By Chris Scott Barr

I’ve heard a lot of talk about pico projectors and such, and how they would be a great addition to cell phones. The thought of one showing up in a digital camera never really crossed my mind. The people over at Nikon have obviously been mulling it over, since they have just announced their new Coolpiz S1000pj with a built-in projector.

I’m really not sure what I think of this thing, after all, it seems like a projector would be wasted on a camera. Sure, you can show off the pictures that you’ve just taken, but who really gets that excited about looking at pictures that they just got done taking?

The LCOS projector is rated at 10 lumens and has a 30:1 contrast ratio. It can be set anywhere from 10 inches to 6.5 feet away from the wall you’re projecting upon. This will create a picture that is between 5 and 40 inches high. Aside from the included projector, you’ve got your standard 12MP point-and-shoot camera with a 5x optical zoom. It does have a neat feature that detects motion, and adjusts the shutter speed and ISO to compensate. Look for this out in mid-November for $429.

[ Nikon ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Shane McGlaun

When I hear the name GE, digital cameras are not what spring to mind. I think of light bulbs really. Still GE has a full line of digital cameras and other stuff that doesn’t have to do with lighting our homes.

The company announced its latest digital camera recently called the E1250TW. The cam sports a 12.2-megapixel resolution and a 28mm wide angle lens with 5x optical zoom. The most interesting feature of the camera is that the 3-inch LCD is touch sensitive.

Other features include auto scene detection HDTV out, face detection, blink detection, smile detection, an auto adjust LCD, and red-eye removal. A special mode allows users to shoot panoramic images as well. The camera is available now on HSN and on Amazon.com.

[ GE

By Chris Scott Barr

Last year I finally saved up my cash and bought my first DSLR. While I’m still a novice at best, I’d say my money was well spent on my Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Sure, I don’t have a lot of fancy accessories aside from my two lenses and and nice tripod, but it still shoots far better than any of my old crappy digital cameras. One thing that I thought would be cool is a remote that would let me snap pictures with just a press of a button. To quote one of those silly Apple commercials “there’s an app for that.”

It hasn’t gone live yet, but soon you’ll be able to download a cool little application that lets you control the aperture, white balance, shutter speed and the shutter with your iPod Touch or iPhone. Granted you’ll need a laptop to act as the middle-man, but still a cool app nonetheless. Hit the jump for a full breakdown on how it works.

Okay, if you’re wondering how it works, here’s a quick run down.
1. You need either an iPhone or an iPod Touch
2. You need a supported Canon EOS DSLR
3. A laptop or desktop computer running the free companion DSLR Remote Server software
4. A USB cable to connect your supported Canon EOS DSLR camera to the computer running the free server software
The DSLR Remote app running on your iPhone (or iPod Touch) communicates to the DSLR Remote Server software via a WIFI connection.
From your iPhone you can control settings such as shutter speed, aperture and white balance. You can of course fire the camera shutter as well. If you have a Canon EOS DSLR camera that supports Live View you can even get a live stream of the camera’s viewfinder on your iPhone.

So just which Canon EOS DSLRs are supported? That’d be the Digital Rebel XT, Rebel XTi, Rebel XS, Rebel XSi, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, 5D, 5D Mark II, 1D Mark II, Mark IIn, Mark III, 1Ds Mark II, Mark III. Oh, and don’t worry, the server software will run on both Windows and Mac OS. I’ll definitely be checking this out when it hits the App Store, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

[ onONE Software ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

by Shane McGlaun

The economy is bad; you have to have been living in a cave or in a coma to not know about that. So poor is the global economy that retail chains once rolling in the profits have been forced entirely out of business. Circuit City was one of the most recent chains to close up shop.

Nationwide camera retailer Ritz Camera filed for bankruptcy recently and has now announced that it will be closing 300 of its locations around the country. Despite boarding up 300 stores around the country, the chain will still have about 400 locations in operation nationwide. That is assuming it doesn’t come back in a week and close the remainder like Circuit City.

Ritz blames the bankruptcy filing and the closing of its locations on the poor economy and slow retail spending by consumers. The same liquidation firms that sold off Circuit City inventory will do the same for the $50 million in cameras, camcorders, and other electronics sitting in the 300 locations around the country in Ritz stores starting this weekend. It’s time for some good deals on cameras if you have the scratch.

[ Ritz Camera ]

by Shane McGlaun

A couple years ago, I moved from a simple point-and-shoot camera to a much more complex Nikon D80 DSLR. At the time, the D80 was one of the best cameras you could get. The thing I missed right away with the D80 compared to my old camera was the ability to shoot video, but at the time, no DSLRs were able to record video.

Today things are much different and there are several DSLR cameras on the market that can shoot video in HD resolutions, like the Nikon D90. Canon today announced a new entry-level EOS Rebel T1i DSLR camera that can record video in full 1080p resolution, though at only 20 fps.

To get full motion 30 fps you have to cut the resolution back to 720p. The camera stores images and video to SD and SDHC memory cards. Other features include a 15.1-megapixel CMOS sensor and ISO 100 to ISO 3200 speeds. The rear Live View LCD is a 3-inch high-resolution screen. The T1i will ship in early May at an affordable price (for a DSLR) of $799.99 for the body only. Throw in an EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 IS zoom kit lens and the price for the camera goes up to $899.99.

[ Canon ]

I’ll be honest, GE isn’t exactly the first brand name that comes to mind when I think of digital cameras, but I do like the fact that their new E1050TW comes with an HDMI connector allowing you to connect it to the flat screen TV in your living room and bore your friends with vacation photos in stunning high-def! The camera also follows the recent trend of using a large 3 inch touch-screen display in lieu of most buttons, which also features an auto-brightness function that keeps it viewable whether you’re indoors or out. Other specs include a 10 megapixel sensor, 5X optical zoom, 4.5X fake (aka digital) zoom and a 28mm wide angle lens. You also get software features like in camera panorama stitching, smile, blink and face detection, electronic image stabilization, red-eye removal and a 720P MPEG4 video mode. It’ll be available near the end of September for about $260, and if interested you can pick one up in your choice of black, blue, red, silver and white colors.

[ GE E1050TW ] VIA [ Tech Digest ]

By Jonathan Kimak

Before I delve into this interesting concept camera I’d like to share my confusion with the name of this camera. The camera appears to be called the Yang Ying camera. It is shaped to look like the Yin and Yang symbol of the harmony between the light and dark sides of humanity. Yang Ying, from the information that I could find, appears to be a Chinese table tennis champion. So either the name is a result of a common mistake about the term Yin and Yang or I could be reading way to much into it.

Anyways, the camera istelf looks pretty snazzy. Half of the camera houses the LCD screen and the actual camera, the other half houses the storage and the USB connection. It also looks like the camera was designed to be worn around the neck as an accessory for the fashion conscious. The camera was designed by Polish designer Kubasek Krzysztof.

VIA [ DVICE ]

By Jonathan Kimak

I loved the old Polaroid cameras. A picture that would appear and develop in a minute in your hands instead of 7 days later at a photo lab seemed like an absolute miracle of technology back when I was a kid. Of course the emergence of cheap yet high-quality digital cameras destroyed Polaroid and forced them to stop selling the instant film cameras back in February of this year.

Now Polaroid has announced that they will be bringing back instant film, and this time it will add the instant printing magic to digital cameras. The pictures will be 4×3 rectangle size, which is the size most associated with the old Polaroid cameras.

It will still be a rough market for Polaroid to compete in, even with millions of nostalgic fans. It’s already pretty easy to print out pictures from almost anywhere; most grocery stores, pharmacies and Wal-Marts have instant print kiosks for pennies per print. Still, it’s nice to see Polaroid trying, even if they are years behind the times.

[ Amateur Photographer ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

I usually shoot pictures with a Nikon D80, but I still like to keep a nice, small point-and-shoot around for the times I don’t feel like hefting the behemoth D80 around. A thin point-and-shoot that can be slipped into a pocket or backpack is a welcome addition for most people who like to shoot with more advanced cameras typically.

Sony announced a pair of new cameras this week that are perfect for those looking for thing cameras. The DSC-T77 is very thin at under 5/8-inch thick — making it perfect to complement my DSLR. The T77 may be thin, but it still packs in lots of features including a large 3-inch touch sensitive LCD, Smile Shutter, face detection and ISO sensitivity up to ISO 3200.

If you can live with a camera a bit thicker, the Sony DSC-T700 is the brother to the T77 is slightly more than 5.8-inch thick according to Sony. The T700 has a 3.5-inch touch sensitive LCD and a massive 4GB of on-board storage allowing you to keep up to 1000 full resolution images on the camera for photo album style sharing. Both cameras use Carl Zeiss lens technology and 4x optical zoom along with Optical SteadyShot image stabilization. Both cameras will be available in September with the T700 retailing for $400 and the T77 going for $300.

Via [Gadgetoholic]

This post is syndicated with permission from Gadgetoholic.com

Digital cameras are getting smaller, cheaper and growing megapixels all the time. It’s funny to think about how expensive digital cameras with 10-megapixels were not so long ago and now even the cheapest entry-level cameras sport 10-megapixel resolutions.

For example, Pentax announced its Optio E60 digital camera that will retail for under $140 when it launches in October. The camera has a 10.1-megapixel sensor and a 3x optical zoom lens. In addition to shooting still images, the camera can also record video.

Sensitivity for the camera is from ISO 100 to 6400 and can be fixed at specific settings or set to auto mode. Digital shake reduction is offered in both photo and video modes and the camera features Face Detection. Images are stored to 6.3MB of internal memory and SD/SDHC memory cards. On the back of the E60 is a 2.4-inch LCD and the camera has a shutter speed of 1/2000 – 1/4 of a second. Sure, the E60 isn’t as cool as the Samsung TL9 with its analog gauges, but the E60 is half the price.

Gadgetoholic