GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Sony has announced a camera with a new kind of mirror that gives it the fast-focussing of an SLR and the shooting speed and live-view of a mirrorless camera. Sony claims this technology as “ground-breaking”. The problem is that Canon already did it back in 1965.

The new A33 and A55 cameras use a semi-transparent mirror, wedged at 45-degrees inside the body, just like in an SLR. An SLR sends all the light up into the viewfinder and phase-detection autofocus sensor, and then flips the mirror to let that light hit the photo-sensor. Sony’s mirror lets almost all the light onto the sensor, allowing for live-view on the rear screen, and reflects just enough upwards to use phase-detection AF instead of the slower contrast detection usually used in mirrorless cams.

It’s ingenious, and because the mirror doesn’t have to flip out of the way for each exposure, the cameras can shoot at up to 10 frames-per-second. The lack of a flipping mechanism also makes the camera smaller.

But it is far from “ground-breaking”. Canon made the Pellix 45 years ago, a 35mm SLR. It, too, used a semi-transparent, or pellicle mirror, allowing faster, quieter shooting. The mirror was made from silvered Mylar-film, the stuff used to make carnival balloons, and sent two thirds of the light to the film and one-third to the viewfinder, resulting in a dark finder and the loss of 1/3-stop of light for the picture. Also, the mirror would deteriorate over time, growing dirtier and dimmer.

These days, when a camera has a life of just a few years, this deterioration shouldn’t be a problem, and the Sonys get around the issue of a dim finder by using an electronic one.

The A33 and A55 are almost identical, save for the sensors (16.2MP vs. 14.2MP respectively) and speed of shooting. Both have three-inch tilt-able LCD-screens, AVCHD 1080i video (and thanks to the mirror, full AF while shooting it) and shoot up to ISO 12,800.

The prices are $650 and $750, and the cameras will be available in September (A33) and October.

Press release [DP Review]

Pellix photo: sebilden/Flickr

Leaked Sony A33 photo: PetaPixel

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Source:wired.com

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A new camcorder from Sony lets movie-makers use SLR lenses to shoot pro-level footage for just $2,000. The NEX-VG10 uses the same APS-C sensor as the NEX mirrorless line-up, and also uses their E lens-mount, Sony’s equivalent of the compact micro-four-thirds format. With an adapter, you can also use any of Sony’s Alpha mount lenses.

This is pretty big news. The recent buzz has been all about video-shooting DSLRs, with their big chips and fast lenses giving movie-camera-like results on the cheap. The SLR form-factor, though, is less than ideal for movies, as is the (sometimes artificially) short length of clips allowed.

The NEX-VG10 is all about shooting movies (although it can also snap 14MP stills). You get 1080p at 60 frames-per-second (50 fps in Europe, and apparently no option to use the cinema-standard 24p). Footage is recorded onto a Sony Memory Stick or SD-card in AVCHDTM format. Sound comes in via a Quad Capsule Spatial Array Stereo Microphone (sound from four mics is combined to make a stereo mix) or through an external socket, and the LCD screen has a sharp 921,000-dot resolution.

Sony hasn’t left out stills shooters, though. There is even an external flash included in the box. You’ll be limited to JPEG photos, though: there is no RAW capability.

It looks like a good deal, although a read of the spec-sheet shows that the differences between movie and stills cameras is rather arbitrary: the sensors, image processors and lenses are all the same. The only real difference is hardware shape, and the switching off of features like RAW in software.

The camera will be available to buy in September, and ships with the image-stabilized E18-200mm 3.5-6.3 lens.

Sony NEX Store [Sony Style]

Press release [Photography Bay]

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Source:wired.com

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Sony’s panoramic sweep feature already works surprisingly well, giving you great panoramas just by hitting the shutter and swooshing the camera across the scene before you. Now, with a firmware update, the brand-new mirrorless NEX cameras will do the same, only in 3D.

The firmware update is available for the NEX3 and NEX5 cameras, and also brings faster startup times in low light, a better 2D pano-sweep and “decreased power drain when the camera is switched off” (which I assume means that a Sony engineer looked up the word “off” in a dictionary).

But the exciting bit is the 3D panorama function, which will let you view the photos in 3D on a 3D Bravia TV, or any other 3D-capable set. How does it work? Sony fails to enlighten us, but it’s pretty easy to work out. Normal stereoscopic photos are taken by combining two images, usually snapped by two lenses and viewed by separate eyes. Sony’s cameras have just one lens, so some digital trickery is required.

When shooting 2D panoramas, the camera fires off a series of frames as you sweep the camera over the scene. To add another dimension, the camera most likely uses the camera’s accelerometer combined with image data taken from different angles (in the frames you have just shot) to work out what the eyes would see from different points. These can then generate a 3D image.

We’ll be interested to see just how good the effect is, but if it is anything like as seamless as the 2D panoramas, then this could prove to be more than just a gimmick. It is also free, if you have the camera (and a 3DTV). Available now.

Sony NEX 3D firmware update [Sony]

3D update for Sonys NEX-5/NEX-3 cameras Free firmware adds 3D Sweep Panorama shooting [Sony]

Photo: piszkosfreddy/Flickr

Source:wired.com

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The lens is the most important part of your camera. It controls everything about the light that hits the sensor short of the length of the shutter speed. It is much better to put a great lens on a cheap camera than the other way around, something which goes frustratingly unheeded: just check a few photo forums to see people sticking crappy kit lenses onto Nikon D700s and Canon 5D MkIIs.

That’s not to say that Samyang’s range of lenses for Samsung’s mirrorless NX-series are bad. Without testing we won’t know for sure, but experience says that own-brand lenses are best, followed by those from top-tier third party makers like Sigma.

Three lenses are being ported to the Samsung mount. An 8mm 3.5, a 14mm 2.8 and an 85mm 1.4. Of these, the 8mm would seem to be the most interesting. It will come in at around 12mm (35mm equivalent) on the NX APS-C sensor, and usually the main point with a fisheye is impact rather than absolute quality. The price has not yet been announced but the lens can be had for as little as $350 in other mounts.

The 85mm, on the other hand, is a flat-out portrait lens and goes for around $400. In this case, quality needs to be high. If Samyang manages this, then the 1.4 lens will be an absolute bargain.

Tempted? Think twice. There is one huge drawback when using the lenses on a modern camera: No autofocus. This will probably be fine for the fisheye, but try that with the insanely shallow depth-of-field that an 85mm 1.4 will give you and you’ll learn a thing or two about manual focussing and just how wobbly your hands really are.

Product page [Samyang via BJP]

Source:wired.com

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