Want some micro-four third but don’t want the awesomely new Lumix GF3? Well Olympus just went live with the PEN E-P3, PEN E-PL3, and PEN E-PM1, three 12.3 megapixel interchangeable lens cameras with Live MOS sensors, TruePic VI image processors and an ISO ceiling of 12,800. Yes, all the awesome bells and whistles.

You’ll also get a reengineered autofocus system, a 1080i HD video mode, newly designed user interfaces and a variety of Art Filters. The E-P3 is outfitted with an all-metal body and “the world’s fastest autofocus” (really?), while the rear is dotted with a 614,000 pixel OLED touchscreen. The E-PL3 steps it up with a 3-inch tilting LCD, while the smallest and lightest of the PEN line (yeah, the E-PM1) will be shipping in a half-dozen hues.

The outfit also revealed a new pair of prime lenses, a camera grip and a FL-300R flash, all of which are detailed in the source links below. But what about the damage? Only the P3 is being priced at the moment thought, with $900 landing you a new kit this August.

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It’s no big surprise that Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 has some Android 2.3-filled days to look forward to. At long last, the handset maker is finally delivering its promise and is offering up a few extra details about the inevitable upgrade, now set for early-August. The company has addressed some user concerns regarding changes to functionality that will come with the upgrade, assuring users that new version of the software will keep the phone’s camera UI intact and will feature newer functionality like the company’s Facebook Inside Xperia feature. Catch the Gingerbready video below, which unfortunately makes surviving the summer on a lesser build no less painless.

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Ever since Sony discontinued their NEX-3, we heard lots of rumours regarding the successor, the NEX-C3, and now it’s officially official. Announced today, the NEX-C3 appears identical to the model leaked in April, and uses the same format APS-C image sensor as its predecessor, bumping resolution to 16.2 megapixels in a camera body smaller than the NEX-5.

Sony says the new entry-level cam is designed to fill the gap between point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras, and is the smallest body to pack an APS-C sensor, offering DSLR-level image quality — the same 16.2 MP chip is also included in its new full-size Alpha A35, which replaces the A33. Both cameras can shoot at up to 5.5 fps (the A35 adds a 7 fps mode at 8.4 megapixels), and include 3-inch LCDs, with the NEX keeping its hallmark tilt display, and the A35 adding Sony’s Translucent Mirror live-view mode, and an electronic viewfinder. Read more…

It’s odd that we always see Apple filing patents over strange and sometimes fantastic things that mostly never seem to get into actual products. But an application published today details some interesting tech that we could actually see getting squished into a future iPhone, for the better of humanity hopefully.

By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code, transmitters could disable certain features, such as the camera, to prevent recording at movie theaters and music venues.

If completely shutting off the cam seems a bit heavy-handed, watermarks can also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content. Some potential uses are a little less Big Brother, like museums beaming information about exhibits to a user’s or launching an audio tour.

Obviously third parties would have to get behind the IR push, and of course, there’s no guarantee that Apple will put this in a future iProduct. Then again, there’s the little worried that the days of blurry YouTube concert videos may be coming to an end, well at least for those that are using Apple’s iPhone.

SOURCE via Patently Apple

Cameras are like cars, we pursue far more advance technologies day and night and yet still sought after classical cameras and cars for the vintage feeling. Here’s a good example, and a bloody expensive one too.

A 1923 Leica 0-series just got sold at an auction for €1,320,000. Funnily, the exact same auction house reportedly sold the exact same camera four years ago: No. 107, the first Leica to be exported, allegedly for a patent application inspection in New York.

In 2007, it fetched a relatively paltry €336,000, which was apparently still a world record for Leica cameras at the time. That particular dude sure earned a lot at there, and there’s no sign that this thing still works.

SOURCE via Herald

Is Samsung going to invade the high-end digital camera market? The picture above was posted on Samsung’s blog about lens design, and the boxy camera above is an old-school-like medium format film shooter, from Samsung itself! That’s odd; we never see that on the market. There was a rumor kicking around last summer that Samsung was working on a medium format CMOS sensor and this could be a test rig for just such a slice of silicon. Is this a prototype of what’s coming from the Korean giant?

SOURCE via Akihabaranews

Analog film photography has ‘almost’ died when digital camera and DSLR arrived, but now the resurrection is in progress. Fans of the awesome Lomo Photography, please welcome the brand new Lomo LC-Wide camera!

The new camera sports a 17mm Minigon Ultra-Wide Angle lens, and can shoot on pretty much any type of 35mm film. There are also a full range of effects to choose from: full, square, half-format shots, multiple exposures, and it even has a close-up focus distance of just 0.4 meters with auto exposure, zone-based focusing, and a maximum shutter speed of 1/500, which isn’t bad at all.

Lomo fans will find this camera at a RRP of $390. The funny magician around here, JoJo is already saving up for this baby.

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There’s a new camcorder for cyclist and adventurers alike. From the famous company that brought you the ContourGPS, this new camcorder is called the Contour+, aka Contour Plus. As usual, it’s a helmet cam from Contour, and this new imager captures 1080p video at 30fps, and also packs built-in GPS plus Bluetooth v2.1 — the latter’s for the wireless viewfinder app on iOS and, eventually, Android.

The Contour+ does indeed come with a mini HDMI-out port alongside the microSD slot on the back. you’ll also find an HDMI cable in the box to get you going. And of course, let’s not forget the new super-wide lens (still rotatable) that does 170 degrees for 960p and 720p recording, or 125 degrees for 1080p. Both modes best the camera’s predecessor, though the trade-off is the lack of dual-alignment lasers. If this isn’t a problem for you, then feel free to shell out $499.99 when it launches on May 18th.

SOURCE via Contour

There’s yet another new Micro Four Thirds shooter in town, and it’s from Panasonic, the company that gave us the famous Lumix DMC-GF2. This time, it’s the slightly bigger brother, the Lumix DMC-G3. Yes, this is the successor to the G2.

The G3 comes with a 16 megapixel sensor, support for 1080p AVCHD video recording with stereo audio, 4fps burst shooting at full resolution, and an articulating, 3-inch touchscreen that supplants some of the dials adorning the last-gen model.

In addition to all those specs, you can touch that display to focus on your subject, and slide your finger to tweak exposure, white balance, and depth of field — all in all, not unlike how you might interact with a smartphone camera. It seemed like they learn very fast about the latest trends.

Also, this new successor is said to weight ten percent less than the G2 at 11.8 ounces, all thanks to the aluminium-clad body.

Look for it in June for $700 in brown, red, and white — in addition to your garden-variety black.

Have you heard of the RED EPIC-M camera? It’s the one that’s going to be used to shoot the next blue alien movie, Avatar 2. The thing cost a whopping $58,000 each unit, and so who would actually be so smart to take them all apart? Well, the kind dudes over at the FCC did just that.

There isn’t much to see if you’re not interested in electronic circuits, but it does impress me how they hand-machine this impressive 5K imager into a piece. Head over to Wireless Goodness to admire the full glory.

SOURCE via Wireless Goodness