The Microsoft Kinect 3D camera was a hot seller last holiday season, but now it seems that the buzz has subsided.
According to PC Magazine writer John C. Dvorak, the Kinect is in phase 10 of an 11-phase process that most high-tech products go through…
Phases 1-3: A hot product generates rumors, there’s a pre-announcement to either downplay or exaggerate the product, followed by media speculation, which is drawn out until the product arrives.
Phases 4-6: The product is rolled out and a shipping date is set, followed by shipment of the first batch ship and afterwards, a shortage announcement.
Phases 7-9: The black market, described by Dvorak as “a short-term black market for the device emerges, sometimes arranged by the company itself,” followed by the product’s complete release and then a PR effort to sustain interest.
Phase 10: New uses. “Out-of-the-blue, new uses are ascribed to the device if possible. These supposed new uses should have been planned from the beginning.”
And finally, Phase 11: an analysis determined by long-term public reception of product, leading to three options: do it all over, make routine minor adjustments/improvements, or let it sell until it runs out and call it quits after that.
“The Kinect is now in phase ten and new uses are being ascribed, mainly 3D telecommunications,” writes Dvorak. “You can spot the hand of the PR folks involved by the repetitious and redundant messages seen in far too many of the stories. In this case, it’s that 3D Kinect is ‘now cooler than Skype.'”
DP Art Adams discusses the future of technology and the importance of creative talent behind its use.
“Honestly, I’m not so concerned about our technological future: things will always get better, faster and easier over time. My concern is how we, as humans, will relate to technology,” writes Adams. “The last few years have seen a shift in focus from the people to the tools, and that’s a dangerous path to follow.”
“As cinematographers we should be selling ourselves on our unique vision and abilities, but instead we often find ourselves selling gear,” he comments regarding what he sees as a disappointing trend.
“Somehow the focus must be shifted from the technology back to the people who use the technology, because that’s where all the creativity is.”
Adams suggests producers and directors use the same approach that he uses with his own crew: 1) Hire good people who can do their jobs better than you can do their jobs; 2) Tell them what you want; 3) Tell them the parameters (time, budget, etc.); 4) Let them use their creativity and years of experience to solve the problem in their own way; 5) Repeat.
For any old school film fans in our audience, check out the $80 LomoKino analog camera that shoots 144 frames on a single roll of 35mm film (at a frame rate of approximately 3-5 frames per second).
“With the LomoKino, you can give your films a sense of style, all the while escaping the megapixel-obsessed society we live in today,” reports Digital Trends. “You can even pair it with the LomoKinoScope so you can watch and enjoy the movies you’ve created.”
With HD getting all the attention of late, “it’s nice to see a cool new analog camera enter the fray and represent the colorful, unique, and sometimes blurry world of Lomographic photography.”
The LomoKino site features some interesting package deals, including the $150 “Film Noir” bundle: LomoKino & LomoKinoscope, Lomography Lady Grey B&W 400 35mm (Pack of 3), Lomography Lady Grey B&W 400 35mm (Pack of 3) & Lomography Earl Grey B&W 100 35mm (Pack of 3).
You can also check out some sample footage on the LomoKino site.
Panasonic has announced its first all-in-one 3D point-and-shoot camera.
The Micro-Four-Thirds Lumix DMC-GX1 features “16.01-megapixel Live MOS sensor and Venus Engine, designed to deliver high-resolution stills and video with image rendering and high quality color reproduction,” reports TWICE.
The $700-$950 GX1 records 1,920×1,080/60i video, with 30p sensor output in the AVCHD format. According to the report, the new camera “is positioned as an upgrade to the Lumix DMC-GF. In includes an new ultra-fast auto focusing system and includes a built-in flash and a hot shoe allowing for such accessories as external electronics viewfinder.”
Additionally, the $500 Lumix DMC-3D1 is another P&S 3D-capable offering. It uses two 25mm ultra-wide lenses with 4x optical zoom extensions and has a 12-megapixel MOS sensor.
“With its twin-lens design, the Lumix 3D can even shoot HD video through one lens and 2D photos from the other,” says said Darin Pepple of Panasonic, “thus getting still and moving content simultaneously, a unique shooting feature which Panasonic provides so users can stretch their creativity.”
Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg looks back on two decades of consumer electronics and the impact of tech innovation on our personal and professional lives.
The first line of his first “Personal Technology” column in 1991: “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault.”
Mossberg takes a trip down memory lane recalling the era of his early reports: “Mobile phones were huge bricks. Digital cameras for consumers cost a fortune and took monochrome pictures. Digital music players and video recorders, e-readers and tablets were nowhere to be found.”
From Motorola’s MicroTac Lite pocket-size phone ($1,500-$2,500) in 1992 to Apple’s popular iPad today, Mossberg offers an interesting snapshot of personal technology spanning two game-changing decades.
Featured in the article: AOL, Apple’s QuickTake digital camera, Windows 95, Netscape, Palm Pilot, Sony Vaio, iMac, DVR, Google and more. There’s also an interesting Tech Timeline graphic included.
RED Digital Cinema has officially released its Scarlet-X pro video camera with Canon EF or PL mount. Panavision, Anamorphic, and Nikon lenses are also compatible.
According to the company’s press release: “With burst modes up to 12 fps at full 5K resolution alongside 4K motion capture from 1-30 fps, the camera allows professional photographers and cinematographers to simultaneously capture motion footage and still content…The addition of HDRx reaches up to 18 stops of dynamic range, bringing digital images closer than ever to the natural perception of the human eye.”
The $9,750 Scarlet-X is available for pre-order on RED.com, while the $14,015 Scarlet-X AL Canon Mount Package includes a power adaptor, 5-inch touch LCD, and a hand grip.
“Launched the same day as Canon’s new EOS C300 Digital Cinema Camera, clearly the folks at RED have put some thought into their spec-list and price point,” reports Digital Photography Review. “Whether an amateur or professional film-maker should use the C300 or Scarlet (or perhaps Canon’s forthcoming 4K DSLR) will become an interesting debate in the coming year.”
Canon has announced its new Cinema EOS C300 professional camera system.
The company is introducing five new lenses for the system, all available in an EF mount: “The lenses are designed to outlast the camera, as they are each rated for use in 4K productions…The zoom lenses will also be made available in PL mount versions,” reports PCMag.com.
Its 8.29-megapixel sensor is the same size as Super 35 film. It records MPEG-2 with 4:2:2 color sampling and a maximum bitrate of 50Mbps. Frame rate support includes 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p, and 24p.
Canon also announced an unnamed DSLR, optimized for cinema use, which is currently in development: “It will sport a full-frame 35mm CMOS sensor and support 4K video acquisition at 24p using Motion-JPEG compression, although the field of view of its lenses will be cropped to APS-H dimensions when recording at full resolution.”
The Groundbot spherical surveillance robot from Sweden “can roll through mud, sand, snow, or heck, float on water if it need be — while using its pair of cameras to deliver its remote operator with a live live video feed — in stereoscopic 3D, no less,” reports Ubergizmo.
This is a great simple design for a device that could be used in many hazardous situations such as combating crime and detecting potential terrorism.
The Groundbot can travel up to 6 mph and features knobby tire treads for all-terrain operation. The robot includes sensors for “radioactivity, gas, humidity, fire, heat, smoke, biological material, explosives, or narcotics.”
“One controls the Groundbot remotely or through a programmed autonomous GPS-based system, where the Groundbot works like your regular DSLR — you can opt to include a wide-angled camera (for 360-degree vision), or if the situation arises, use a night vision (IR) camera instead.”
Apple’s new iPhone 4S touts an 8-megapixel camera sensor capable of recording HD video at full 1080p resolution.
As an experiment, Robino Films recently posted a video comparing HD video shot with the new iPhone against video from the $2,400 Canon 5D Mark II. The two devices were mounted side-by-side on a camera rig, with similar exposure settings, shooting 1080p video at 30 frames per second.
“This test is really only to show that the 4S is coming close to the 5D but in NO WAY is it better,” comments Robino Films. “The iPhone is a great 1080p pocket camera and shows us where technology is heading. Give it two three years and we should see some interesting micro high performance cameras.”
ETCentric staffer George Gerba comments: “Add a professional connected app for news production and the white iPhone 4S might be more like a white news van than a phone…”
Canon’s latest high-end DSLR, the recently announced $6800 EOS-1D X, is expected to ship by March 2012.
Features include: 61-point AF system, 1GB Ethernet port, three DIGIC image processors, up to 12 fps RAW shooting, 18-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor.
“Images will supposedly be less noisy at extreme ISO settings and the improved processor system will reportedly offer truer colors and more natural contrast, even in low lighting,” reports Digital Trends. “Canon has included continuous Full HD video recording for longer movies sessions (nearly 30 minutes) and new compression files — one in an editing format and another completely compressed file.”
The post features a brief video from PetaPixel showcasing “what shooting an 18-megapixel image at 14-frames-per-second looks and sounds like.”
Yesterday, ETCentric reported that San Francisco-based start-up Lytro was getting ready to launch a new digital camera that could potentially be “the biggest technological jump since we started talking megapixels over 20 years ago…” (as suggested by All Things D).
In a public demo at AsiaD this week with Walt Mossberg, Lytro showed its innovative light field technology and camera that allows you to capture all the light rays of a scene and alter the focus AFTER the picture is taken.
The camera, which starts at $399 for the 8GB model, also offers the ability to view a scene in 3D. The Wall Street Journal post includes a compelling 17-minute video of the demo.
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld submitted a related article that provides product and technical details of the consumer market light field camera.
“The camera itself is a square prism in shape, around 4.4-inches long and around 1.6-inches square,” reports Digital Photography Review. “Around two thirds of its length is bare anodized aluminum, which houses a 35-280mm equivalent, constant F2 lens. The rest of its length is coated in a soft, light gray rubber, in which you’ll find the camera’s three physical controls — the power switch, a shutter button and a slider that you stroke to zoom the lens in and out. All other interaction with the camera is conducted via the small, 128×128 pixel square touch screen that covers the rear face of the device.”
Digital camera start-up Lytro has unveiled “a consumer digital camera that it claims will be the biggest technological jump since we started talking megapixels over 20 years ago,” reports All Things D.
The San Francisco-based company has made waves in the industry with its light field photography concept: “a light field camera captures light all throughout the scene in front of the lens, as opposed to the cameras consumers are used to, which bring a particular thing into focus first.”
The result is an image that can be refocused after it is captured, as opposed to standard digital photos, which are focused before being taken.
Lytro claims the camera “is faster from power-up to capture, and has exceptional performance in low light, even without a flash.”
The camera will ship in early 2012 in 8GB ($399) and 16GB versions.
Creative COW asks if film is getting ready to fade to black: “While the debate has raged over whether or not film is dead, ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have quietly ceased production of film cameras within the last year to focus exclusively on design and manufacture of digital cameras. That’s right: someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off the line.”
“The demand for film cameras on a global basis has all but disappeared,” says Bill Russell, ARRI VP of cameras. “If you talk to the people in camera rentals, the amount of film camera utilization in the overall schedule is probably between 30 to 40 percent.”
While film may not be dead, it is most certainly on the decline. Digital production is on the rise, and for those still interested in shooting on film, used cameras are available.
“Almost nobody is buying new film cameras,” says Aaton founder Jean-Pierre Beauviala. “Why buy a new one when there are so many used cameras around the world?”
Stereoscopic 3D production may also be “accelerated the demise of film” says Beauviala, since it is “a nightmare to synchronize two film cameras.”
Russell predicts that film will eventually disappear, although the exact date is unknown. Phil Radin, executive VP of worldwide marketing at Panavision suggests the timing will be decided by the availability of resources. “Film will be around as long as Kodak and Fuji believe they can make money at it,” he says.
Digital Trends takes four of Sony’s new digicams for a test drive — a pair of 24-megapixel DSLRs (the SLT-A77 and SLT-A65) and two compact mirrorless cameras (the NEX-5N and NEX-7).
The 3-day test period was conducted by recording more than 1,200 stills and dozens of short videos in rugged Southern California exteriors.
The review speaks highly of the DSLRs: “Sony really leaped ahead with this new pair by upping still resolution, the frame rate, video quality and incorporating a high-quality OLED viewfinder. Resolution is now 24.3 megapixels, the most of any consumer camera. Even with all the pixels, the A77 cranks off 12 frames per second at full resolution; the less expensive A65 does 10. Both also capture AVCHD Progressive movies, which are a beautiful 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, rather than 1080i.”
In terms of cost: “The A77 costs $1,399 for the body only and is sold with an extremely sharp constant-aperture f/2.8 16-50mm lens for around $2,000. The A65 costs $999 with a more traditional 18-55mm lens. As a comparison, the 3.7 fps 18-megapixel Canon EOS Rebel T3i is $899 with an 18-55mm lens.”
Regarding the mirrorless cameras, Digital Trends comments: “Although the NEX-7 still requires a final production sample test, the early taste was quite fine. This could easily be the camera of the year given our hands-on experience. The buzz among the reviewers was pretty intense. As for the NEX-5N, although it’s a nice camera, it really paled in comparison to its big brothers and sisters.”
Pricing for the mirrorless models: “The NEX-7 has the high-quality finder built-in on the rear top left; the view is very good. We used the camera with an f/2.0 24mm prime lens, which added a cool $1,200 to the basic $1,149 price for the body. The NEX-7 will be sold with a cosmetically-matching black 18-55mm lens for $1,349. This outfit has a very Leica-like vibe and takes some pretty spectacular images… The NEX-5N has a 16-megapixel APS-C sensor (up from 14) and costs $699 with an 18-55mm kit lens.”
YouTube added several new tools for video creators this week, as part of its “ongoing goal to foster the creation of great video content,” explains the company’s Broadcasting Ourselves blog.
The first tool, currently in beta, converts 2D video content into 3D. YouTube admits you’ll get better results with a 3D camera, but this is at least an option for those without one.
Second, you can now upload videos longer than the current 15-minute limit allows, and the advanced uploader is no longer required for larger files. However, the feature is restricted to users with “a clean track record who complete an account verification and continue to follow the copyright rules set forth in our Community Guidelines.”
Finally, YouTube gives creators the ability to add effects and text using Vlix, and adds Magisto, which will automatically take your unedited video and create a short clip complete with music.
