Thom Hogan has some news from reliable sources regarding Nikon’s upcoming mirrorless announcement:
I’m pretty certain of the 1″ (~2.7x) sensor at this point, and since I can’t find anyone else making one that makes sense for the camera, I continue to wonder if this will be another Nikon designed sensor. That certainly would be an interesting development. As I noted last week, you don’t have to get very far forward from the D3100 sensor to get something that could be 10-12mp and highly credible at 2.7x.
I’ve now been told by three different sources it will launch before CES, probably in late September, and it’ll launch with three lenses (wide angle prime, kit zoom, telephoto zoom). The lenses are reportedly “quite small” in nature, along the lines of fat C-mount lenses.
I wonder if the camera would fit nicely in a pocket with a lens attached.
Shortly after startup lens maker Noktor went out of business, a company called SLR Magic decided to acquire the brand and continue the Noktor project. Now, the company is planning on launching a 50mm f/0.95 “HyperPrime” lens for the Leica M mount. It’ll be a 6-bit coded lens that’s significantly cheaper than the Noctilux lenses offered by Leica.
Filmmaker Philip Bloom recently helped Lucasfilm shoot parts of their upcoming film Red Tails. The behind-the-scenes video above gives an interesting glimpse into what it looks like when pretty ordinary DSLR gear meets the big budget world of Hollywood filmmaking. The cameras are hooked up to some pretty serious equipment.
You can check out a trailer for the movie here — Blooms says that a number of his shots can be seen in it, but is keeping mum about which ones.
dpreview forum member Jorginho created a couple side by side images showing the recently leaked Nikon mirrorless camera sensor next to other sensor sizes. It gives us a visual look at how big a 2.7x sensor actually is. Above, we see the Nikon sensor next to the tiny Pentax Q sensor, which has a crop factor of 5.7x. Read the rest of this entry »
After reading about the revolutionary “shoot first, focus later” Lytro camera that’s currently in development, Canadian fashion model Coco Rocha reached out to the company to ask if they could work with a prototype. The next week, Lytro sent photographer Eric Cheng with one of the prototype cameras to do a fashion shoot with Rocha. In addition to the photos from the shoot, Rocha also released a behind-the-scenes video. While the video mainly shows Rocha posing, we get a few very brief glimpses of Chen holding a blurred out camera. The camera is entirely obscured, but we do see that it’s relatively small (roughly the size of a P&S), and that you compose shots with a screen on the back.
sonyalpharumors published the above image today showing what appears to be a pre-production render of an upcoming Sony NEX camera (reportedly the NEX-7). If the image is to be believed, then it looks like Sony is gunning for the customers Fujifilm is trying to capture with its popular X100 — people who want a retro, rangefinder-style camera with a viewfinder and large sensor. The camera is rumored to have a 24MP APS-C sensor, an electronic viewfinder, manual aperture and shutter speed controls (like the X100), and a comparable price of $1,200.
Here’s an interesting trailer for Artists & Alchemists, a documentary film coming out later this year about the resurgence of 19th century chemical photography.
By following ten renowned photographers creating daguerreotypes, ferrotypes and wet plate collodion photographs, Artists & Alchemists documents the sacrifice and personal vision needed to revive these once forgotten art forms. [...] Artists & Alchemists investigates photography’s origins, technological evolution, and illustrates the profound impact in today’s world.
CAPA magazine over in Japan asked some professionals in the camera industry to speculate on the rumored Nikon D4 and D900 DSLR cameras, and came up with some concept drawings for what the cameras might look like based on the information gathered. Their imaginary Nikon D4 packs a full-frame 18MP sensor, ISO 51200, 11fps burst mode, a tilting LCD screen, built-in Wi-Fi, and a 51-point cross-type autofocus system. Read the rest of this entry »
We have a bit of a scoop for you today: there’s going to be a new Kickstarter-funded gadget announced on Thursday called the Triggertrap. It’s a pretty nifty universal camera trigger that can trigger your camera’s shutter with anything you can think of using a built-in intervalometer, a laser trigger, a sound sensor, and an Aux input that you can connect custom triggers to:
Think about it: You press your car horn, it takes a photo. Your phone rings, it takes a photo. The sun rises, it takes a photo. Anything is possible – and that’s why this camera trigger is so eminently hackable and exciting to experimental photographers all over the world!
