Cameras, Printers & Scanners News - Page 3

Sony is gearing up for the launch of its next-gen A7S III camera, with the company confirming that it will be making the official debut of its new camera on July 28 at 10AM EDT.

What do we know about the new Sony A7S III camera? We are to expect a "complete redesign of the whole system, including the image sensor" according to Kenji Tanaka, Senior General Manager of Sony's Digital Imaging Group during an interview earlier this year with DPReview.

As for what's inside of the new A7S III camera, we're to expect a new 12-megapixel sensor that will have 15 stops of dynamic range, a super high resolution electronic viewfinder, and a new cooling system. The cooling system will see the Sony A7S III sustain long sessions of video recording, unlike the current A7S II.

Blackmagic has just unveiled its new Ursa Mini Pro 12K camera, the new crown jewel in its family of cameras and boy does it have some industry leading features.

The new Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro 12K packs a huge 80-megapixel 12,288 x 6480 (12K) sensor that is capable of shooting native 12K footage at 60FPS. Not just that, but the new Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro 12K can shoot 8K video at 110FPS, and 4K video at 220FPS.

There's an interchangeable lens mount, and dual UHS-II SD card slots (I'm sure you're going to need a lot of them in order to shoot 12K 60FPS video).

Canon is one of the biggest makers of DSLR cameras in the world, and it currently has a new app that launched called the EOS Webcam Utility Beta app. Anyone who has a Canon DSLR camera and needs a webcam for business or keeping in touch with family and friends can use the app to turn their DSLR into a very high-quality webcam. The new app is particularly welcome during the coronavirus pandemic as webcams can be hard to find.

The new EOS Webcam Utility Beta app will be appealing to owners of both new and old Canon DSLR cameras. While the newer cameras have HDMI outputs, additional software is still required to capture and stream live video. In some instances, capture cards are also needed.

The EOS Webcam Utility Beta eliminates the need for any additional hardware for compatible cameras. Only certain cameras are supported but the list is long. Supported cameras include the following:

Raspberry Pi has a new product for tinkerers to integrate into their builds called the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera. The camera add-on uses a 12.3-megapixel Sony IMX477 sensor. The camera is designed to accept CS-mount lenses, and with the supplied adapter, it will also fit C-mount lenses.

Raspberry Pi notes that the CGL 6 mm CS-mount and the 16mm C-mount lenses are examples of third-party products that are compatible with the High Quality Camera. The lens mount is made from milled aluminum for durability, and the camera has an optional tripod mount. The sensor is 7.9 mm diagonal and can output RAW/12/10/8 and COMP8 formats.

The focus is adjustable between 12.5 mm and 22.4 mm. The High Quality Camera has an integrated IR cut filter and a 200 mm long ribbon cable to connect to the Raspberry Pi developer board. The IR filter is removable to enable IR sensitivity, but that modification is irreversible. The camera should provide users with a new way to get high-quality photos using various Raspberry Pi build possibilities.

Researchers have created a new 3D printing technique that could replace traditional 3D printers that take far to long to create desired objects.

The problem with traditional 3D printers is that they work in horizontal layers. This process is the bane of 3D printing, as it means that, depending on the size of the object, it will take time to construct. What if the printer could build the entire model all at once, instead of layer-by-layer? Researchers from Switzerland's Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have done just that with their new invention.

This new printing technique uses lasers to project an image onto the photosensitive resin. To put it simply, the researchers use a rotating chamber that is filled with the resin, and an image that the laser blasts onto the chamber to quickly start the building process. The chamber spins in tandem with the laser, activating the entire model of the object all at once, building it in seconds. In the above video, it's explained that this new form of 3D printing can be used for the construction of softer materials such as organ shapes and hydro-gels.

The internet is an amazing place that I started my journey on back in the dial-up days and 14.4Kbps modems, all the way through to fiber connections and 5G -- but there's not much these days that makes me sit back and think "yeah, holy crap"... but today, is one of those days. Check out this video:

This is 'L'Arrivee d'un train en gare de La Ciotat', a 50-second silent short film that debuted in 1896 (that is NOT a typo), and when it was first showed to cinema-goers, rumor has it that many of them thought the train was going to burst through the screen as they had not (ever) seen video before. The low-quality original film can be viewed in a comparison towards the end, while it is shown in the glorious 4K resolution at 60FPS.

YouTuber Denis Shiryaev used publicly available AI-powered enhancement programs DAIN and Gigapixel AI to upscale the 1896 footage to 4K 60FPS. It looks absolutely awesome in comparison, with the 60FPS side of things really helping smooth the entire video out.

Engineers have stepped the camera game up to a new level with a brand new camera that is capable of not only taking one trillion images a second, but also capturing objects that are transparent.

Caltech's Lihong Wang developed the world's fastest camera, this device was capable of taking ten trillion images a second. While that might sound incredibly impressive, which it is, that camera did have limitations. Now, Wang has invented a new camera that has a slower speed (one trillion images per second), but can also capture images of transparent objects. This new camera combines the technology of the first camera mentioned (ten trillion images per second) with some older technology called phase-contrast microscopy.

Wang calls this combination of technology "phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography (pCUP)". Phase-contrast microscopy is quite old, in fact, its one-hundred years old and was created by Dutch physicist Frits Zernike to observe transparent materials. The method observes light waves that are slowing down as they are entering various materials. An example of this would be if a beam of light was shot into a plane of glass, the light would slow down upon impact of the glass and then speed back up once it has exited it.

3D printing has really taken off in recent years, but with Dubai wanting to be Dubai, they have taken it one step further than printing home use objects. They have decided to print an entire office...

Yes, you did read that correctly. Dubai is now not only home to the world's tallest building, but also the largest 3D printed building in the entire world. Above we have a top-down image of the structure, and according to Reuters, it will be used as an office.

The office was constructed by many 3D printers that combined traditional plastics with special cement. The structural integrity of the building was tested in Britain and China before printing began in Dubai. The office is one-story and has a floor space of 250 square meters. According to United Arab Emirates Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Mohamed Al Gergawi, "This is the first 3D-printed building in the world, and it's not just a building, it has fully functional offices and staff".

When I say handheld camera the most likely cameras to come to mind are probably GoPro, Dji Osmo Pocket or even the Insta360, but what about KanDao?

KanDao have announced a new 360 camera, the QooCam 8K. This camera comes in with the highest video recording resolution in its class of pocket cameras, with the capabilities of shooting in 8K at 30FPS. It can also shoot at 4K in 60 or 30FPS, and if you want to capture something in slow motion you can hit the slow motion mode and shoot in 4K at 120FPS.

The QooCam 8K can fit in your pocket but it still isn't that small, I feel as if it were in my pocket it would be uncomfortable due to its bulkiness. Regardless of that though, its a small price to pay for such a powerful portable camera. The camera sports a large 1/1.7-inch 20-megapixel sensor on both sides, a 2.4-inch OLED touchscreen, a 3,600mAh battery with USB PD 2.0 fast charging support, 64GB of onboard storage plus a microSD slot for extra. Pre-orders are currently available, and the asking price for the QooCam 8K is $589, more information can be found here.

The world's smallest camera has just famously entered the Guinness Book of Records, with the OmniVision OV6948 as small as a grain of sand.

OmniVision OV6948 measures in super-small at just 0.575 x 0.575 x 0.232mm and is good for 40,000-pixel color images using an RGB Bayer back-side-illuminating chip. This new camera is ridiculosuly small, but it's for specific use cases in surgery.

With the OmniVision OV6948 surgeions can have a camera so small it will fit into the smallest veins inside of the human body. This provides surgeons and doctors that have the OmniVision OV6948 with next-gen camera access for future surgeries.