I just wrapped up a short interview with Ted Schilowitz from RED, in which he told us (and all our live stream viewers) all about the new RED Scarlet digital cinema camera. I got to hold the thing and revel in its 3K glory; and while RED devices are notoriously never “final,” this felt about as final as it gets.
I don’t want to repeat what’s already out there regarding the resolution, accessories, dates, and so on, which are all googleable (and some not final), so I’ll stick to general impressions and you can watch the video as soon as it’s live for specifics. In the meantime, here are a couple new pics to tide you over.
Oh man, I was so pumped to get my hands on this thing. This is the beautiful retro-styled, APS-C sensored, dial-covered compact camera we heard about a few months back, and immediately fell in love with. It’s got a “hybrid viewfinder” that either works as a regular see-through thing with overlay, or you can flip a switch and it becomes an EVF.
Plus, just look at that sucker. More details at our previous post; we’ll have a review unit soon.
Every year I come to CES and hope that Casio is going to blow me away like it did with the original FC-100, still perhaps my favorite point-and-shoot camera ever made. But they haven’t done so, and this year again they provide a practical, but not very interesting, upgrade to this versatile device. The only difference between this and the previously announced ZR10 seems to be the addition of a 12.5x optical zoom.
We saw a peek of Casio’s Tryx (or TRYX if you like the all-caps style) camera yesterday when Casio mistakenly let it go live on their website… oh, and put up 100-foot posters of the thing all over the convention center. But now it’s really for real, and we’ve the specs and everything. Basically it’s a standard full-featured point-and-shoot with a crazy-ass body. That’s all you really need to know, but I guess I could stand to type the details here.
Fujifilm has just released no less than 16 cameras just this moment, and I’m going out of my mind, each accompanied by a thousand-word press release. I’m going to have to punch a pillow here. I haven’t even had breakfast, or coffee, or tied my shoes yet. But this is the life! Forward, into the breach!
All right, this is ridiculous, I’m going to group these by general use and leave the details to the curious reader to find out at Fujifilm’s site, where these cameras are semi-helpfully labeled “new” and listed in some sort of order.
Now, you may know that I’m a big proponent of high definition — that is to say, images that look good at high resolution. Usually you’ve just got the resolution part. Canon has actually been bucking this trend occasionally, for instance with the G11, which lowered its megapixel count in order to improve low light and image quality.
They’re taking a similar approach with the new Vixia camcorders, whose image sensors actually just have 1920×1080 pixels, supposedly allowing for larger pixel wells and better low light performance. Check out the new lineup.
You might remember a while back when I reviewed the ContourHD camera, a tiny, water-resistant 1080p camera for sticking to your bike frame, helmet, car, whatever. I thought it was pretty great, with the usual caveats for small camcorders, but one major limiting factor was that you couldn’t… well, you couldn’t tell where you were pointing the thing. I mean, it had handy laser guides to keep it level, and it’s reasonably wide-angle, but there was still some estimation in framing. Switching video modes and such was also less than convenient.
No longer: the latest version of the Contour camcorder connects to your phone via Bluetooth, allowing you to see your shot live, replay stuff instantly, change settings, and more. This is good.
The Samsung SH100 is a point-and-shoot that you can get excited about. Within the rather pedestrian-looking cam are the goods needed to connect the camera to a Samsung Galaxy S phone for remote viewfinder control and geotagging fun. Clever, right?
If you like Samsung; and you like camcorders, then check out this fella. Samsung kinda admits that their old interface wasn’t too great by simply saying; the HMX-Q10 has an “Easy Operation and Smart Access” UI, hopefully easing the headaches of amateur tech users all over (no need for a users manual here).
This kind of thing happens during the run-up to CES. Casio will be showing off this neat little camera at their press conference, no doubt, but in the meantime they’ve got it plastered all over the convention center and even had the press pics go live for a few minutes.
With gadgets like the ContourHD and GoPro Hero out there, you’ve got plenty of choice when it comes to the “sports cam” category of cameras. These waterproof, mountable camcorders can take abuse and keep recording. This new one from Swann Security forgoes the HD thing, unfortunately, but the price sure is right.
We are winging our way to Las Vegas as we speak so check back here early and often for great news, views, and reviews from the show floor. We’ll be livestreaming most of the show this week, so get your headphones out!
We’ll publish a full schedule of events this evening. Thanks for tuning in!
