Cameras

Adobe Systems has released Lightroom 4.4 with support for two mainstream SLRs, Nikon's new D7100 and Canon's Rebel SL1, and with better image quality for a Fujifilm cameras with unusual sensors.

Lightroom is designed for editing and cataloging photos, especially those shot in cameras' proprietary raw image formats that offer higher quality but impose an image-processing burden on photographers. Adobe periodically updates the software to support new cameras -- and in the case of version 4.4 to fix problems with existing cameras such as the Fujifilm models.

Fujifilm's X-Trans and EXR sensors each vary from … Read more

You know what they say... keep your friends close, and your batteries closer.

A Washington-based accessory maker has just created a Kickstarter project for its latest product, the Rhino Battery Holster. As the name suggests, the contraption allows you to holster your camera battery like a gunslinger in an old Western.

Capable of holding two Canon 2 LP-E6 juice packs, the battery holster has an integrated belt clip that lets you attach the holster to your belt, camera strap, or camera carrier. Alternately, there are brass inserts at the rear of the belt clip that let you secure the holster to anything using a carabiner. … Read more

A stunning 4-gigapixel panorama of Mars, compiled from images captured by two mast cameras aboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, could be one of the most detailed views of our distant neighbor yet.

The panoramic picture of Gale Crater derives from 295 images that were digitally stitched together by Estonian photographer Andrew Bodrov. In its final form, the mosaic stretches out to an astounding 90,000 by 45,000-pixel resolution. … Read more

Boy meets camera. Boy loses camera. Boy launches undercover sting to recover camera. Photographer Jeff Hu became the star of his own version of the classic cop show "The Streets of San Francisco" when he took on the task of recovering his stolen Canon Rebel T2i camera.

Hu details his adventure in an article for PetaPixel that should act as a training manual for anyone who ever finds a stolen item on Craigslist.

The story begins innocently enough with a party that got a little out of hand. A group of close friends soon expanded to include some strangers. The next morning, the party-goers were gone, and so was Hu's dSLR.… Read more

Continuing to focus on its pockets of growth for point-and-shoots, Fujifilm announced today two new FinePix models, the XP200 and S8400W.

An update to 2012's rugged XP170, the XP200 gets better waterproofing, now able to shoot down to 50 feet, and is still shockproof to about 6.6 feet, freezeproof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, and dustproof. It has a redesigned battery door with a dial-locking mechanism to help keep the seal tighter than simple sliding locks.

Other improvements include a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, a 3-inch, 920K-dot-resolution LCD, and a new burst-shooting button for capturing shots at up to 10 … Read more

Photo enthusiasts already pleased with the iPhone's generally superior camera can be forgiven for getting excited about the possibility of shooting photos in the higher-end raw file format.

Cypress Innovations on Wednesday released a new app called Digital Negative that might raise that very hope by offering a way to take photos that are stored in Adobe Systems' DNG format for raw photos. Alas, although the app does store uncompressed image data, it doesn't actually store the raw data taken straight from the sensor.

The Digital Negative app collects the uncompressed red, green, and blue color information for … Read more

Google is getting more serious about mapping Canada's north, deploying photographers in winter to map the city of Iqaluit.

As temperatures hit a chilly 8 degrees, walkers equipped with Google's Trekker backpack cameras fanned out across Nunavut's capital, located along Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island.

The effort to image the city of 6,700 marks the first use of the Trekkers in the Canadian north. It's prohibitively expensive to send vehicles there, and some roads are difficult in winter, or nonexistent in summer. … Read more

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you: the only significant difference between the now-discontinued Canon EOS Rebel T4i and its replacement, the T5i, is the price and the kit lens options. There are some small enhancements, including a new finish; 360-degree rotation mode dial plus the addition of scene mode; a return of digital zoom during movie recording (which had disappeared in the T4i "upgrade" from the T3i); and real-time preview of creative filters in Live View. But ultimately, it's the same camera.

The new model rolls out in conjunction with a new STM version of the … Read more

For the PowerShot SX280 HS, Canon's new top compact megazoom, it's all about the processor.

Compared with its predecessor, the SX260 HS, the SX280 shares the same 20x, f3.5-6.8, 25-500mm lens and 12-megapixel backside-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor.

Joining them, however, is an all-new Digic 6 image processor. For low-light shooters, this is an important update, as it allows for less noise in pictures taken at higher ISOs. How much less? Canon claims the noise at ISO 1600 on the SX280 is equivalent to what you'd get at ISO 400 with the SX260.

The new processor … Read more