be a great Christmas present for a photographer you know. The Aputure Gigtube is a “remote viewfinder” that allows you to use the “live view” functionality of your camera off-camera. You can either mount it on your hot-shoe, or use it separately as a remote shutter release.

This off-camera view allows you to use you to compose shots in situations that you previously had to guess in. For example, you could have your camera high above you head on a monopod, yet still compose your photo using the off-camera live view. It’s also great for self-portraits and for shooting video, since the LCD swivels like the detachable LCD screens in point-and-shoot cameras.

The Aputure Gigtube is currently priced between $189-$190, and can be found for pretty much any Canon or Nikon camera that supports Live View.

Aputure Gigtube on Amazon (via Imaging Insider)

Keep your eyes peeled for a DSLR camera with a touchscreen interface by Canon sometime in the near future. Photography Bay is reporting that Canon filed a patent in April 2009 containing images that seem to clearly depict a touchscreen interface.

Rather than describe functionality general to touchscreen interfaces, the 13 page patent describes a method for preventing accidental touches on the screen. After registering which eye you use for the viewfinder, the camera will detect when your eye is at the viewfinder, and will disable one side of the touchscreen to prevent the contact from your face from being registered as touches.

The patent also mentions that you can control aperture and shutter speed by sliding your finger vertically and horizontally, respectively. However, I’m not exactly sure how this is superior to current methods of adjusting these settings, since the physical dial seems to work just fine.

I couldn’t find the actual patent that Photography Bay cites (US Patent Application No. 12/422,695), but if anyone can post a link to the patent in the comments you’ll get kudos from us. We’ll update this post with a link. (Update: See link below)

What are your thoughts? Would you buy a touchscreen DSLR? Do you see any advantages or disadvantages?

(via Photography Bay)

Update: Eugene (@eugenephotoblog) spent two hours searching and finally found the patent. Mega kudos to Eugene!

You can check out the patent here.

Yesterday Canon announced the Canon 7D, attempting to “redefine the mid-range DSLR category”. My first thought after hearing that it’s a crop-frame camera was, “Is it the older brother of the 50D and the younger brother of the 5D Mark II?”. Turns out it’s neither, but is instead something that definitely belongs in the high-end lineup and a camera that 5D shooters can switch to without “downgrading”.

So what’s so special about this new camera? Why was it grouped with the single digit, high-end cameras rather than the prosumer ones like the 50D?

Crop vs. Speed vs. Quality

The 7D actually fills a hole in the high-end lineup that existed before it was introduced. For the Canon’s flagship cameras, they’ve offered a choice between crop factor and speed since 2002. The 1Ds line is full frame, but shoots “only” 4 frames per second. The 1D line has a 1.28x crop factor, but shoots a whopping 10 frames per second. This is good for sports photographers in two ways:

First, the crop factor gives the photographer “extra zoom” great for sports, where you’re usually somewhat far away from the action. If you’re using a 300mm telephoto, the 1.28x means you’re essentially using a 300×1.28=384mm lens. Second, sports photography is all about capturing quantity and selecting the best images and the higher frames per second helps in this.

Back in high school when I played on the tennis team, it would always be an interesting experience when the local newspaper’s photographer came and photographed us as if he was using a machine gun rather than a camera. The action in sports is unpredictable, so a higher number of frames per second makes it more likely you’ll end up with a good sports shot.

In terms of resolution, the 7D boasts 18 megapixels, less than the 5D MkII’s 21.1, but a step up from the 50D’s 15.1. The lower megapixels than the full-frame 5D is to be expected (1D’s 10.1mp vs. 1Ds’s 21.1), and will make transfer times between the camera and the memory card faster, which is yet another plus for sports photogs.

Prior to the 7D, the high-end category that the 5D line occupied was missing its equivalent of the 1D — a camera of similar quality, but non-full frame and offering a higher frames per second. By offering the 7D, there now exists a “5D for sports photographers”.

Autofocus

The 7D has a whopping 19 autofocus points… That dwarfs the 9 user AF points of the 5D Mark II. Again, this a great for sports photographers.

My guess is that the next DSLR in the 50D line will still have 9 points, while the next version of the 5D will get bumped up.

RAW/JPEG Toggle Button

An interesting feature Canon decided to include in the 7D is the new RAW/JPEG toggle button located on the back of the camera above the LCD screen.

This allows you to capture the next frame as RAW+JPEG, regardless of which format you’re currently shooting in. Say you usually shoot JPEG, but occasionally come across something you’d like to have a RAW version of as well. Instead of changing back and forth in the menu system, you can use the new button to selectively shoot in both formats whenever you feel like it.

Viewfinder

The 7D also improves on the 5D Mark II in its viewfinder frame coverage. It boasts a 100% frame coverage, the same as the 1D and 1Ds lines, and more than the 98% offered by the 5DMk2. In comparison, the 50D line only has about a 95% coverage. This means that the camera actually photographs 5% more than what you see through the viewfinder.

With the 7D, what you see through the viewfinder is what you get in your photograph.

Transmitter

The 7D also contains a built in Speedlite transmitter in its built-in pop-up flash. This allows you to control off-camera Speedlites without purchasing a separate transmitter that could cost a couple hundred bucks.

Price

When the 5DMk2 was released, the estimated retail price was set at $2,699. The 7D will be released at a much lower price point (to be expected for a crop sensor, right?) of $1,699, putting it in the range of 50D series photographers.

Additional

Another thing that separates the 7D from the 50D line and makes it similar to the 5D is the HD video recording capabilities. High-definition video is appearing more and more in newer DSLRs. Perhaps it will become a lower-end feature before long…

Many of the other features of the 7D are the same or similar to the 50D and 5DMk2. You can view a simple comparison table of Canon’s entire DSLR lineup on Wikipedia.

Conclusion

The 7D announcement is definitely exciting news, and gives both something easier for users of the 50D line to jump up to, and something existing 5D line users can switch to if they prefer something like sports photography, but don’t want to downgrade in quality.

I think the 7D is a camera that could have been easily predicted by studying Canon’s lineup and groupings.

What’s next? A cheaper prosumer full frame? That would surely set the bar.

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner has been randomly selected and announced here. Thanks for entering everyone!

If you follow us on twitter (@petapixel), you might have heard already, but we just passed 10,000 followers. Huzzah!

This blog is about four months old, so I’m definitely surprised at how far it has come in just one summer. Thank you all for reading and following us on Twitter.

To celebrate this big milestone, I’m going to be giving away a Lensbaby Composer lens and a Creative Aperture Kit. This combined package is worth $280. I probably don’t need to tell you much more about this lens. It’s Lensbaby.

To enter this giveaway, simply answer the following question:

What is your favorite childhood memory?

As usual, there’s two ways to enter, and you can use both ways to double your chances.

1. Leave your response as a comment on this PetaPixel.com post
2. Tweet your response, and include the following link to this post anywhere in the tweet: http://bit.ly/pplbby

   If the link appears in your tweet, then our little giveaway elf will automatically find it and count it as an entry. If you don’t include the link, then our elf won’t be able to find it and it won’t be counted.

The deadline for getting your answer to us is the evening of Saturday, September 5th, 2009. We’ll be randomly selecting an entry using random.org.

Good luck!

Update: Some of you have been asking whether people outside the United States can enter. The answer is yes. The lens can be shipped internationally. Good luck!

Disclosure: Lensbaby is currently a sponsor of PetaPixel.

Here’s a useful resource I found a while back that many of you might find helpful. SLRGear.com is a website that conducts comprehensive tests on camera lenses, and publishes them in the form of diagrams and illustrations.

One of the features my friends and I have found most useful is the blur index illustration that it provides. This interactive chart helps you find the “sweet spot” for your lens, showing you where the lens is sharpest as you choose a specific focal length and aperture.

From the screenshot above of the Canon 24-70mm blur index chart, you can see that there is a sizable “sweet spot” of sharpness in the center of the frame at 35mm f/2.8. As you move towards the outer edges of the frame, there is less sharpness and more blur. Most of the time you will find that lenses have the largest sweet spot at f/4.0 to f/5.6. If you increase the f-number beyond that, you start losing sharpness again.

This article is the second part of the previous article titled “Pro Camera Gear on a Student Budget“, and contains some advice for what you should do once you find a good deal and have arranged a meeting with the seller. I personally consider purchasing used gear on craigslist to be a much better route than other services (i.e. eBay), since you can check out the gear personally and walk away from the deal if anything doesn’t seem right. Here are the tips:

Know What to Look Out For

Just as you need to know a good price on a piece of gear from a bad one, you need to be able to distinguish something that looks and works like it should from something that doesn’t. I’ll be covering some specific things on what you should look for, but bring along a photographer friend if you haven’t used the kind of gear you’re buying before.

Check the Camera’s Sensor

The sensor on a DSLR is what captures the image you photograph. You don’t want to buy a camera and then later find out that the sensor is scratched or damaged in some way, since this might affect the quality of all of your photographs. Different cameras let you examine the sensor in different ways, so be sure to know how to check the sensor on the camera you’re looking at before going to the meeting. Just taking off the lens won’t expose the camera’s sensor, since it’s naturally hidden behind both the mirror and the shutter curtain. You’ll have to use the feature of the camera that locks up the mirror and opens the shutter curtain in order to see the sensor.

Ask How Many Actuations the Camera Has

Cameras are like cars, and mileage matters. Each camera has a “life expectancy” for how many actuations, or shots, the shutter system is expected to be able to handle before it fails and needs to be replaced (which is expensive). A camera is generally in pretty new condition if it has less than 10,000 actuations, and very used if it has more than 50,000 or 100,000 actuations (since many cameras are only rated for this many). Research your specific model to see how many actuations the manufacturer rated the camera for. Since for most cameras there isn’t an easy way to verify the actuation count with certainty, the figure is meant to give you an idea of how used the camera is, and how much life you might still get out of it.

How to Tell if A Camera is More Used than the Owner Claims

From personal experience, the best indicator for how much use a camera has seen is the strap attached to the camera. If the owner claims that the camera has barely been used, but the strap is worn and faded, then a warning bell in your head should go off. Gentle and minimal use won’t wear down a strap much.

Other areas you can check for wear are the external flash hot shoe and the LCD screen. On certain camera models, the hot shoe has a black paint coating that slowly rubs off every time an external flash is attached or removed. If the hot shoe is used and worn, then the camera probably is too. Newer LCD screens also will appear smooth, and lack the hairline scratches that appear over time. A flawless LCD screen does not prove the camera is in new condition, but one with many small scratches indicates the opposite.

Check the Front and Back Elements of the Lens

If you’re buying a lens, take off both lens caps and hold the camera up to the light. Make sure theres no scratches or other imperfections in the glass on either side of the lens.

Ask the Seller to Pose for Portraits

The benefits of this are two-fold. First, this allows you to test the sharpness of the lens. Focus on the seller’s eyes with the lens wide open, and check whether the eyes are sharp. This also gives you an opportunity to have a photograph of what the seller looks like, as an extra precaution. Honest sellers might even be more than willing to let you copy down their contact information from their drivers license, as I’ve experienced a few times.

Test for Front and Back Focusing

Make sure the seller isn’t selling the lens because it focuses incorrectly. You can do this by focus testing the lens at the meeting. If you don’t want to bring something specifically to use for testing the focus, learn to do focus testing quickly on any sheet of paper with text on it.

Tips for Meeting the Seller

Try to meet during the day, since it’s both safer, and easier to examine and test camera equipment. Sufficient light will help you to more easily test the quality and sharpness of photographs. Of course, there’s always the general craigslist tips for being a “safe buyer”. Meet sellers in person at a public location, and with another person if possible. I’ve found that meeting in a coffee shop at noon generally works very well. I’ve even managed to make the process very quick and painless, since many times sellers will agree to meet me at the coffee shop just down the block from where I live.

In Conclusion

The things I shared in this article were certain things I picked up through the past few years of doing gear transactions through craigslist. It’s definitely not a comprehensive list of what to be wary of, and you should examine all the normal functions of the equipment to ensure that they’re working flawlessly. If there are other important things that I failed to include, please leave a comment and share!