It’s been a while since I first embarked on this 3-part article. Since then, life happened as it always does and before I knew it, quite a bit of time has passed and the digital camera landscape has completely changed. But always for the better. Newer and more affordable video and cinema cameras have surfaced that surprised everybody. For the sake of completing this series, I will not discuss any of the new developments. That is best left for another article altogether.

Nokia, which has long held the crown as ‘best camera on a phone’ with their 12 megapixel N8 today upped the ante with the announcement of their PureView 808 phone. The phone will ship with a custom 1/1.2″ sensor, much larger than most smartphone cameras. While this leads to a noticable hump on the back, the results make up for it, as it sports a 41 megapixel sensor, enabling it to capture images up to 38 megapixels in size.

I first saw this while looking for some kitchen utensils at a home/kitchen store. It is a silicon jar opener. Composed of a rubbery silicon material with a hard plastic tightening collar, it is made to open the toughest of jars.

I’ve heard this argument from people who attended NAB this past year. Apparently, with the release of new prosumer video cameras that have DSLR sensors in them, professionals at NAB have proclaimed this coming year to be the “Death of DSLRs” for shooting video. Seriously?

Winner of the recent Nokia Shorts 2011 filmmaking competition, Splitscreen: A Love Story is a short film shot entirely with Nokia’s N8 mobile phone (in 720P @ 25fps). The surprisingly watchable footage uses dual frames to represent two ‘days in the life’ — one set in Paris and one in New York — with the shots arranged to show the two lives proceeding in harmony, half a world apart. (They don’t stay apart, though. Watch and see.)

The company Lytro uses a new light field sensor that allows digital cameras to record all the light that is moving in all directions in its field of view. The most obvious benefit is that there would be no need to focus before the pictures are shot. Once the image is captured, the user can select the focal point.

Nikon was the first camera company to enable HD video recording on their D90 DSLR in 2008 and thus ushered in the ensuing frenzy that took hold of the video world. For once in the history of video cameras, there was now a sub-$7000 camera that shot 720p 24fps HD video on a sensor that dwarfed even broadcast cameras, but as well allowed people to interchange and use the seemingly endless variety of DSLR lenses! It was the independent filmmaker’s dream come true. Thus the HD-DSLRs were born.

It’s been a busy month for Adobe so far.
Hot on the heels of the recent preview of Photoshop on the iPad, Adobe has today released the official Photoshop Touch SDK for tablet devices. The fact that Adobe has decided to release an SDK is exciting, since it strongly indicates that not only are we a step closer to a full-featured Photopshop app for tablets, but also full Photoshop integration into the core builds of third-party applications.
From the press release:
The Photoshop Touch SDK and a new scripting engine in Photoshop CS5 …

Today Nikon announced the newest addition to their line of DSLR cameras. Fitting in nicely between the entry level D3100 and high-end prosumer D7000, the D5100 replaces the D5000. Now Nikon has a complete range of 1080p video capable DSLRs to combat Canon in every price point.
The D5100 is a substantial upgrade from its predecessor, and features many of the same spec’s as its bigger brother, the D7000. It has a 16.2 MP sensor, 3 inch 920,000 dot flip-out display, 11 AF points, and an IS0 range of 100-6400. On …

Part 1
Everyone around here knows I’ve been looking around for a new camera for a while.  Being an independent filmmaker who shoots primarily narrative-based (fictional) films, I have certain specific requirements that are very different to the requirements of a photographer.  Now that DSLRs have come into their own – especially with indie/low budget filmmakers – when the camera manufacturers enabled Full 1080p HD video recording capabilities on these DSLRs, it has opened a world of possibilities for the indie filmmaker.  Before, the choice was a bit clearer when you …

With the release of the P7000, Nikon looks to take aim squarely at Canon’s lead in this niche. We finally got a hold of one to test and put through its paces. Has Nikon finally released a camera that can compete with the Canon G12?

Came across this interesting experiment today by Damon Schreiber on the Electroblog.
Spawned from a random Google search, Schreiber was inspired to take shots of Toronto from 1977 and recreate the same shots in 2007, being as painstakingly meticulous as one can to make sure the content, staging, positioning, depth-of-field, aperture, lighting, and even time of day are accurately reproduced. The origins of the idea, and indeed the source of the original shots of Toronto from 30 years ago, are all explained in great detail on the …