Cameras

For the last couple of years, the folks at third-party protection plan company SquareTrade have posted regular drop tests, taking consumer electronics devices and either dropping them or dropping things on them, all in the name of finding out which fares best. The tests, which have so far been limited to phones and tablets, are uncomfortable to watch, but as photographers we found their latest video rather more painful than most. For their latest drop test, SquareTrade partnered with New York electronics store B&H to drop two digital SLRs from a height... (read more)

Scott Johnson, primary photographer at Contrast Studio (Editor's note: The following opinion piece is by Scott Johnson, the primary photographer at Contrast Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. It first appeared on Contrast Studio's blog and does not necessarily reflect the views of Imaging Resource.) I’ve been thinking about the evolution (or devolution, depending on your point of view) of the photography industry a LOT lately, and after reading the statement below (which was transcribed in this Imaging Resource story... (read more)

There’s no shortage of interesting work coming from Shin Seung Back and Kim Yong Hun of Seoul, South Korea. Yesterday we posted an interesting body of work that employed the use of computer algorithms to detect facial structures in the clouds above. The duo has another project that caught our eye: one that shares a representation of the four seasons — with a twist. Shin Seung Back and Kim Yong Hun have gone about an interesting method of combining a million images to create just one representation of a season. The project, not surprisingly called ‘A Million Seasons,’ involved the collection of one million photos tagged with spring, summer, autumn, and winter on Flickr. Color Averaging Process Each of those pictures was then converted to one pixel, with the color of that pixel representing the average color of the image collected. The final result? One image, composed of one million pixels, that represent each of the seasons. Spring Summer Autumn Winter Differentiating the Spring and Summer picture may be tricky, but you can clearly see the differences between the Autumn’s orange-and-red and Winter’s lighter colors. You can view more of Shin Seung Back and Kim Yong Hun’s work on Shinseungback Kimyonghun. Image credits: Photographs by Shin Seung Back and Kim Yong Hun and used with permission

A quick blog update. The various round-up posts (eg Cameraholic Digest and such) are behind. We will hopefully catch up by Friday night. This is not a new burnout, so fear not! A number of "off topic" things like dentistry are temporarily "drilling" into blog time! For the latest camera specials and in-stock alerts, check the Cameras Deals blog. Republication of this RSS feed on any website or blog or app is prohibited and violates the terms of use of this RSS feed. This text comes from the RSS feed of 1001noisycameras.com. This full-text RSS feed is provided as a service to our loyal readers for their personal use. Republication fees start at $1000 per month and will be billed to violating websites.

Microsoft has made it official: The new-and-improved Kinect that will ship with the Xbox One later this year will also come to Windows in 2014. The Windows version will offer the same improvements found in the Xbox One’s Kinect. The device has a wider field of view, better depth detection, an improved noise-canceling microphone, more precise skeletal tracking, and ambient light detection. But don’t expect Kinect to replace your PC’s mouse and webcam anytime soon. Microsoft still envisions Kinect primarily as a product for businesses and organizations, though the company expects consumers to interact with the motion controller in public places. MicrosoftThe new Kinect sensor in actionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Welcome to the dawn of the SSD age. Solid-state drives now offer great performance at affordable prices, which is why more and more users are choosing them in new PCs and adding them to older ones. I'm a big fan myself, but I want to share a cautionary tale. About six months ago, an acquaintance of mine installed an SSD in his laptop. Initially, he was delighted: the drive helped his system boot faster and run longer between trips to the wall socket. Then, one day, out of the blue, the drive died. No clicking, no "imminent failure" message, no warning of any kind--just a dead drive. It's under warranty, but so what? He has a laptop that won't boot and data he can't access. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Thin clients introduced this week by Dell and Hewlett-Packard have faster processor than existing thin clients as well as high-definition graphics capabilities, so they could be alternatives to traditional PCs as computing continues moving to the cloud.The desk-side thin clients also have advanced virtualization features for virtual desktops to host multiple applications in one session. They were announced at the Citrix Synergy conference in Los Angeles.Dell introduced its first quad-core thin clients called the Wyse D90Q7 and Z90Q7, and also its first dual-core thin client, the Xenith Pro 2. HP upgraded its TM40 thin client to run Advanced Micro Devices' A-series processors code-named Richland, which are an upgrade from Intel's third-generation Celeron processors. The thin clients are optimized to work with Citrix's virtualization stack, which includes Xen hypervisors and server and client software.The latest thin clients are PCs with network connectivity but no local storage. Virtual desktops on thin clients typically run applications stored in remote servers, using virtualization technologies from Microsoft, Citrix and VMware. The new thin clients have the ability to run high-definition games delivered over the cloud or full instances of Windows 8 complete with touch interaction.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Canon has patented a color-sensitive multi-layered sensor design, showing the company is still pursuing the technology. Like Sigma's Foveon chips, the multi-layered design allows each of the sensor's pixels to capture color information without the need for colored filters. The patent, discovered by the Japanese Engineering Accomplishment blog, suggests a system to promote resonance within the sensor, in an attempt to make the lower layers of the sensor more sensitive. (from Egami blog)

If you've never had the chance to stand in the front row and shoot a live concert, Montreal-based photographer Pierre Bourgault has the next best thing. He attached a GoPro camera to the top of his Canon DSLR and recorded a seven-minute video of his shooting experience at a Dead to Me concert. He then overlaid the actual photos taken at the show, which you can view after the break.

B&H has a Sony 64GB Class 10 UHS-I SDXC card for $36.45 (reg. $53.66). That’s just an insane price for a 64GB card. Check it out while it lasts here at B&H Photo. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay and is protected by copyright laws. It is unlawful to (a) edit, modify, alter, or create derivative works of the text, content or links supplied by Photography Bay, (b) use any robot, spider, scraper, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Photography Bay RSS feed, (c) sell, retransmit or commercially exploit the Photography Bay RSS feed, headlines or content in any manner except as expressly permitted in writing by authorized representatives of Photography Bay, (d) incorporate advertising into or the placement of advertising associated with or targeted towards the Photography Bay RSS feed or (e) use the Photography Bay RSS feed for any unlawful purpose or in violation of the rights of others. RSSID#794326 Related posts: SanDisk 64GB SDXC Class 10 Card for $48.95 – Deal Alert Sony 16GB Class 10 UHS-I SDHC Card (2-Pack) for $31.95 – Deal Alert Sony 32GB Class 10 SDHC Card for $14.95 – Deal Alert