At its CES press conference in Las Vegas Asus has announced the ZenFone Zoom, a smartphone with 3x optical zoom lens that is only 12mm thin. The ZenFone Zoom runs Android 5.0 and features a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS screen and up to 128GB of built-in storage. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Smartphone imaging components have improved a lot in recent years but the lack of an optical zoom is still a major disadvantage compared to traditional compact cameras. Now Samsung is aiming to make its hybrid model more attractive to consumers and has launched the second generation of the Galaxy Zoom series. Learn more
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
CES 2014: Panasonic has unveiled the Lumix DMC-LZ40, a budget superzoom with an F3.0-6.5 22-924mm equivalent zoom lens. It has a 20 megapixel CCD sensor, fixed 3-inch 460k dot LCD, and can record video at 720/30p. The LZ40 is also equipped with optical image stabilization, 13 filter effect modes, and a lithium-ion battery rated to 320 shots.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
The G2 follows the Optimus G/G Pro as LG’s flagship smartphone, with plenty of tech spec to warrant a second look. From its huge 5.2-inch IPS LCD display to its 13MP CMOS sensor with optical image stabilization system, there’s a lot here for mobile photography fanatics. We tested out the smartphone’s camera capabilities as only Dpreview can: check out our in-depth 10-page review on connect.dpreview.com.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
New Zealand artist, illusionist and urbanist Mark Hewson has a good many tricks up his sleeve involving spatial deception, convincing citizens there is less (or more) to their city than can ordinarily be seen.
His first trick in this series: disguising an ordinary street-crossing skyway from a series of key vantage points. But even from alternate angles where the lines do not sync up, the effect is dizzying. Our pattern-seeking brains keep looking for transparency or reflection where there is just a solid painting.
Other illusions in his repertoire involve mirroring or warping unseen elements behind solid surfaces or sheets of material. Again, this toying with voids and our structural expectations induces odd forms of visual vertigo.
In previous projects, like the Lost Space Installation, he has worked with gaps and openings, filling them in with imaginary scenes that range from plausible to impossible. While these may be more obviously fake on the surface, they create a nonetheless potent sense of spatial distortion and disorientation.
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Samsung has revealed a brand new 13MP smartphone camera unit with optical image stabilization and improved low light performance. Samsung’s press release doesn’t specifically name any devices that the new camera is slated to appear in, but it’s safe to assume that we’ll see it next year in the Galaxy S5 and Note 4. Click through for more details at connect.dpreview.com.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Panasonic has announced the Lumix DMC-FZ70, a 16MP compact superzoom with a 60x optical zoom that more than doubles the zoom reach of its 24x FZ60 predecessor. Spanning the equivalent of 20-1200mm, the FZ70’s zoom lens has a maximum aperture range of F2.8-5.9 and is claimed to be both the longest and widest in its class. The FZ70 effectively replaces the FZ60, but the constant-F2.8 Lumix DMC-FZ200 remains in the lineup.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]
Have you ever wondered how 19th century artists were able to produce such incredibly realistic drawings? It isn’t just because they were unusually talented, though it’s hard to argue that they were. Many of them benefitted from the use of a ‘camera lucida’, an optical device that reflects real-life images onto a drawing surface so they can be traced. A new version of the tool, called the ‘NeoLucida,’ aims to bring this drawing aid back, with a few modern updates.
Essentially a prism on a stick, the camera lucida was once a very popular drawing tool, making it easy to create realistic drawings. A portable version hasn’t been manufactured in nearly a century. Antique versions sell for hundreds of dollars, but Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin, the makers of the NeoLucida, aim to sell theirs for just $ 40.
“We want to make this remarkable device widely available to students, artists, architects, and anyone who loves to draw from life,” say the pair on their Kickstarter page, which has already raised nearly half a million dollars – far over the original goal of $ 15,000. “But to be clear: our NeoLucida is not just a product, but a provocation. In manufacturing a camera lucida for the 21st century, our aim is to stimulate interest in media archaeology—the tightly interconnected history of visual culture and imaging technologies.
The NeoLucida is made from a combination of mass-manufactured and custom-machined parts. It has a clamp to fit onto the edge of desks and tables, and a goose neck for adjustability. It’s lightweight, non-electric, and compact enough to fit in a handbag. Get more details at the project’s Kickstarter (via notcot.org.)
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[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
As you approach a curve in a parking garage, suddenly a large abstract object seems to float in space just ahead, as if overlaid on top of a static image rather than a three-dimensional setting. You’re not hallucinating: it’s a painted geometric illusion by artist Felice Varini, who has a vast portfolio of similar works spanning decades.
The Paris-based Swiss artist has painted dozens of settings, public and private, indoors and out, that come together into an optical illusion only when viewed from a certain vantage point. From every other perspective, the markings seem random and chaotic, splashed across railings, walls, ceilings and streets.
The effect is so disconcerting at times, that people coming across images of the large-scale paintings often assume they have been Photoshopped. But once you see photos of the scene from different angles, the magic of Varini’s work (and others like it) becomes clear.
In order to be appreciated and understood, these anamorphic illusions require action – movement – on the part of the viewer. But if you never bother to explore the scene in order to make the image come together, Varini doesn’t mind.
“The viewer can be present in the work, but as far as I am concerned he may go through it without noticing the painting at all. If he is aware of the work, he might observe it from the vantage point and see the complete shape. But he might look from other points of views where he will not be able to understand the painting because the shapes will be fragmented and the work too abstract. Whichever way, that is ok with me.”
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Description: We take a look at Nikon’s latest 28, which is an AF-S lens. Nikon shooters haven’t exactly been spoilt for choice with 28mm primes, so this is good news, right? Kai takes a look at it on the streets of Hong Kong. Featuring a MS Optical Perar Super Triplet (mainly for Leica Porn purposes). Pricing reference: www.digitalrev.com
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