Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
How serious are you about shooting video with your iPhone? If you’re big time into iPhone video, then you might want to take a look at the Steadicam Smoothee from Tiffen.
This Steadicam is designed specifically for the iPhone and includes a customized mount for it. The Smoothee should help keep your iPhone videos a little less shaky. No word on pricing yet though.
Get the full rundown in the press release below. [Read more…]
Adorama has announced a contest for iPhone Apps and iPhone photography. Adorama will be handing out awards for photo apps and photos taken with iPhones.
Check it out at contest.adorama.com and get more details in the press release below. [Read more…]
Olympus has released a firmware update for the E-P1. Firmware version 1.2 adds the following functionality:
The firmware can be updated through the Olympus Master or Studio software.
[via Olympus.co.jp]
DxO Labs has updated DxO Optics Pro to version 5.3.7 for the Mac. The update adds support for the Canon S90 and adds stability for Snow Leopard users and other improvements. You can find out more on the DxO Labs website.
Canon’s Instant Rebate program for DSLRs and lenses, which has been running for a few months, is set to expire on Saturday, January 16, 2010. For more details on which products are currently discounted, hit the links below.
The Canon BG-E6 battery grip serves a couple of different purposes for the 5D Mark II. As the name implies, it holds batteries – either two LP-E6 lithium-ion batteries or 6 AA batteries in the included battery holder. Likewise, the BG-E6 serves as a grip for handling the camera in portrait orientation, featuring controls for the shutter release, scroll wheel, and focus point adjustments, among others.
The BG-E6 is a nice accessory to have; however, it runs $250. For some, that’s a little steep for a battery grip. Third party grips are much more affordable at less than $100, but are they worth the compromise? This question comes up on forums quite a bit and finds its way in my inbox now and then.
In this little exercise, we are going to take a look at the Canon BG-E6 grip and see how a couple of third party grips from Vivitar and Zeikos stack up against it.
[UPDATE: I’ve supplemented this review with a review of the Vello BG-C2 and BG-C4 grips for the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.]
While Sony released a ridiculous number of point and shoot cameras at CES 2010, a couple of the standout Cyber-shot cameras are the HX5V and the TX7. I spent a little while at Sony’s booth with both of these cameras and came away with an overall positive first impression. [Read more…]
This video of the Canon 1D Mark IV firing at 10 frames per second is mostly pointless; however, I still find myself watching it over and over thanks to the gadget nut in me.
Looks a little grainy, doesn’t it? That’s because it was shot at ISO 25600 on a Nikon D3S. A single overhead tungsten bulb supplied the light.
Stay tuned for more serious content on both of these new work horses. In the mean time, watch the video again. ;-)
The SDXC card specification has been announced for more than a year now. However, it’s only now that we are starting to see products supporting this new specification. There are a few important things to note about SDXC cards and how they fit into photographers’ gear bags.
The SDXC specification comes from the SD Association, which is an industry standards organization founded by Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba in 2000. If a manufacturer is going to use SD technology in product, they have to license the right to use that technology from the SD Association. Most, if not all, of the major camera manufacturers are members of the SD Association and license the patents and other intellectual property necessary for developing SD-compatible cameras and memory cards.
There are a number of different specifications that the SD Association has developed over the past decade, including SD, miniSD, microSD, SDHC, miniSDHC, microSDHC and SDXC, among others. Each specification has its own limitations or capabilities. For instance, the original SD specification offered storage only up to 2GB. When SDHC came along, it took the capacity up to 32GB. The latest specification, SDXC, offers storage capacities up to 2TB. [Read more…]
Polaroid film died a while back, but then was reborn with plans to re-release the old instant film cameras and the famous Color 600 instant film. We got our first sneak peek at what the new Polaroid film cameras will look like when they hit the storefronts later this year. It looks like Polaroid will be offering some unique finishes for the new instant shooter, including a wood-grain finish as shown in the mockup above. The new camera will be called the PIC 1000 and should cost less than $100. [Read more…]