camera

Tech Gear of the Year

Chris Dannen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:30:19 -0500

Smartphones, flat-screens, robots, green tech: We wade through it all to ID the coolest innovations, including Sony's absurdly svelte, impressively vibrant XEL01 TV screen and the newly customizable Flip Mino video camera.

Samsung's 8MP Touchscreen Phone Coming

Chris Dannen — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:18:31 -0400

With Nokia [NOK] announcing their "Tube" touchscreen phone this week, it seems like Samsung [SEO:005930] got a little jealous and decided to let a few details about their Pixon cameraphone slip. The touchscreen phone will feature a massive 8MP digicam, and Samsung is branding it as a phone for the photographic connoisseur. The camera will have auto focus, a twin-LED flash, face recognition functionality and image stabilization.

New Canon DSLR Can Shoot 1080p Video

Chris Dannen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:50:32 -0400

Small point-and-shoot digicams have had the ability to shoot short videos for a while, but digital SLRs are just catching up. Recently Nikon [TYO:7731] announced its new D90 DSLR, which came with an HD movie mode that shot in 720p. But Canon [CAJ] has one-upped their pro-level rival with the latest EOS 5D Mark II, which sports a full-frame CMOS sensor and adds a full 1080p movie mode that can shoot at 30 frames per second.

Casio Announces Fast-Rate Camera

Chris Dannen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:16:43 -0400

This isn't Casio's [CSIOF] first super-fast frame rate camera, but it's the more economical of the two that the company now offers. The EX-FH20 is a compact and light version of its bigger brother, the EX-F1. The still shooter captures images at 9MP, but can double as a pretty capable video cam in a pinch. It shoots video at 720p and records at a rate that Casio says exceeds 1000 frames per second. In still burst mode, it can shoot 40 frames per second.

Samsung Attempts Purchase of SanDisk

Chris Dannen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:50:16 -0400

Samsung [005930] had a few billion laying around, so the company decided today to make an unsolicited offer to purchase Flash memory maker SanDisk [SNDK]. In what was apparently an attempt to broaden its influence as the second-largest chipmaker in the world, and perhaps to expand its growing solid-state memory offerings, Samsung bid $26 in cash for the company, or a total of $5.85 billion. That represents a margin of 93% higher than the company's share price the day on September 4th, a day before Samsung expressed industry. SNDK's share price responded by jumping 56% after hours today.

RED Preparing a Pro DSLR

Chris Dannen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:57:09 -0400

RED has already turned the movie industry upside-down with its high-quality, economical digital movie camera, beloved by Peter Jackson and other top-tier directors. Now the company appears to be taking on Canon [NYSE:CAJ] and Nikon [TYO:7731] with a so-called "DSLR replacement" camera that should be released by late '09.

New Canon 5D Specs Leaked

Chris Dannen — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:36:09 -0400

Canon [NYSE:CAJ] is reportedly refreshing their 5D digital SLR with a new version called the 5D Mk II, which may arrive as soon as September at the Photokina show. CanonRumors is spreading word that they've gotten leaked specs for the 5D Mk II, which their sources say will feature a full-frame, 21.1MP sensor, DIGIC IV, and even a movie mode that can shoot in HD.

Sandisk Intros New SDHC Cards

Chris Dannen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:36:08 -0400

Sandisk [NASDAQ:SNDK] has a nifty little technology called Extreme III that the company says improves speed and reliability in its data storage cards. The only problem with Extreme III, until this week, was that it wasn't present in the company's high end SDHC cards. Sandisk has finally ameliorated this caveat with a new group of cards that can achieve 30MBps read and write data speeds, which is about 50% faster than the old cards, according to Sandisk press materials.

Canon Planning Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cameras?

Chris Dannen — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:39:56 -0400

In the spring, rumors of fuel cell company MTI Micro working with a Japanese camera company got a lot of technophiles hot and bothered, and now it seems that the company in question might be Canon [NYSE:CAJ]. How do we know? Canon has filed a patent for a fuel cell-powered digital SLR. According to the verbiage of the patent: "The present invention related to an electronic equipment system having fuel cells, and more particularly, to a camera system in which fuel cells are provided to a camera body and a connection device connected to the camera body."

Casio Announces Large-Screen Digicams

Chris Dannen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:20:21 -0400

Canon Updates Entry-Level Digital SLR

Chris Dannen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:10:02 -0400

Polaroid and the Slow Death of Instant Photography

Adam Hanft — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:31:25 -0400

Having abandoned the camera business a year ago, Polaroid announced that it is now fleeing the film business as well. The final, symbolic demise of the once mind-blowing technology comes as no surprise, given that digital imaging is as ubiquitious as Starbucks locations or screenplays by