Canon has just unveiled its C300 cinema camera at Hollywood’s Paramount Studios, in front of a crowd of hundreds of journalists and film industry elite, including Martin Scorsese. Canon is no stranger to the professional photography community, but it has yet to make a name for itself in Hollywood, where cameras such as the Arri Alexa and RED EPIC dominate the digital filmmaking world.
Remember the Lumix GF1? It was one of Panasonic’s first Micro Four Thirds cameras, setting the bar quite high for models to come. But the GF1′s successors — the GF2 and GF3 — did not live up to expectations, with the company gradually shifting the series towards transitioning point-and-shoot users, and away from early adopters who grew accustomed to the performance and build quality offered by that beloved early mirrorless cam. Now that familiar look and feel is back, in the form of the Lumix DMC-GX1.
The 16 megapixel ILC includes a Live MOS sensor and Venus engine, with a maximum ISO of 12,800. Like other Panasonic G-series cameras, the GX1 uses a Micro Four Thirds mount, and is compatible with both Panasonic and Olympus lenses, including the standard 14-42mm zoom that ships with the $800 kit, or the Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm retractable lens that comes packaged for $950. Existing lens owners can pick up just the body for $700.
What we really missed was the solid feel of the GF1, everything from the housing to the controls felt well-made, while the design of later GF models, was… underwhelming. Picking up the GX1 helped to restore our confidence in the series, it was a pleasure to hold. There’s quite a bit of power under the hood, too.
Panasonic promises autofocus speeds of 0.09 second — you can focus simply by touching your subject on the 3-inch, 460,000-dot touchscreen. There’s also an external EVF option, which attaches to the camera’s hot shoe and offers a 1.44 million-dot display with 100-percent field of view. Movie buffs can capture 1080/60i HD video, with either MP4 or AVCHD compression. It goes without saying that the GX1 can shoot in RAW, and offers the complete gamut of advanced shooting modes.
Do you shoot 3D photos? Nope, neither do we, but Panasonic certainly seems to hope that’ll change — perhaps even as soon as next month, when its Lumix 3D1 hits store shelves… for $500. And how much camera does half a grand buy you?
Well, for starters you get not one, but a pair of 25-100mm optical zoom lenses (30-120mm in 3D mode), pumping images to dual 12.1 megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensors. Two lenses and two sensors make this pocket wonder a natural at stereoscopic 3D video, but it can also pull some pretty clever tricks with still photos.
Sure, you can shoot full-res stills and 1080i video simultaneously, but those dual zoom lenses can operate independently as well, letting you snap pics and/or video at multiple focal lengths — capture a wide-angle shot with one lens and a close-up with the other, for example.
Beyond that, expect up to 8 fps burst at full resolution, a 3.5-inch touchscreen and “dramatically clear” low-light images, even at high-ISOs (according to Panasonic).
We already know the Canon 1D X is going to be the most epic DSLR ever—and fast as hell. But reading that is nothing compared to seeing the machine gun continuous shooting mode in action. And I tell you, pew pew pew isn’t fast enough!
Shown here at a demo event, the $6800 1D X’s 14 FPS mode blasts full 18 megapixel JPEGs with hell’s fury. That’s 112,000,000 pixels per second. And if you drop it down to 12 FPS, you can crank shots in RAW. The engineering allowing the thing to operate that quickly—and accurately—is stunning.
According to leaked details, the yet-to-be-announced new Nikon D800 DSLR will pack a whopping 36MP of image information onto your SD and CF cards.
Nikon Rumors reports that Japanese camera site, digicame-info posted specs of the new Nikon D800 on their site on September 29. Nikon Rumors was hesitant to post the information until they received additional information about the camera. They are now confident that the new Nikon will be called the D800 and will include a 36MP sensor.
The D800 is also rumored to shoot 1080p video at 30fps (yes!), shoot four frames-a-second bursts, sport a larger LCD display, and support both SD and CF cards. Nikon Rumors says that they cannot confirm the rest of specs on the Japanese site. Bad news is, the Nikon D800 is expected to put a $4000 hole in your bank account. Then again, that’s about $111 a megapixel. Oh well, photography is never cheap anyway.
Rumors of a Nikon mirrorless camera have been floating around the web since the middle of last year, and recent leaks have made us wonder not if the company would release a compact ILC — only when such an announcement would be made. Well, we finally have our answer. The company has finally announced not one, but a pair of compact “1 System” mirrorless cameras, and it seems totally fine with putting the focus speed up against the self-proclaimed champ.
The V1 and J1 share nearly identical specs, with the latter model sporting some fairly minor tweaks. Both ILCs include 10.1 megapixel CMOS sensors, HDMI / USB connectivity, a 1200fps slo-mo capture mode (!), 3-inch LCDs, 10fps shooting, high-res electronic viewfinders, and full HD (1080/30p) video capture — though 720/60p and 1080/60i modes are thrown in for good measure.
The J1 touts a built-in flash, auto-noise reduction on movie clips, a 73-point AF system, dual-core EXPEED processing engine, and a 29 minute cap on single movie files (far greater than the five minute ceiling on its earlier DSLRs), while the V1 boasts an EVF and supports an external flash, as well as a mechanical shutter, stereo microphone input, a “multi-accessory port” and a magnesium alloy chassis.
If you’re curious about details on those, well the initial list includes a 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 (kit lens), 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 ($249.95), 10mm f/2.8 ($249.95) and a 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 ($749.95), and a customized $149.95 Speedlight (SB-N5) flash will also be in tow. As for feature set? There’s a “Motion Snapshot” mode that snags stills as a video is rolling, and geotagging will be supported for those who opt for the $149.95 GP-N100 GPS hot-shoe accessory.
Furthermore, the company’s drilling home the “non-pro” theme with a gaggle of colorful straps and cases to match the rainbow’s worth of hues — white, pink, red, silver and black — that these guys will ship in.
The Nikon J1 and V1 will be available throughout the US starting October 20th, with the J1 + 10-30mm kit available for just $649.95. The V1, available with the same bundled piece of glass, will retail for $899.95.
Well, it looks like Canon won’t be the lone company making a big camera announcement on November 3rd. RED CEO Jim Jannard has now confirmed that it will also be officially announcing its “new” RED Scarlet camera on the very same day (no coincidence, it seems), at which point it will detail “all the changes” the company has made to it. Unfortunately, that’s about all the company is saying right now, although Jannard promises that “when we announce the changes, we will be ready to ship.”
The Canon S95 has always been one of my favourite point ‘n’ shoot cameras. So when Canon announced the successor to the S95 over the long weekend, the gear head in me couldn’t help jumping up and down with joy. Gone is the piddly CCD sensor and in its place lies a 12.1MP CMOS sensor with the bran new DIGIC 5 image processor. The S100 also has a f/2.0 lens for great low light shooting and depth of field as well as a GPS receiver for embedding metadata. Shooting at a top ISO of 6400, I wonder how well the new sensor/processor handles noise in low light. So has Canon got the new King of the Compacts in the S100? Or are cameras like the Olympus XZ-1 and the LX-5 staying strong? Two more shots of the S100 after the break.
With point and shoot cameras apparently now up against a megapixel wall, manufacturers are focusing on adding quirky new features to keep you hooked on the upgrade cycle. Sony’s new Cyber-shot TX55 includes several such additions, such as ‘amazing’ 3D image capture, ‘extremely low’ noise, and a new digital zoom technology called By Pixel Super Resolution, which promises to double the camera’s 5x optical zoom range while still capturing 16.2-megapixel images at full quality. We’re a bit skeptical about that last one, but if the $350 camera really can deliver on its promise, then we may just have a winner. Read more…
These days nearly all digital cameras can shoot video, but only a small handful give you the power to manually select aperture and shutter speed while doing so. The Lumix FZ47 is Panasonic’s latest high-end point-and-shoot to sport this functionality, providing full control over both video and still photo capture with its Creative Control mode.
The 12.1-megapixel superzoom can shoot 1080i HD at 30 fps, though it’s notably lacking in the 1080p department. There’s also a 3-inch LCD, 24x Leica zoom lens with a 25mm wide-angle focal length, and an option to shoot 3.5-megapixel stills while recording video.
For photographers willing to settle for a good deal less power, Panasonic also just announced its entry-level Lumix LS5, which includes a 14.1-megapixel sensor, optical image stabilization, and 720p video, all powered by a pair of AA batteries. The $400 FZ47 will ship next month, while the LS5 hits stores in November, with pricing yet to be announced.
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