Breaking News RSS

It's with great sadness that we observe the death of a true industry leader, Michihiro Yamaki, founder and CEO of Sigma Corporation. Mr. Yamaki almost single-handedly created the third-party lens business as we know it today. Starting from very modest beginnings, building and selling a rear-element teleconverter, he built what's today the leading manufacturer of third-party...

For years, pundits and industry leaders alike have predicted the end of the optical viewfinder, but enthusiast and pro photographers have stubbornly clung to them for their benefits over electronic viewfinders. Today, a new microdisplay from French company MicroOLED S.A.S. promises to take a big step towards erasing those advantages.

MicroOLED's latest microdisplay model...

Fujifilm Holdings Corp. and Sony Corp. are among the companies considering investing in cash-strapped Olympus Corp., according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Nikkei (the latter being cited by press agency Reuters).

It's been a difficult few months for Olympus, which admitted to accounting irregularities last November. It's stock price fell more than 80% to as...

A little over three years ago, Olympus and Panasonic announced their Micro Four Thirds standard, and in the process launched what's since become a compact system camera revolution. Today their standard received another shot in the arm, with the addition of three more companies to the Micro Four Thirds group.

The new arrivals include well-known third-party optics...

Most photos are portraits, according to conventional wisdom, but most cameras are designed to be used in landscape orientation. In fact, one of the hardest things for a beginning to remember is to turn the camera 90 degrees to frame a better portrait.

Pentax is riding to the rescue with its VS20. The VS stands for Vertical Shooting (we think). With a second shutter...

DxO Labs continues the rapid evolution of DxO Optics Pro with the image editing software's second point release since November.

New in this release are:

• Support for the Panasonic Lumix G1, G2, GF3, Canon PowerShot S100

• Version 6 project database migration

• Version 6 and 7 projects merge

• Various enhancements of the crop tool

• Feature for fixing image...

Although it looks very similar to its previous PEN-series flagships externally, the Olympus E-P3 includes several significant changes.

Key among these is a new brand-new autofocus system, branded 'Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology', or FAST for short. Olympus showed supreme confidence in choosing the name, and it wasn't misplaced: the E-P3's AF performance actually...

Two well-known brands in the medium-format photography market have been merged to create a new, worldwide entity: Mamiya Leaf.

Both Mamiya Digital Imaging and Leaf Imaging Ltd. have been part-owned by Denmark's Phase One A/S since mid-2009. They've cooperated with each other for some time, with Mamiya producing camera bodies and optics, while Leaf supplied digital backs.

Ever felt your photos needed just a little kick in the lighting department, to add some dramatic effect? A new plugin on the way from Topaz Labs aims to make it easier to attain...

The Topaz Star Effects plugin creates lighting effects such as you might have achieved with accessory filters, back in the film days. A variety of star types are offered, including traditional,...

A friend pointed me to this article; a nice story of what it was like in the good old days of Kodak, told by the son of a "Kodak Man."

Like people, most companies have a life history, from infancy through robust middle age, and finally to decline and death. When the time finally comes for me to shuffle off this mortal coil, I hope people will celebrate my life, not wring...

Camera phones are ubiquitous these days, but many have yet to match the image quality even of very affordable compact cameras. New sensor technology from Sony Corp. aims to improve the situation.

Compared to existing backside illuminated CMOS image sensors, the newly-announced design moves more peripheral circuitry beneath the active pixels, replacing the supporting...

Despite its good image quality, the Nikon P7100's predecessor was a little too cumbersome to use for some. Thankfully Nikon fixes most of those issues with the P7100, making a digital camera that's not just pleasant to shoot, but whose images are worth talking about. Click here for our Nikon P7100 review and get the whole story!

Australian microphone manufacturer RØDE has launched two new microphones that aim to improve on-camera audio recording. The RØDE VideoMic HD and Stereo VideoMic Pro are compatible with DSLRs, system cameras and camcorders featuring a 3.5mm microphone input.

The Stereo VideoMic Pro combines features from two earlier models, the VideoMic Pro and Stereo VideoMic. Based...

WiFi-capable SD card company Eye-Fi has now made an official statement, making clear its position on the SD Association's new Wireless LAN SD standard. 

In a post on the company's blog, Eye-Fi CEO Yuval Koren states his belief that the standard would infringe upon Eye-Fi's patents. He goes on to claim that the SD Association has not followed its own rules in adopting...

Making quite a leap for compact system cameras both in terms of image quality and camera control, the Sony NEX-7 really impressed us. We used words like "astonishing" and "amazing" when describing image quality, both printed and onscreen, because the NEX-7's images are even sharper than the A77's. And for an APS-C sensor to approach the quality of the Nikon D3X, well, that...

Want to use a motorized zoom lens on Olympus' PEN E-P3, E-PL3 or E-PM1 compact system camera bodies? If so, you'll want to download a new firmware update issued by the company today.

Olympus has one such lens in its own catalog at the moment, the M.Zuiko Digital 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ. Announced last December, this lens is due to start shipping in the US market any day now....

File this under "news we all saw coming": imaging legend Eastman Kodak Co. today started Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

For months, Kodak has been trying to increase its cash on hand by selling off a large chunk of its patent portfolio, but the company had yet to find a buyer for the property. Late last year Kodak raised some funding by selling its image sensor...

What to do, when your cash reserves are low and you're struggling to turn your company around? For Eastman Kodak Co., the answer seems to be to give up on attempting to negotiate patent licenses with rivals, and instead to turn to the courts. The company has today announced the latest in a series of suits against major names in the imaging and consumer electronics...

If you're among the early adopters for the Panasonic Lumix GX1 system camera, or you're shooting with the Lumix G Vario 100-300mm lens, the company has news that'll put a smile on your face: new firmware that brings improved performance.

You'll have to wait a little while though, because while it's being announced today, it doesn't drop until the end of January.

For the...