Phase One announces 60.5-megapixel digital back

Moore's law seems to have accelerated over the past week--Kodak's recent 50-megapixel sensor is now outdated after digital back manufacturer Phase One announced its mind-staggering 60.5-megapixel P65+.

It has a full-frame medium-format sensor that measures 53.9 x 40.4mm, which towers over the typical point-and-shoot's chip which is about 10 times smaller. The 1.3GB RAM buffer can probably handle eight 180MB shots before it runs dry. A premium device has to be fitted to a premium body, which is a good variety of studio cameras from Linhof or Sinar that most of us can only dream of.

Although the megapixel fray for point-and-shoots is fading slowly, it has just begun for professional cameras. Unless you're a working photographer whose clients require bill-board-size prints, we're not really sure which media will let you display 60.5 megapixels' worth of details in their full glory.

The P65+ costs US$39,900, which is the price of a car. If I strike the lottery, I think I'll go for the latter.

Picture credit: Phase One

Samsung's new YouTube-friendly camcorder

Each month seems to bring a new YouTube-centric digital camcorder and July is no exception: Samsung has announced the SC-MX20, a US$279.99 model that's the successor to the SC-MX10. It'll arrive in stores in August and come in blue, black, red, and white.

According to the news release, the camcorder has a 680,000-pixel CCD sensor that delivers a 720 x 480-pixel resolution that allows the SC-MX20 to capture video with "stunning color and clarity". That may be a slight exaggeration, but the new model does feature a Schneider lens with 34x optical zoom, a 2.7-inch LCD, advanced noise reduction (3-D Noise Reduction), Samsung's allegedly improved Advanced Image Stabilization, and Face Detection, "which can automatically detect up to five faces and adjust focus to ensure better composition". According to Samsung, the value-priced SC-MX20 shares some features found in its higher-end SC-HMX20C, including its design.

What makes the SC-MX20 YouTube-friendly is a special Web and mobile-shooting mode that simply tells the camcorder to shoot video with YouTube-optimized video settings. According to the release, "by selecting the Web & Mobile mode, the camcorder's resolution is automatically adjusted to 640 x 480 (H.264 / AAC / MP4) and optimized for use on Web sites. Unlike other camcorders, users can easily import video from the SC-MX20 and play it on MP3 players and other portable multimedia players supporting H.264, without having to convert the files". Some CyberLink software is thrown in for editing and customizing video files.
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Another concept camera to throw around

I don't really understand the fascination of combining a camera with something to toss around. Previously, we've seen the Tospom and satuGo, both ball-shaped cameras that snap shots while in the air.

Turkish designer Hakan Bogazpinar has conceptualized Flee, which is something similar to a ball camera. But the shooter is now attached to a petal-like contraception which reminds me of feathers on a shuttlecock that help keep the flight in the air stable.

But unlike its counterparts, Flee doesn't record the images onto a memory card. Instead, onboard Bluetooth is used to transmit the snaps to a paired mobile device. As far as we know, the range for Bluetooth is quite limited so we're not sure how Bogazpinar will work around this problem.

We can't really think of a proper use for the Flee except for reconnaissance when playing paintball or seeing your friends' reactions just before the shooter hits them.

Via: Ubergizmo

Kodak finds its inner YouTube

Until under-30somethings outgrow them, direct-to-YouTube camcorders will continue to flourish. And everyone wants a piece of the pie that was pretty much baked by Flip Video, with products like its latest Mino. Some efforts seem rather cynical and halfhearted like Samsung's recent attempt to remarket an old design into a market ruled by a different aesthetic. Others, like Kodak's just-announced Zi6, seem promising. But Kodak also misses the point in a few ways.

On one hand, there are a couple of ways in which veteran Kodak outclasses its younger competitors: 720p HD video compared with the typical 640 x 480-pixel VGA resolution and a 2.4-inch LCD. A nice touch, which shows its heritage, is a switch that toggles between standard and macro focus distances. As seems to define this product category, it has a built-in, flip-out USB connector. Cleverly, the button for the connector also serves as a tiny mirror for shooting yourself in the face. It also accepts SD cards, but that's to supplement its paltry 128MB of storage--only 30MB of which is available for video. I tried it, and that was 36 seconds. It might as well have no internal memory at all. Extrapolating--Kodak has not published any capacity information--that's about 50MB per minute, or 41 minutes of video on a typical 2GB card. Which is optional.
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Concept camera features onboard Photoshop

It seems I am not the only person daydreaming of the day point-and-shoots will be shipped with Photoshop. This conceptual shooter seen on petitinvention.com is a vision of what shooters in the future should look like--great design with a full-fledged image-editing application installed.

According to the design, this camera can automatically detect and erase people from the shot, leaving only the scene. Other than landscape photographers, I really cannot think of any reason to use this feature. Imagine activating this while on vacation and you return home only to find that everyone has been erased. Well, there's always the next holiday.

I am still game for the idea of having even a scaled-down version of Photoshop in my camera. Of course, a touchscreen display would be nice, with full-frame sensor and more.

Via: Petitinvention

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