At one point panoramic photos and interactive viewers like Quicktime VR were pretty popular online, but over the years they’ve kind of disappeared like so many other internet fads. However that doesn’t mean you still can’t take the occasional panoramic photo. In fact a lot of point and shoot digital cameras actually include the functionality to make shooting and stitching together a series of photos really easy. But what if your particular model doesn’t? The Panamatic is designed to mount on any standard tripod and ensures that each photo you take is properly lined up with the next.
Once it’s attached to your tripod and you’ve ensured it’s level with the built-in bubble center, you simply index the ratcheted wheel (which your camera is attached to) one click at a time around its own axis. A full rotation equals 12 photos which you can easily stitch together with any piece of software designed for that purpose. And if you’re shooting skyscrapers or other tall objects, the Panamatic can also be mounted in a vertical position but you’ll need to buy a third-party angled mounting bracket for your tripod. (It’s not included.)
The Panamatic seems to be exclusively available from Lenspen.com for $24.95.
If you’re a cellphone nut who demands all the latest features and advancements in their handset, you’re probably going to pass on the LG Secret. But if you’re a photographer or amateur videographer, the Secret might have one feature that would be hard to pass up. The 5 megapixel camera can record video directly to the Divx format at speeds of up to 120 frames per second. So it’s the perfect phone if you’re walking home and happen to encounter a Michael Bay-esque action sequence or giant tanker truck explosion.
Other features of the LG secret include a carbon fiber case which is not only strong, but also looks really cool. 100MB of internal memory that can be expanded with a microSD card, Bluetooth, a sliding keypad, FM radio, support for Microsoft Office documents and a Google package for surfing the web, accessing Gmail or watching YouTube videos. It will be available in May starting with a European launch, followed by Asia, South America and then the rest of the world.
I always get a kick out of things are shouldn’t be fuzzy, but are. The Moss Colorsplash FurCam is a 35mm film camera covered in a generous amount of real fur from fake rabbits, and it has a few features that make it a little better than your average 35mm point ‘n shoot. It’s got a bulb mode, which keeps the shutter open as long as you hold the trigger down (great for night shots), and a lomo flash: twist the end of the flash to select different color gel filters, creating some cool effects. Plus, with the included vinyl cover on, it kinda looks like a fluffy little dog dressed up in a bondage costume:
Can you seriously think of anything that couldn’t be vastly improved with a covering of faux rabbit fur? I can’t, and you can enjoy snuggling this camera for $80.
Casio’s EX-F1 is a sub-DSLR prosumer camera/camcorder hybrid with some sweet features that make it stand out from the crowd. And that’s not just PR speak, I promise. For starters, it has a not-too-shabby 12x optical zoom, a 6 megapixel sensor (2816 x 1872), and a dual integrated flash system that uses LEDs for high-speed light. Mkay. On to the stuff you care about…
At its full 6 megapixel resolution, the camera can fire off bursts at 60 frames per second (with the LED flash). Casio uses this feature to provide a sort of time shift: as you’re composing your shot, the camera will continuously buffer up to 60 full resolution frames, and save those those images just after you press the shutter. If you’re a little bit late with your trigger push, you can cycle through the previous 60 frames that the camera recorded for you, and pick out the perfect moment. But all that’s not even the exciting part… The Casio EX-F1 will take video in 1080i/720p at 30 FPS, but by trading off some lots of resolution, you can bump that up to a whopping 1200 (!) FPS. It’s a little bit of a gimmick, but it’s damn cool and something I would totally use. Check it out:
I haven’t gotten around to finding the perfect macro lens for my Nikon D70 as of yet, so I mostly rely on a Nikon point & shoot digital camera when I’m taking close-up product shots for reviews. When combined with a bit of Photoshopping the shots turn out great, but this LED macro ring for compact cameras would make my life a bit easier. Instead of relying on a flash that’s offset to one side of the camera, the ring of 8 LEDs surrounds the lens, providing even illumination from every side.
It’s powered by 3 AAA batteries which are housed in a battery pack that can be attached to the tripod mount on the camera, or to an actual tripod. The ring itself connects to the battery pack with a 12cm flexible arm, making it compatible with almost any P&S camera configuration. The LEDs have two levels of intensity you can select, depending on how much ambient light there is, and includes a carrying case to keep it safe during transport.
This little (3 inch high) Rolleiflex digital camera is a mostly faithful (albeit smaller) digital incarnation of the famous and retro-cool Rolleiflex 2.8F. It’s undeniably slick, and will certainly turn heads since (if you’re not familiar with these sorts of cameras) you hold it vertically at around chest level to take pictures, as the viewfinder is on the top of the camera rather than at the back. Once you get past the case, though, you’ll probably be disappointed, since it’s only 3mp (square format, nice touch) with controls that are completely automatic except for the hand crank, which “prepares” the camera for the next shot. The viewfinder is a 1.1 inch TFT and it takes miniSD cards.
The press release pretty much says it all: “it’s not intended to be a full-featured digital camera, [but] it takes good pictures and is an attention-getter and conversation piece.” So, if you’re gonna buy this thing, it’s going to be for the cool factor and nothing else, but at $400… Well… I don’t think it’s that cool.
When I first saw this camera, I got all excited thinking that somehow it would be able to take pictures in some kind of extra super realistic 3D. I mean, you can take a normal stereo picture with two lenses, so maybe three lenses lets you see around corners. Or through clothing. Or back in time! But alas, the 3D World 120 Tri-Lens stereo camera is not capable of any of these feats. The third lens at the top seems to be used only for viewfinding, as it’s identical to the other two lenses (80mm F2.8) but has nothing behind it. The bottom lenses are fed 58mm x 56mm stereo film, with 6 image pairs per roll. This completely manual setup promises to be popular only with very serious stereo photographers… Very serious and very rich stereo photographers, that is, since although the price is still unknown, medium format 80mm lenses cost something like $1,500. Each.
While the era of dragging out the slide projector and screen to show off your vacation photos is thankfully long gone, it was at least better than having to pass around a low-res LCD picture frame or even worse, the digital camera itself. But if your friends grew up in the 70’s or 80’s they’d probably jump at the chance to peruse your holiday shots with a classic Viewmaster. Image3D has been creating custom Viewmaster slides for corporate clients for years now (a local restaurant uses them for their dessert menu) and the company is now offering the same service to Joe Consumer.
Of course since most amateur photographers don’t have a 3D camera the results will only be in 2D, but the company seems to offer a handful of 3D conversion services if you’re really hung up on the effect. I personally think the novelty of seeing your own shots through a Viewmaster is cool enough. As for the cost? The slides run $10 each which isn’t that bad, but there’s a minimum order limit of 10. And I’m not sure if that means 10 unique slides with different photos on each, or 10 copies of the same slide. They also sell the Viewmasters themselves for $3 but your old-school model from when you were a kid should work just as well.
Canon has filed for a patent they hope will revolutionize digital watermarking when it comes to photographs. Future cameras from the company could have a ‘REG’ setting on the Mode dial that will actually take a photograph of the user’s iris as they look through the viewfinder.
This image, which is as unique as a fingerprint would be added to the photo’s metadata once a series of shots have been captured. If the camera were to write this data to the photo every time the shutter was pressed, it would slow down the camera’s performance and could actually end up hindering the photographer.
While the technique won’t stop people from actually stealing photos, particularly online (case in point) it should provide some solid proof as to who originally took the shot and owns the copyright should there ever be a dispute.
We first wrote about the Ricoh 500SE last year since the camera seemed to include everything from WiFi to Bluetooth to GPS right out of the box. But it seems that still wasn’t enough functionality for Ricoh since they’re now adding barcode scanning capabilities to the camera as well. The 500SE will support all popular 1D barcodes and the scanned information is automatically embedded into the JPEG files as they’re captured.
What’s particularly cool is that barcodes can either be scanned optically through the camera’s own lens, where software then interprets the data, or with an add-on laser scanning module for facilities requiring a laser scanning solution. The camera is also shock resistant and waterproof making it ideal for industrial use.
The suggested retail price for the 500SE is $899, while the Se-4 laser scanning module is an extra $349.
Related Tags: Photography
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By Andrew Liszewski
