Imaging company Kodak has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. The news comes a little over a fortnight after the Wall Street Journal cites sources that said Kodak would file before the end of January. According to the filing, which was obtained by the folks over at the Verge, Kodak had $5.1 billion in assets and $6.75 billion in debt as of September 30th, 2011.

The company today revealed that it has obtained a $950 million debtor-in-possession credit facility with an 18-month maturity from Citigroup and expects to complete restructuring by 2013. Kodak has also called in Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell to advise in the restructuring. Dominic DiNapoli, Vice Chairman of FTI Consulting, has been named Chief Restructuring Officer. Read more…

Banking on consumers’ unending need for instant gratification, Samsung’s announced a line of four WiFi-enabled “Smart” cameras. Along with the previously announced DV300F DualView point-and-shoot and 21x zoom WB850F, the line-up (an apparent off-shoot of the SH100) allows for uploading to Facebook, Twitter and Picasa as well as e-mail and Auto PC Backup. The WB850F touts a 16 megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, 1080p video, GPS and simultaneous still and video capture. It will be available in April for $379. It’s little and less expensive brother, the WB150F sports a 14 megapixel sensor, 18x optical zoom, 1080p video recording and is slated to hit shelves sometime this month for $229. Rounding out the family, is the ST200F — available in three different colors with significantly scaled down specs (720p video, 16 megapixels and 10x optical zoom) — coming February for $199.

Fancy taking photos on the fly and then uploading them to your preferred list of social networks? Good thing, then, that Kodak has your best interests at heart. Announced at this year’s CES extravaganza, the company’s showing off two of its newest connected imaging devices — the Kodak Playfull Dual Camera and Easyshare M750. The compact Playfull has a 12MP camera capable of full HD 1080p video capture at 60fps, with an accompanying Xenon flash and a port for an external mic. But those specs aren’t the camera’s real draw — that’d be it’s built-in WiFi ability. Using the Share Button, users can instantly upload photos and video to YouTube, Kodak’s own Gallery, as well as Facebook. The company’s more traditional looking point-and-shoot refresh, the Easyshare M750, touts a 16MP module, 3-inch capacitive touchscreen, a RETINAR HD 5x zoom lens and a similar capability to share content wirelessly via an available network or through an installable app on iOS, Android and BlackBerry. When it launches later this spring it’ll retail for around $170 and come in a smattering of colors, like silver, teal blue and red. As for the Playfull, well, nothing’s quite been announced on it yet, but that could all very well change this week.

Amazon all but confirmed the camera’s existence when it leaked three lens pages yesterday, but Fujifilm just officially unveiled the X-Pro1 at CES, in all its rangefinder-esque goodness. The camera’s centerpiece is an APS-C sensor, but unlike the X100 and X10, Fujifilm’s new flagship includes an interchangeable lens mount. The camera can capture 16 megapixel stills, and will be compatible with three lenses at launch: an XF 18mm (27mm equivalent) f/2.0, 35mm (53mm equivalent) f/1.4 lens and a larger 60mm (91mm equivalent) f/2.4 macro lens, though the company says it plans to introduce nine more lenses within the next three years. Pricing hasn’t been announced for the camera or lenses, though yesterday’s Amazon link listed pricing at $500 for the first two lenses, and $600 for the 60mm macro. The camera itself will ship in late February, so you won’t need to wait long to get your hands on the first Fujifilm X-series ILC.

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Panasonic’s Lumix line is celebrating a whole bunch of new entries this week at CES. The FH series is expanding with two new slim additions, the DMC-FH6 and DMC-FH8. Both models do 720p video at 30 fps and rock Leica lenses and 5x optical zoom. The 16.1 megapixel FH8 has a three-inch LCD and shoots HD videos in MP4. The 14.1 megapixel F6 captures HD video in JPEG format and features a 2.7-inch display. Both new entries in the SZ series, meanwhile, feature 10x optical zoom, three-inch LCDs and 25mm ultra-wide angle Leica lenses. The SZ7 does 14.1 megapixel images and 1080p video, while the SZ1 goes 14.1 megapixels and 720p on the video front.

Also debuting this week is the LUMIX DMC-S2, a 14.1 megapixel compact shooter with 4x optical zoom and 720p video capabilities. The point-and-shoot also features Panasonic’s panoramic mode for stitching together images and auto retouch to adjust contrast and brightness in photos on the fly. As for pricing and availability? Not so much. Panasonic has promised such things a month prior to release — whenever that might be. Check out after the jump for more pictures of the new cameras.

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Well, well, have a look at what the proverbial internet cat dragged in. The image above comes to you via Japanese forum, giving us a pretty good idea of what is allegedly Fujifilm’s next interchangeable lens camera. Following in the footsteps of the retro-looking X10 and the X100, not much is known about the shooter’s specs, but we’d venture that it probably isn’t full-frame. Guess it won’t take too long to find out, as the grapevine also muses its proper reveal will happen at CES.

SOURCE via Photo Rumors

Native 4K recording? Check. A built-for-war body? You bet. Backordered despite a downright shocking $11,700 price tag? Most certainly. As with RED’s prior products, the Scarlet-X seems to be wowing just about every shooter lucky enough to come into contact with one. Luck for you, the folks over at Cinema5D have spent an inordinate of amount of time with this beast in order to deliver the full skinny on whether it’s worth the price (and wait). We won’t bother spoiling any conclusions for you, but if you’ve been toying with the idea of blowing your (and your SO’s) bonus on one of these in a bid to start your own movie house, there’s a vid just after the break that deserves your attention. Read more…

When it comes to camera, Samsung is definitely not the first brand that comes to our mind, not even in the point-and-shoot box. But they’re trying hard to fix that. Samsung is extending its “highly popular” DualView point-and-shoot line with a WiFi cam, launching the DV300F today. Yes, a camera with WiFi ability. Not surprised, as your TV and your fridges can now come with WiFi too, so why not your camera eh?

Consistent with previous models, this latest 16 megapixel snapper includes a 3-inch 460k-dot LCD on the rear, along with a 1.5-inch 61k-dot screen up front. Naturally, a front-facing screen makes self-portraits a snap, while also serving to entertain toddlers with things like an animated clown loop. As for that WiFi connectivity, the DV300F can upload pics directly to sharing sites like Facebook and Picasa, videos to YouTube or the full contents of your card to a PC using the Auto PC Backup function — there’s also a microSD slot for local storage.

The DV300F is expected to ship in March for $199.

Leave it to Leica to rebrand a recent Panasonic camera, tack on its iconic red dot and then likely charge a premium. Such is the case with its “new” V-Lux 3 digital superzoom, which is essentially its take on the venerable Lumix FZ150 we spent some hands-on time with back in August. To recap, this shooter features a 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, Leica’s DC Vario-Elmarit 4.5 – 108 mm f/2.8 – 5.2 ASPH lens (that’s 25 – 600mm for you full-frame buffs), 1080p AVC HD video recording at up to 60fps with stereo sound and an a77-like 12fps continuous burst mode (albeit using manual focus). On back, you’ll find an articulating 3-inch LCD loaded with a 460K pixel resolution and a 0.2-inch EVF, both of which feature nearly 100% frame coverage. While there’s no word price, you can surely expect the V-Lux 3 to cost a few Benjamins more than its Lumix counterpart when it hits shelves in January. Hey, at least you can say it’s a Leica, right?

Canon has more on the way from its newly launched EOS Movies lineup than just the C300, as shown by this new prototype DSLR. Promised to be “ideally suited for cinematographic and other digital high-resolution production applications” this camera packs a 35mm full frame image sensor capable of shooting Motion-JPEG encoded 4K video at 24fps. The press pics show it fitted with both EF 50 and new Cine 24 lenses, as Canon looks to blend the success of the 5D MK II with RED-rivaling video capabilities. The director of House shot an episode on that camera already and called it the future, which appears to be arriving sooner rather than later.

SOURCE via Engadget