This May Be The Perfect DSLR Accessory [HoodCap]
I never use a lens cap with my DSLR. The reason? They are a nuisance. No matter how much in habit you are, there will be a time you will miss a good shot because the lens cap was on and it took some precious seconds to hastily remove it and stuff it in your bag. And sometime late, you will waste 15 minutes looking for where you kept it.
Also, I never use a hood. I know they reduce glare. But they are a problem themselves. They add vignetting for wide angle zooms. And, If they don’t, they don’t work at the highest zoom level! It also takes up precious space in your camera bag. Also, have you ever tried changing a filter with a hood on?
This Camera Captures It All
Ah, well, it doesn’t exactly capture every thing, but it definitely changes the way we take pictures. Ever cursed yourself after taking a picture that you didn’t focus it well? Here’s a camera which lets you focus a scene after taking a picture.
This new camera from Lytro (a Light Field Camera) captures “all the light” on a particular shot and gives you a luxury to tweak your focus point later. If you have to do this using your regular camera, you’d need a ton of those to focus at different focus points on the scene and grab that information to be stored in multiple layers. Definitely not as easily.
A 500mm Mega Zoom Lens For $35! [Psst: iPhone Only]
Want a 500mm mega telephoto lens without spending a bomb? Here is an option. It’s not high quality, it’s not optically stabilized but it does what it says! It maybe be a bit blurry, may have some vignetting but in the end you’re gonna upload it to Instagr.am where it’ll automagically look nice.
Flash Bulb Firing Off in Slow Motion Looks Wow
I’ve somehow always been intrigued by clips of Flash bulbs in movies. Remember how James Stewart used them in Rear Window? Or how they showed people stepping over used Flash bulbs lying down on floor in The Aviator?
This video beats them all. It shows a Flash Bulb firing, shot at 1052 Frames per second using a Phantom Camera. In slow motion. Wow. Just wow.
Crank up the Brightness to max.
[via CrunchGear]
Lexar Introduces 128 GB SD Card, Deleting Becomes History
Lexar has introduced 128 GB SD 133x SDXC Cards. The card is fast, fast enough for HD 1080p video. And of course, it’s stores more than hard drives in most netbooks these days. On a rough calculation you can store almost 60,000 10 Megapixel High Quality JPEG images on a card. If you only shoot still images, it’ll take a long long time before you fill up this card. It’ll set you back by $400, but that’s the price you need to pay for convenience. Official Press release ahead.
The Perfect MP3 Player For Canon Fanboys
This might look like the most ridiculous piece of gadget to a normal person. But for a Canon fanboy, this is a dream come true! A 1:1 replica of a Canon DSLR along with a >$1000 L Series glass that actually is a fully working MP3 player and speaker. The device can accepts input music from your PC, USB Devices or SD/MMC Cards and plays them through the built-in speaker or a standard 3.5mm headphone connector.
The only con, it’s almost as heavy as your DSLR. But I guess that’s intentional.
You can purchase it for $82.99 from Gadget4All.
How are Leica Cameras Created [Video]
Ever heard of Leica? You have if you ever read seriously about Photography. They are every Photographer’s dream. Here are some videos from Leica factory that shows them being assembled by hand.
If you haven’t heard of Leica, look at the recently launched Leica M9 Titanium first. Just FYI, it costs around $30,000.
Nikon Working on DSLR Lens with Electronic and Manual Zoom
According to a patent application filed by Nikon, they are working on a lens that has both manual and electronic zooming capabilities.
If you asked why do we need electronic zooming on DSLRs, then the answer is that this feature is primarily for the new cameras that also support video recording. Apparently handling a heavy DSLR and zooming the lens manually causes the body to shake beyond the control of the Vibration Control system of the lens. This along with constant auto-focusing causes really blurry video. And if you are trying to manually focus, don’t even think about handling two dials on your beefy camera in parallel. Having electronic zooming abilities will mean simple Point and Shoot like buttons on the camera body (or lens?) which will be easier to operate while you try to keep your camera steady.
Nikon launches budget prime lens with inbuilt focus motor
Good news for all the owners of Nikon D40/D40x/D60 series of cameras! Nikon has launched a 35mm f1.8 prime lens with focus motor built-in. This means it’ll auto-focus with your crippled cameras. The lens will be priced $199.95 tentatively.
Nikkor AF-S 35mm f1.8 prime
For simplicity, I’ll just list out the reasons why this is such a big news. Here you go:
- Prime lenses are known to be very sharp and fast (read great for low light situations). Every photographer worth his/her salt must have one. (Don’t ask me if I have one
) - At $200, it is the cheapest prime lens with motor available in the market. It is less than half the price of Sigma 30mm f1.4.
- At 200g, it is half the weight of Sigma 30mm f1.4.
- Earlier for this focal range the only option in prime lenses was Sigma f1.4, or maybe some Macro lenses. It gives you a choice!
That’s more than enough to sign me up. Time to save money!
Nikon announces new ultrazoom, I cry [Digital Cameras]
Nikon P90
The race continues. Nikon has unveiled Nikon P90, the new ultrazoom camera as a successor to the popular and average-reviewed Nikon P80. High, Super, Ultra, I am sorta worried they’ll run out of superlatives soon. Oh and if you didn’t get it, the race is to make the lenses zoom so much that you can peep through the window of your favorite astronaut (when she’s in space of course).
Pardon me for all the the ranting; it’s just that I recently switched to a DSLR with grossly unaffordable lenses.
The camera has a 24x (26 – 624) zoom lens! I just checked Amazon. This kind of telephoto lens will cost me over $1300 (Don’t even ask the Indian price) and weigh over 1 kg. If only I had that kind of money 
The other specs look great too – 12.1 Megapixel sensor, 3.0 inch tilting LCD and a burst mode running at 15 fps (5 times better than my DSLR!). It obviously has other regular stuff like full manual controls, vibration reduction and loads of picture and movie modes. Some cool ones being smile timer, blink warning and time-lapse movies. Oh and it allows you to go as close as 1 cm from your object and take gorgeous/weird (take your pick) macro shots. You don’t need another super expensive macro lens for that.
Nikon also mentions ISO sensitivity upto 6400 but I’d ignore that. Unless Nikon did something out of the world in the labs, the pictures will start sucking at ISO 800. This is one thing where DSLRs with there larger sensors are inherently better.
But all in all, this looks like a great camera for a launch price of $400. It really makes me wonder whether I made the right decision switching to a DSLR. If you’re looking for something cheaper Nikon also announced a budget model with a decent 15x zoom lens, Nikon L100 at $280.
Oh and about that zoom race, Nikon is still not at the top. Olympus already has a 26x ultrazoom in the market.
