Oh! Gizmo

By Evan Ackerman

This monster of a camera, brought to you by Seitz Phototechnik, has a you’ve got to be kidding me resolution of 160 megapixels in a 60mm x 170mm frame. That works out to 7,500 pixels vertically and 21,250 pixels horizontally. The image (each one is 900 megs at full res) is recorded directly onto a tablet PC (sold separately) in 48 bit color depth. Thankfully, the camera takes standardized large format lenses, since spending nearly $45,000 on one of these things doesn’t leave me much extra money for glass. The downside of this camera (besides the 10lb weight, the 18in width, the price, and the fact that it requires a PC to work) is that it works like a scanner, which is why it’s so, um, cheap. Rather than using a 160 megapixel sensor of some kind, the camera back uses a linear sensor that scans across the field of view when the shutter is open. The camera can still somehow achieve a shutter speed of 1/2000 at low resolution, but for a true 160 megapixel image, the minimum shutter speed is a whopping 1 second.

Now, why the heck am I complaining about 160 megapixels not being enough? Just for the sake of having something to complain about, for one, but what I’m referring to is digital vs. photographic film. Medium format photographic film is the equivalent of about 100 megapixels, but for high quality large format images, you’re looking at about 500 (!) megapixels. We’re getting closer, but we’re not quite there yet, especially at a shutter speed of 1 second. Still, I have to say, the 10 megapixel images that come out of my Nikon D40x, while 16 times smaller, are still plenty satisfying for a casual shutterbug like myself. 160 megapixels? Bah, humbug.

[ Seitz ] VIA [ Gearfuse ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For just $14.77 you can turn the crappy digital camera on your iPhone into a crappy digital camera with 6×18 zoom. This lens attachment from Conice includes a clear plastic housing for the iPhone itself, which also serves as a mounting bracket for the lens over the phone’s camera. That way you can easily attach and remove the lens as needed.

Something tells me if your budget allows for an iPhone, you can probably afford a small P&S digital camera as well. Not only will it take far better shots, but it should also include a tripod mount on the bottom, since a zoom lens will amplify any motion in the camera, resulting in blurred shots if you don’t keep it steady. And those hoping to just rely on the iPhone’s camera should also be aware that this lens and its case nearly double the weight of the phone.

[ Conice 6×18 Zoom Attachment for iPhone ] VIA [ technabob ]

By Luke Anderson

Geotagging pictures has become popular of late. Basically the idea is to tag your photos with information regarding the location that they were taken. This seems to be used a lot by people that do a large amount of traveling, and wish to remember exactly where each picture was taken. If you’re one of those people, but doesn’t want to hassle with going through all of your pics and manually adding tags (and trying to remember where each was taken) this little gadget might be of interest.

This little gizmo is basically a GPS receiver and card reader bundled into one. It keeps track of everywhere you’ve traveled via the GPS signal and logs exactly what time you were at each location. All you have to do is carry it with you when you’re out snapping pics. When you’re done at the end of the day, just pop in your SD card (or use it with a USB card reader if you don’t use an SD card) and it will automatically assign a geotag based on the time each photo was taken.

I’m sure that there will be a market for this device when it hits stores in the next couple of weeks. It’ll set you back $99, which seems pretty reasonable for all the hassle it will save you.

[ Photofinder ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Luke Anderson

What’s this, two crazy Brando products in one day? Sorry, this one was just too good to pass up. Picture this, (no pun intended) you’re stranded out in the middle of nowhere (or somewhere for that matter) and you need to snap off a couple pictures of something way over there. The only problem is that you’re stuck with your crappy little camera in your phone, and you can’t walk all the way over there. Well if you had a telescopic lens for your phone, you’d be all set.

That’s right, Brando has created a zoom lens especially for the MOTO RAZR and KRZR. I think it would be a bit of a hassle to carry this little guy around everywhere, but I guess it wouldn’t be too bad to toss in your wife’s (or if you’re a girl, your own) purse and forget about it until the need arises. While it doesn’t seem all that practical, it’ll only set you back 19 bucks.

[ Brando ] VIA [ GeekSugar ]

By Luke Anderson

How many times have you been out somewhere and decided to snap a picture, but you wanted to be in it and no one was around to hold the camera? At this point you have to find somewhere to set the camera, someplace that will be the correct height and sit at the perfect angle to get your shot. Sure, you could walk around everywhere with a tripod, but then you look like a tool.

Here’s a camera stand (I’d call it a tripod, but it really has to have three legs to earn that title) that wouldn’t be so bad to carry around. It folds up quite small, and can even attach to your keychain. When you unfold it, you find that it will adjust to direct your lens at just the right angle to snap that awesome picture. The only downside to this little gadget is that it doesn’t appear to be available outside of France.

[ Manfrotto ] VIA [ technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Compact flash cards are slowly but surely being pushed out of the digital camera market by SD cards, but there are still plenty of cameras, particularly digital SLRs, that rely on the older format. So companies like RIDATA haven’t given up on CF just yet, and to prove it they’ve just introduced an updated version they call the SMART compact flash card.

As far as I can tell what makes these cards ‘SMART’ is a new internal data monitoring system that works to ensure you never experience any data loss. While having 16GB of storage in your camera is great, it’s not a pleasant feeling when something happens to the only card you’ve been shooting with the past few days. And besides extra data monitoring, the cards also include embedded error correction code (ECC) that supports “two random bits of a sector on-the-fly ECC corrections.” I’ll assume that’s a good thing.

The new cards even offer longer reliability, with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 5,000,000 powered-on hours, and 100,000 times of program/erase cycles. The SMART CF cards will be available in two series, a Supreme 150X version with a capacity of up to 8GB, and a Lightning version with a capacity of up 16GB.

[ RIDATA SMART Compact Flash Cards ] VIA [ Digital Photography Review ]

By Luke Anderson

One of the great things about having a digital camera is that you can take hundreds of pictures, then quickly view and edit them on your computer. Unfortunately, that generally requires the use of a card reader. Sure, a lot of the newer PCs have one built-in, but there are still plenty out there that don’t. That’s why I love this little invention.

The memory card is actually quite small, and has a tiny USB connector that lets you plug it directly into your computer, no card reader required. It snaps into a plastic case which essentially turns it into an SD card. I don’t normally get excited about a memory card, but I have to admit that this is a cool design. It’s a little more expensive than your average SD card, but I’d still buy one at around $21 for a 1GB card.

VIA [ Aving ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While manufacturers have managed to cram larger LCD displays onto digital cameras, they’re still far too small for sharing photos with a group of people. But as long as you have access to a relatively large TV, sharing your shots becomes easy with this SanDisk Photo Album. It looks and works like a large multi-format card reader, but can also be connected to your TV for viewing photos.

It includes slots for CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, SmartMedia, xD, SD and MMC cards as well as a USB port for flash drives. (Which is also used to connect it to your PC.) It supports JPEG files up to 16 megapixels and will not only resize them on the fly so they fit on the screen, but using the included remote you can also zoom in to any part of the image. If photos aren’t your thing, the Photo Album also plays MP3s and has limited video capabilities with support for 8fps MPEG-1 files.

You can get it directly from SanDisk for $49.99 or save yourself $10 by buying it from Amazon instead.

[ Sandisk Photo Album ] VIA [ GadgetGrid ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Digital photo frames were probably one of the more popular gifts last Christmas, and based on what I see in stores, this year isn’t going to be any different. But why buy a cheap model with a crappy resolution, when your digital camera is probably taking 7MP+ photos? I recently stumbled across a line of digital photo frames from a company called Ality, and while I haven’t seen one in person yet, they’ve sold me on features alone.

The Pictura Mirror PC019M model has a whopping 19-inch LCD screen and a half-decent resolution of 1280×1024. The frame also includes other basic features like support for BMP and JPG files, a high-speed USB port, slots for CF, SD, MMC and MS cards and will play back both MPEG and AVI video files. But it’s the frame’s other features that really set it apart.

First off, instead of showing a black empty frame when not in use, the PC019M actually has a mirror finish so it not only looks good, but can ensure you do too. It also has a built-in photo scheduler so you can load up specific pictures when friends or family stop by. (Or ensure that other pictures don’t get loaded into the slideshow.) But the biggest feature in my opinion is that it has a touch-screen interface! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to choose a menu option on a regular digital photo frame by touching the screen, only to remember I have to use a set of small annoying buttons instead. Unfortunately though the frame seems to be hard to come by if you’re looking to pick one up. I managed to find a price for the 17-inch version, about $350, so you can expect the 19-inch model to be even more expensive.

[ Ality Pictura Mirror Digital Photo Frame ]

By Andrew Liszewski

NEC will be showing off a new wireless camera at iExpo2007 in Tokyo this week that actually draws its power from a fluorescent bulb. A special ring-shaped component that relies on electromagnetic induction is slid onto the bulb and power is obtained from the magnetic field generated by the light’s AC source.

Now I’m not sure if this technique ends up causing the bulb to draw more power, but the real advantage is being able to install a camera where it would otherwise be difficult to run power cables to. NEC expects the cameras to be used in office settings for checking up on employees (I’m sure that will go over well) but when you consider that almost every store in the country uses fluorescent bulbs, it also becomes a cheaper way to setup a security system.

At the moment the camera only supports VGA resolutions (640×480) but I assume that’s not a limitation imposed by the way it’s powered. What’s not clear though is whether or not a security system based on this technology can be defeated by simply turning off the lights.

[ NEC Develops Wireless Camera Powered by Fluorescent Light ] VIA [ EcoGeek ]