Equipment

One of the big complaints people have about the Canon EOS M (besides the horrendously slow autofocus) is the lack of a viewfinder. While autofocus can be improved through firmware updates, you can't simply add an EVF or OVF to a camera by rolling out a download. Luckily, there appears to be a second EOS M camera on the way that does offer an electronic viewfinder.

Check out this brilliant marketing idea: to promote its professional sling-style camera backpacks, Kata designed a carnival/arcade-style game called Shootout. It's live contest that has been held in various store locations and trade shows around the world. Basically, participants engage a virtual cowboy photographer in a duel. Once the timer starts, one must swing their camera bag around, "unholster it", and snap a photo of the screen. If the time captured in your photo is less than the time achieved by Mr. Cowboy Photog (and faster than other participants), you win a pretty pricey camera bag.

Hong Kong-based design group Carbon has created a novelty digital camera called the One Mini, which is designed to look just like a pocket-sized version of Polaroid's iconic SX-70 One Step instant camera.

Reuters has published its list of the best photographs taken in 2012, a massive collection of 95 powerful images showing different events that have occurred around the globe over the past year. In addition to large photos, descriptions by the photographers, and the official captions, each image is also accompanied by information about the equipment and settings that were used to capture it.

Murmurings of an upcoming Canon 7D Mark II, which we first wrote about back in October, are starting to heat up. It was suggested that the camera, which may mark the merger of the 60D's and 7D's lines, was to offer a high continuous shooting rate. More recent reports seem to back up that particular spec, as we as offer some more info on who Canon is targeting with the camera.

Auroras are quite popular as a photo subject these days, especially for time-lapse photography, but a team of researchers in Norway recently snapped pictures of one in a way that hasn't been done before: with a hyperspectral camera. The special device can simultaneously capture multiple spectral bands of light. The composite photograph above was created by combining three such bands of light, with each one assigned a different RGB color.

The Canon EOS M is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the mirrorless party due to its autofocus system, which leaves much to be desired in terms of speed. To show just how sluggish the system really is, Tomek Kulas over at M43.eu did this very simple yet informative "hands-on test" that pits the EOS M against one of its archrivals: the Olympus OM-D EM-5.

If you’ve been wondering how the Canon 6D compares to the 5D lineup in terms of size, control layout, …

Photographers often scour eBay listings in hopes of snagging a good deal on camera equipment, but usually they're not expecting to find gear worth hundreds of dollars sold for the same price as McDonald's Dollar Menu items. Well, that's exactly what one lucky eBayer discovered a couple of weeks ago. The person stumbled upon a strange listing: reputable camera retailer Calumet Photo was selling a brand new Sigma EX 10-20mm f/3.5 lens for Canon DSLRs -- worth about $590 -- for just $0.99! And not just one lens, but three!

During the earlier days of 35mm film photography, many of the popular cameras had distinct design elements that defined the look of that period -- the things that come to mind when people hear the words "vintage 35mm camera": a shiny body seemingly crafted out of a single chunk of metal; a textured covering that gives the camera style and grip; all the manual controls you need, placed in well-thought-out locations at your fingertips.

Last week we reported that Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am was planning to launch an iPhone attachment that would boost the phone's resolution to 14 megapixels. That launch happened today, and we have our first look at how the artist plans to turn iPhones around the world into more-formidable cameras.

If you've been dying to take a gander at the video recording quality of the new Canon 6D, today's your lucky day. BBC freelance cameraman Johnnie Behiri got his hands on one of the cameras to test out, and created the above sample video that profiles a small Austrian chocolate shop called Xocolat.

Back in October, Roger Cicala shared some first impressions of the Canon EOS M with us, and stated that he believes the camera is "a firmware update and a price drop away from being a great camera." While we haven't seen any major price cuts to the camera so far, a firmware update may be on the near horizon.

By "update," we mean "third-party firmware enhancement." Magic Lantern has announced that its firmware add-on will indeed work with Canon's mirrorless camera, and that they've begun the process of porting it.

Olympus currently offers a $144 adapter called the MMF-2 for photographers who want to use an existing collection of Four Thirds-mount lenses on a Micro Four Thirds camera. The accessory makes the lenses mountable and acts as a middleman between the lenses and the cameras, but its features pretty much end there. It appears that Olympus is working on a much fancier adapter: one that actually contains lens elements and contains focusing/stabilization features as well.

Behold: a box set of Nikon prime lenses. This unique kit is a limited-edition item currently being sold by Nikon exclusively in certain European countries (it's available in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK). Inside the Nikon-branded aluminum case are three f/1.8 lenses: the 28mm, 50mm, and 85mm. Oh, and you get the manuals, lens hoods, and soft cases as well.

What does Nikon have up its sleeve for 2013? According to Nikon Rumors, it may be at least one pro-sumer DSLR early in the year, possibly followed by a beastly high-megapixel flagship DSLR later in the fall.

Photographer Nick Cool came up with one of the strangest pieces of do-it-yourself camera gear that we've seen so far this year. He took an ordinary stainless steel sink filter -- yup, the thing that catches food at the bottom of kitchen sinks -- drilled various-sized holes through it, and stuck it into a filter ring after taking out the glass.

If you've ever had to take traditional camera straps on and off your camera, you probably know how annoying the task is. Peak Design, makers of the Capture camera clip system, wants to change the way people think about and use straps. The company has unveiled a new strap called the Leash, a versatile accessory that can take on different configurations and be used for multiple purposes.

After seeing the story of the DSLR-stealing lion that we published last night, Zurich, Switzerland-based photographer Alessandro Della Bella sent in an unusual camera theft story of his own. While shooting time-lapse photographs of the night sky using three intervalometer-trigger DSLRs, one of the cameras was stolen by a thief. What's interesting is that the camera documented the whole event through time-lapse photos! The video above shows the time-lapse that resulted.

Photographer Kyle Clements' time-lapse showing specks accumulating on the Nikon D600 over the first 1000 shots has been seen by nearly 200,000 people around the web in less than a week. Through the exposure his experiment has gotten, Clements received a good deal of feedback and suggestions regarding further experiments and what the specks might be. He has since done two new time-lapse experiments that sheds a little more light on the issue.

Bloomberg published this short feature earlier today titled, "The World's Most Wanted Camera vs. the iPhone Era." In the video, reporter Nejra Cehic takes us on a brief behind-the-scenes tour of Leica's gear manufacturing headquarters in Solms, Germany, and discusses what the future holds for the brand.

Jordan Drake of Canadian camera shop The Camera Store just published this great hands-on field test of the Canon EOS M. Even if you don't have 10 minutes to watch the entire review, you've got to check out the two short stop-motion animations that start at about 21s and 7m50s. They're a hilarious (and accurate) sketches that poke fun at how "the Canon EOS M is a little bit late to the mirrorless party" and how the camera has a pretty shoddy autofocus system.

Want to build and program your own camera? You'll soon be able to do so using Raspberry Pi's new camera module. The new board will feature a 5-megapixel sensor (likely a cheaper CMOS chip) that can capture 1080p H.264 video at 30 frames per second.

Lens hoods and protective cases are nice accessories to have, but they're generally only bundled with professional L glass when it comes to Canon lenses. Canon USA almost never includes them with lenses that don't carry that distinctive red ring (or a green ring). Last week, Bryan Carnathan over at The Digital Picture recently noticed that the pre-order pages for the new Canon 35mm f/2 IS over on B&H and Adorama listed a hood and case as part of what's included. The news surely got many a Canonite wondering, "will bundled hoods and cases be included with non-L lenses now?"

Unfortunately, the answer is no -- at least for photographers in the US.

With Christmas and the holiday season just around the corner, here's our annual roundup of the latest, greatest, and phototastic-ist gift ideas. The items are listed by price, so there should be something to fit every budget.

Siebe Warmoeskerken of De Vetpan studios is a photographer and woodworker based in The Netherlands. This weekend, he decided to combine his two passions by building a custom wenge wood edition of the popular Polaroid SX-70 Alpha instant camera.

There are a number of lifelogging camera projects racing to be first movers in the emerging industry of cameras …

People who collect Leica M rangefinders or use them as luxury fashion accessories take great care to keep their cameras in pristine condition. Photographer Blake Andrews is not one of those people. He has been doing film photography since 1993, and his trusty M6 has plenty of battle scars from seeing heavy use over the years.

If you want to see what a Leica can look like when it's used as a camera rather than an accessory, Andrews has published a series of interesting graphics in which he treats his M6 as an artifact, pointing out various features that you definitely wouldn't see on a babied camera body.

Want larger photos from your iPhone? Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am has a solution for you. The entrepreneurial musician will reportedly be launching a new iPhone attachment next week that will "turn your smartphone into a genius-phone" and boost the phone's camera resolution from 8 megapixels to 14 megapixels. Like the man who developed it, the device will have a quirky name: i.am+.

Fujifilm is selling a cool Instax Mini instant camera kit over in Japan that makes it easy for new parents to do a 365-day photo project documenting the first year of their child's life. Called the Fujifilm Baby Box, the package includes an Instax Mini 25 camera (in either pink or blue), a photo album for holding the prints, a 5-pack of Instax film containing 50 shots, and a sheet containing 365 round stickers with hearts containing the numbers 1 through 365.

Over the course of a year (and a little over 6 additional packs of film), parents can snap daily pictures and label the instant prints with the day it was taken on by sticking a heart to it.

The whole situation surrounding Nikon's D600 dust issue is turning out to be eerily similar to Apple's iPhone 5 purple haze problem. In both situations, there are people who are very bothered by the "flaw", people who wonder what all the fuss is about and believe the complaints to be overblown, and a slow response from the companies. Now Nikon is also doing exactly what Apple did: respond to complaints saying that what users are seeing is normal.

It has been widely reported that the new Nikon D600 full-frame DSLR suffers from a higher-than-normal amount of dark spots appearing on the sensor. Yesterday we shared one photographer's time-lapse video that demonstrates that the issue occurs right out of the box without any lens swaps.

Photographer Daniel Gaworski has been experiencing the same problem, and decided to take a closer look at his D600. He discovered that his camera's shutter curtain contains scratch marks on the bottom flap (see above), particularly in one corner of the camera.

Stephen Dowling of BBC News has an interesting piece that tells the story of the Lomography movement and how it may be instrumental in saving film photography.

Digiscoping is when a photographer attaches an optical telescope to a digital camera and uses it as a super-telephoto lens. Although the image quality isn't as good as an actual camera lens with the same focal length, it's a much cheaper option for people who already own high-powered telescopes -- bird photographers, for example. Nikon is no stranger to the digiscoping game, having released adapters for its DSLRs and compact cameras, but today it announced new accessories that bring digiscoping to the 1 Series mirrorless lineup.

Canon isn’t the only one that’s reportedly testing multiple high-megapixel full-frame camera prototypes: Sony is as well.

Hiroshi Hiyama over at Phys.Org reports that smartphones are crushing the point-and-shoot industry, …

If you use a major-brand DSLR, you should be keeping a close eye on the new $899 Sigma 35mm f/1.4 (above center). It undercuts the popular (but pricey) lenses of rival camera makers by hundreds of dollars, and appears to have build- and image-qualities that are equal to (if not better than) those lenses.

Many of Canon's announcements as of late have been for its full frame DSLRs, but the company hasn't forgotten about all its APS-C customers. It will reportedly be refocusing on its EF-S crop sensor gear at the beginning of next year, with announcements of new lenses and a DSLR.

Back in October, we wrote that the Nikon D600 suffers from excessive sensor dust in the upper left hand corner of the frame -- something many owners have been reporting and a flaw confirmed by review sites such as DPReview. Toronto-based artist Kyle Clements wanted to test this himself, so he bought a new D600, pointed it at a white piece of paper, shot 1000 frames, and created the time-lapse video above.

ClearViewer is the compact camera's equivalent of a DSLR viewfinder attachment. It's a folding high-diopter lens that lets you use your compact camera's LCD screen as an electronic viewfinder by putting your eye less than 2 inches away from the screen. This lets you see fine details in the shot, make precise manual focus adjustments, and avoid the problem of glare.

Sony is continuing its campaign against the mindless use of DSLRs. After releasing a series of viral videos poking fun at inept DSLR users, Sony is now turning to facts and hard evidence (in addition to humor). The company recently did a survey of 1012 non-professional DSLR users, and the results are pretty interesting.

After seeing the "woodenized" Canon F-1n that we featured earlier this month, Vancouver, Washington-based photographer Charlie Boucher decided that he wanted to give the mod a go. Unable to find any wood shoots locally, Boucher decided to go with a somewhat different (but slightly related) material: cork.

Canon UK has released a handful of sample photographs shot using the company's new image stabilized lenses: the 24-70mm f/4 IS an 35mm f/2 IS.

Canon made its loyal customers wait quite a long time before it finally joined the mirrorless camera revolution, announcing the Canon EOS M back in June. The camera comes nearly four years after Panasonic kicked things off by “friending” Olympus -- forming the Micro Four Thirds alliance -- and introducing the Lumix DMC-G1, making Canon the last major DSLR maker to join the fray.

Back in 1998, PC World magazine published a review of the Sony Mavica …

Update: The deal is now over. If you’re in need of an extra memory card or two, check out …

As we're exiting one camera announcement season, rumors are starting to heat up about the next. Canon reportedly has some major announcements just around the corner to announce three new cameras: a second mirrorless camera and two DSLRs.

This past October, Canon addressed a big complaint photographers had about the 1D X by releasing a firmware update that introduced AF illumination (kinda) for shooting in dark environments. However, it wasn't only 1D X users that were complaining about the AF point visibility... 5D Mark III users were -- and are -- as well. If you own a 5DMk3 and have been waiting patiently for your own AF update, there's some good and bad news for you: Canon is reportedly working hard on the issue, but it might not be possible to implement the same feature given the way your camera is designed.

Sigma has released the first batch of sample photos shot using the company's new 35mm f/1.4, which costs $899 and competes against the significantly more expensive 35mm f/1.4 lenses of major camera manufacturers. The images were all shot by photographer Kimio Yajima using the Sigma SD1.

Attention Micro Four Thirds shooters: there's a new speedy "35mm prime lens" headed your way. Okay, it's actually a 34mm equivalent lens in 35mm terms, but it still boasts a f/1.8 aperture. It's the new Olympus M.ZUIKO 17mm f/1.8, a lens that designed for street photography, landscapes, and shooting in low-light environments.