DSLR News

New sensor size from Nikon - the MX?

This is a pretty big rumour - NikonRumours are suggesting (with the help of a grainy shot from a mobile phone) that Nikon have developed a new sensor size to fit alongside the FX and the DX - the MX. At 48mm x 48mm, this square old-school medium format-style sensor will have a massive 48 megapixels.... digital range-finder, anyone? Wired reckon that this fits with Nikon's recent developments - less pixels mean less noise (as in the relatviely low-specced D3) so to get more pixels, Nikon have gone with a larger sensor... According to a source who wished to remain anonymous over at NikonWatch.com, the new camera will be backward compatible with DX and FX lenses using a mount adaptor.

DX = 1.5x (Half frame) FX = 1.0x (Full frame) MX = 0.5x

And such a hi-tech camera wouldn't want you to strain yourself rotating it for portrait mode - the camera will change format automatically. Best of all? It's going to be cheap, apparently. Nowhere near the �20,000 you'd need to fork out for a Hasselblad. This is chuffing exciting. And what a day for this Nikon rumour to start up - the day of the announcement of a new EOS... looks like there's life in the old Canon vs Nikon battle yet! Nikon readying Medium Format? @ Wired.com Anonymous tipster reveals all at NikonWatch.com Get up to speed @ NikonRumors.com

Canon tease us with ad for new camera...

HRNK! Canon have released this sneaky partial silhouette of what we're presuming is the replacement to the 5D... It better had be the replacement - this is going to be one hell of a camera. Go and have a look and have a guess for yourself... Moon @ Canon.com

New Sony DSLR on Sept 10th? New Panasonic on Sept 12th?

So rumour would have it - sources at PCWorld (not the computer store) have been suggesting that we'll see the new Sony next week - and then we'll see the new Panasonic a couple of days later, on the 12th. Both are apparently going to be announced in Tokyo and even the whisper of a suggestion that this rumour might be true has me jumping up and down with excitement. A full-frame Sony? Whoop! But what exciting new features will they have? the last new DSLR to be announced was Nikon's D90, which can shoot video... Full Story @ PCWorld

RED 'Monstro' DSLR?

If the words in this news item's title mean nothing to you (apart from the third one, obviously) then you're in good company - I had no idea about this system until about ten minutes ago, but it seems that they're also talking about launching a camera aimed at the DSLR market (what happened this month? Olympus, Samsung, and now RED?) Right - first up - what on earth is RED? Wikipedia entry for RED Digital Cinema Cameras RED is a company famous for producing modular, future-proof digital video cameras (their flagship model, the RED One, is apparently unrivaled for cost and performance). RED One is only just a year old. (from Wikipedia)"The Red One, capable of recording at resolutions up to 4096 horizontal by 2304 vertical pixels, directly to flash or hard disk based digital storage. It features a single Super 35-sized CMOS sensor and a cinematography industry standard PL mount." And why's the quality so good? (from Wikipedia) "The Red One does not natively capture at standard definition or high definition resolutions. However, as part of the process of delivering the raw image data recorded by the camera, the RedCine desktop software can downscale footage to these resolutions. This process yields extremely high-quality output due to significant oversampling." So... ok, but this is a video camera. What's all this got to do with DSLRs? The hoo-hah happened when the CEO of RED went onto the official RED forums and said this about a new sensor that they were developing: (from REDUser forums): "Mysterium "Monstro" is a sensor program that pushes the envelope past anything on the horizon. It will go into [a system currently in development]and another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market." As another forum-goer on the RED User forum mentioned, if this DSLR-like camera with the same RED quality is as competitively priced as the RED One is, we could be looking at a real battle on our hands. I know nothing about this system, but my interest is piqued - and from reading the comments on the 'In Development" thread on the REDUser forum, I'm certainly going to be finding out more. Who's with me? "In Development" (thread by RED's CEO)@ REDUser forums Original Story @ Engadget.com

Is Annie Leibovitz in $715,000 worth of debt?

Gossip doesn't just extend to new DSLRs, you know - according to the American website Gawker and the New York Post, the famous Vanity Fair portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz (the one who took those pictures of Miley Cyrus that had our website aflame a couple of months ago) has accrued several hundred thousand pounds worth of debt, despite an alleged paycheck of over $2 million for her work with Vanity Fair magazine. As with all rumours, take this with a pinch of salt... From the New York Post website:

"The 58-year-old photographer allegedly owes money for unpaid taxes, an aborted book project, and outstanding equipment rental fees. She's also at least a year overdue in paying for renovations to her Greenwich Village townhouse, according to the documents. Leibovitz, through a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, declined to comment on the debts. "To the best of my knowledge all of these [debts] have been resolved," a Vanity Fair spokeswoman said."

I think the real question is - what would you do with $2 million a year? Story @ The New York Post "Annie Leibowitz - Artist or Deadbeat?" @ Gawker.com

NEW: Samsung's 'hybrid' interchangable lens system

Exciting times! Following on the heels of Olympus and Panasonic's "Micro Four Thirds" system, Samsung have announced their new 'hybrid' system which will see bridge-type cameras and a range of lenses - with a much bigger sensor than is offered by Micro Four Thirds.

From AP's website: "Keen to emphasis that Samsung's system is unrelated to Micro Four Thirds, Samsung Techwin Executive Vice President Byung Woo Lee told AP that the company has been working on this project for some time, and is already producing prototype lenses... The first model in the as-yet-unnamed system will carry the company's own 14 million-pixel APS-C sized CMOS sensor and a new lens mount. 'Many people find DSLR cameras too heavy and big to carry,' Lee explained, 'so Samsung will introduce a new hybrid system that will be small and light like a bridge type camera, but with interchangeable Samsung-made lenses.'

It seems that like it or not, cameras are getting smaller - hit the link for more information! Full story @ AP

Hidden text in the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed through IR

And you thought infrared was just for shooting odd-lookin' pics of your back garden... It turns out that infrared is going to help get unseen bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls online for everyone to see - at the moment, only five trained specialists can touch them...

"In a multi-million-pound project that could take up to five years, the scroll fragments will first be photographed by a 39-megapixel digital camera, then by another digital camera in infra-red light. Later, some will be photographed with a sophisticated multi-spectral imaging camera. All the fragments will eventually be available to view online, with transcriptions, translations, scholarly interpretations and bibliographies provided for academic study. The pilot project has shown that infra-red photography picks out letters not previously visible to the naked eye."

Interesting, no? More info @ ComputerWeekly.com

Wondered how many pictures an Olympic photographer shoots?

The American photographer Vincent LaForet's back from his dream job at the Olympics - wondered how many pictures he took?

(from Vincent's blog) "In Beijing, with a total of 6 cameras, I shot: 28,444 files for a total of a whopping 480 Gigabytes of Images! That\'s INSANE! Even I am shocked."

And that ain't the half of it - click here to read more, especially about how many pics were taken by the Sports Illustrated shooters (and how many of the pictures they actually kept!)... How much did I shoot in Beijing? @ vincentlaforet.wordpress.com

NEW 2WPC!

Click here to find out what Pebble chose as the next topic...

Cool Hasselblad shirt at Etsy

I'm a big fan of Etsy (it's a kind of eBay for crafty, handmade items) and stumbled across this shirt featuring a Hasselblad print... cool! And as the seller pointed out, much cheaper than the real thing...sigh. There are many other cool things to accessorise yourself and your camera with at Etsy - I recommend poking around and seeing what you come up with! Let me know if you spot anything awesome... Hasselblad shirt @ Etsy