The Zero Angle Digital Camera is a conceptual design by Sun ho Sin and Jeong eun Park that protects sensitive components by hiding them when not in use.

The clamshell design allows to camera to be stored and carried safely without a dedicated camera case, keeping your LCD safe from scratches and bumps.

The design is reminiscent of a flip phone, except instead of flipping the camera “open”, one half of the camera is swung all the way around to provide the LCD screen for what resembles a traditional point-and-shoot camera.

What would be even more awesome would be if the camera was completely sealed when closed, protecting it completely from things like water, sand, and dirt.

The idea seems simple enough. Perhaps we’ll see this design in a real camera sometime in the near future. What do you think of this concept?

(via Yanko Design)

Underwater housing units for DSLR bodies can cost upwards of $1499 at most distributors. Waterproof cases for point-and-shoots already average $150. But this year, a major trend in most camera companies is the point-and-shoot designed for underwater use and toss-around durability at a competitive cost.

Around the show at PMA 2010, almost every major point-and-shoot manufacturer had a new array of cameras ready for surf, sand, snow and hard falls.

Here’s a sampling:

Olympus

Scott Hennessey and the crew at Olympus let me shoot around the booth with a prototype of the Olympus Stylus Tough 8010, which is due for release this March for about $399.

This camera was particularly noteworthy because as far as I could tell, it’s got the ability to remain watertight up to 33 feet underwater, while most other brands ranged between 10-16 feet.

It is also shockproof for a drop up to 6.6. feet, freezeproof at 14 degrees Fahrenheit, and crushproof (LCD and all), able to withstand up to 220 pounds of pressure; it will take a lot to kill this camera.

And standard for a lot of point-and-shoots, this camera shoots 14 megapixel stills and  720p movies.

I took a few images with the Tough 8010 in the water at the Olympus booth. The first one is of the other Olympus waterproof camera, the Stylus Tough 3000 which is a bit more standard, waterproof up to 10 feet and shockproof to 5 feet and a price tag of $229:

Samsung

Samsung’s AQ100 waterproof camera looks pretty fresh, available in black, aqua blue, and red. It’s slim with a 0.78 inch thickness, and will sell for about $199 this spring.

Sony

Sony’s stylish Cybershot TX5 has one of the cleanest designs for a shockproof (5 ft), waterproof (10ft) and freezeproof (14 F) camera. It’s also dust-resistant and has a touchscreen.

Casio

The Casio Exilim EX-G1 is also pretty heavy duty, surviving falls of up to seven feet. It’s also waterproof to 10 ft, dustproof, and freeze proof to 14 F. It’s also got software built in for easy uploads to YouTube.

Other Waterproof and Durability Gear

Also at the show, several companies, such as Delkin Devices, showed off their new accessories to compliment waterproof, durable cameras.

The Delkin Devices Jellyfish is basically a pouch for a small point and shoot, coupled with a floating ball. It’s simple, with a little fun: the flotation device includes a little bottle opener.

For more practical use, Delkin has also released a super durable CF card called the Combat Flash:

The Combat Flash capacity ranges from 4GB to 32 GB, and boasts a fast transfer speed at 91 mb/s, 625 x. It has sealed components to protect from moisture or submersion, can last at an altitude of 80,000 feet, and can withstand temperatures from -58 degrees F to 212 degrees F. It can also handle most shock and gunfire vibration.

Prices range from $84 – $329.

No word yet on whether they’re developing an SD version (obviously, durability works much better with CF cards), but they do have a shock and weatherproof tote for 8 SD cards:

Samsung recently announced five new digital cameras due for release sometime in February. Two of these cameras, the ST60 and ST70, have a pretty interesting and unique digital effect mode called DeFog Clear/Fog Lifting that the company claims “cuts through the haze to take clear photos”.

While there’s no sample images or additional information on how this fog-elimination is done, our guess is that rather than utilizing some super-sophisticated technological mojo, the camera will simply increase blacks, contrast, and clarity, much like we’ve done in this example:

This is pretty relevant to the poll, “Should Digital Cameras Go the Way of Cell Phones?“, we just posted today. If digital cameras were like the iPhone or Android OS, a developer could make this “fog-killing” feature really easily without it being announced as a special feature by a camera maker.

(via Photo Rumors)

Image credit: Lonely Birthday by cindy47452

In this post I’ll briefly explain how to take photographs like this one.

Just like my previous post on shooting sprinklers, this isn’t exactly the most practical of tutorials. Sorry.

All you need is a small point and shoot camera with an attached wrist-strap. For the examples in this post, I used a Sony DSC-P200:

You’ll need to be able to control the shutter speed of the camera. Most point-and-shoots should have some way for you to do this. Take a look at your instruction manual if you’re not sure how to. For my point-and-shoot, I can control the shutter speed by shooting in manual mode:

Choose how long you want the shutter to stay open for. I set shutter speed at 30 seconds for the examples in this post, which is the maximum the camera allows.

Once you’ve chosen your shutter speed, find a dark place (you’ll probably want to do this at night), press the shutter, hold the camera by the strap, and start swinging your camera around like a madman. Make sure your strap is sturdy so that your camera won’t accidentally fly off of it.

Afterwards, you might have overexposed your image if you kept the shutter open too long with too much light.

A little Photoshopping can help you get the look you want:

Things to experiment with for interesting results:

• Location
• Shutter speed
• Color of the lights around you
• How you swing the camera

Good luck!