There was much hype over Fujifilm’s upcoming X100 camera even before it was proudly displayed to the public at this year’s CES, with people drooling over the camera’s retro design and unique hybrid viewfinder. Fujifilm actually had a functional X100 on display at CES (unlike the mockup dummy they brought to Photokina), and Engadget was able to shove a video camera up to the viewfinder to provide the rest of us a glimpse into what it looks like. It’s pretty awesome seeing things live with useful information overlaid. Now we know what it feels like to be the Terminator.

(via Engadget)

Looks like the blogosphere was right in December of last year when it guessed that a teaser put out by Polaroid was for a new instant camera launch at CES 2011. The company — along with Creative Director Lady Gaga — officially unveiled the camera today in Las Vegas, and also showed off a new printer and a bizarre pair of glasses as well.
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Sure Lexar just launched a 128GB SDXC card, but that only transfers at a meager 20MB/s. SanDisk’s new Extreme Pro Compact Flash card announced today boasts the same 128GB capacity but has a write speed of up to 100MB/s. That extra 80MB/s is quite costly — unlike the $700 it costs to buy the Lexar SDXC card, this SanDisk one costs $1,500. But as they say, time is money… right?

The big camera corps are dumping a huge number of new compact cameras at CES 2011. While many are standard upgrades to bring their cameras up to par with what consumers expect nowadays, there are some that stand out for one reason or another. Some of Sony’s new compact cameras (the DSC-TX100V, DSC-TX10, DSC-HX7V, DSC-WX10 and DSC-WX9) are unique in that they can shoot 3D photographs with a single lens and sensor. The trick is that two separate photographs with different focus settings are captured and combined to produce a 3D look. The DSC-WX10 (shown above) is also the world’s first compact camera capable of 1080/60p video recording. These cameras will be available for between $220 and $380 starting in March 2011.

“Keep it simple, Stupid!.” That’s a principle exemplified by Apple’s industrial design, but sometimes is nowhere to be found when it comes to compact cameras. Panasonic, however, seems to be on the same wavelength with the Lumix FP7 they just unveiled at CES 2011. The physical buttons normally found on the back of point-and-shoots are missing, replaced instead with a sleek 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD. The only physical buttons that remain are found on the top of the camera — power, shutter, and zoom (dial). With the simplicity comes 16.1 megapixel photographs, 4x optical zoom, and 720p video recording. No word yet on pricing or availability.

Update: As @valerietherese points out, this is also taking a page from Sony and the DSC-T200 camera released in 2007.

Yesterday we got a sneak peek at a strange multi-dimensionally swiveling Casio TRYX camera, and today it was officially unveiled at CES 2011. The TRYX is a 12.1 megapixel camera that shoots 1080p HD video at 30fps or 240fps slow-motion video at 432 x 320. The unique thing about the camera is that the 3-inch touchscreen LCD can both bust out of its “frame” and also swivel, allowing the frame to be used as a stand and for the screen to point in all kinds of random directions.
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CES 2011 is still a couple days away, but camera gear announcements are already making their way out of Vegas, both intentionally or unintentionally on the part of the manufacturers. Engadget outed one of the soon-to-be-announced cameras, the Casio TRYX, after spotting massive advertisements outside a CES building. Apparently it’s a compact camera that sports two hinges — one on the frame and one on the display — that allow it to swivel in funky ways. Presumably the frame swiveling provides a simple stand, while the swiveling display could aid in self-portraits. See more of the shots over on this blog post.

There hasn’t been much directly photo-related news at CES 2010 today, but the announcements of newly redesigned e-readers might be key to drawing in a wider e-reader audience and — dare we speculate? — might bring some vigor back to traditional print publications.

While promising e-reader sale increases and recovering print publication’s mojo might be an optimistic goal, the recently revealed Skiff reader design is so innovative that it might just catch on.

Skiff reader content will be designed to look much like the designed content on a physical copy of a publication. Thus, newspapers and magazines can retain their carefully designed layouts, which conveys ranked importance, dominant headlines, featured artwork and photographs.

It may be a stretch, but Skiff could potentially bridge the gap between those readers reluctant to quit their physical newspaper and magazine subscriptions and those readers who only read e-versions of publications. However, print media will still technically die (or continue its current trend of rarity) … but the content (and subscriptions and ad revenue) could be more accurately transferred onto a new medium.

In the long run, publishers could potentially stop bleeding money on printing and distribution costs, while upping their circulation — that is, if Skiff finds favor amongst thus far critical e-consumers and outbids the efforts of Amazon and other e-reader distributors.

The Skiff e-reader is extremely flexible and thin, with a display size 9 inches by 11 inches, and a thickness of 0.268 inches, and weighs 17-9/16 ounces (498 grams) — that’s roughly the weight of four iPhones . It is made of silicon thin-film-transitors on a flexible stainless-steel substrate, which Skiff says makes the display is shatter-proof and crack-proof.

The device is 3G and WiFi enabled, has a USB 2.0 port, an internal memory of 4GB, a built in speaker, audio jack, an SDHC card slot, and a battery that lasts about a week before it needs to be recharged. Where does it fit all of that?

The color touchscreen display has resolution of 1200×1600 pixels at 174 ppi.

The Skiff e-reading service is set to launch with the Sprint 3G network this year.

Skiff has also partnered with the Hearst Corporation, the major news corporation that owns several newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, and has interests in several other major news groups, magazines, and major newspapers. LG Display and Marvell also had a hand in Skiff development, so it appears to be off to a hot start by connections alone.

Read more about Skiff and other e-readers at CNN.

Polaroid has been getting some viral attention today, partially from its addition of Lady Gaga to its staff, but also because it’s new nostalgic line of instant cameras. That’s right, folks, Polaroid’s back in the instant business — it couldn’t let such a good cash cow run away, after all. Several models of the PIC-1000 were displayed today at CES in Las Vegas, including this nifty wooden body camera:

Pricing and availability are still a mystery, but these cameras are compatible with Polaroid 1000 instant film. Features include a flash, self-timer and red-eye reduction.

(via Electricpig)

In other news…

• Canon reveals three new Wireless File Transmitters for the EOS-1D Mark IV, EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D that can link up to 10 cameras, wireless, Wi-Fi protected setup, FTP transfer mode, and more. Read the press release here.
• Camera makers are releasing new point-and-shoot cameras left and right. The Imaging Resource has a pretty comprehensive list of the announcements.
• Casio releases a new digital picture frame that adds art effects to your photos. Read more on CNET.

Check up on us tomorrow for more news and product announcements from CES 2010.

Here’s a brief interview with Lady Gaga by MSNBC. Aside from her distracting hat, she makes an interesting point about how Polaroid’s traditional medium, the instant camera, is “tangible,” and how the company is struggling to find a place for itself in a digital world. Strange as it may be, she might be key (though maybe in name) to bringing Polaroid back.