Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W3 Goes All 3D… Much Like Everything Else

You can barely turn around at the moment without being smacked in the face by an albeit beautifully realistic and gloriously good looking 3D-this or 3D-that. As if Sky 3D TV and 3D camcorders weren’t enough, the new Fuji Finepix offers 3D photo taking at a not entirely unreasonable £400 price tag. Fuji will also be offer 3D printing services because obviously the typical home computer and all-in-one printers isn’t really going to generate the kind of results you’re looking for.

You don’t need to wear the special glasses because the Finepix Real 3D uses lenticular technology. The camera has two lenses spaced roughly the same distance apart as a person’s eyes. The two images are then combined on furrowed 3D paper in order to create the 3D effect without giving you a headache.

From a practical point of view that means that you can view the 3D pictures directly on your camera or you can have them printed on 3D paper and then stick them in your photo album, hang them on the wall (bit scary in the middle of the night until you get used to it) or do whatever else you wish with them.

The Finepix Real 3D W3 also enables users to film 3D home video in much the same way although you obviously can’t print a home video to paper. You can, however, view it in 3D on your camera viewer or even on a 3D enabled TV, and there will presumably be more tech coming along soon enough that will give you even greater options of what to do with it.

Fujifilm has also said that they will be launching a 3D printing service to coincide with the W3 which goes on sale in September and will cost around £400 each.

Are you into the 3D craze yet?

Want to see yourself in full, glorious 3D hanging on your wall at home?

It’s All Gone 3D For Panasonic

3D is one of those technologies that seems to have been taken to the hearts of consumers pretty much straight away. The release of major blockbuster movies in 3D and the proceeding release of 3D TVs and 3D games for the PC, as well as the imminent release of 3D console gaming and even portable glasses free 3D gaming from the Nintendo 3DS have helped to really push the emerging technology to the forefront of just about everybody’s minds.

The same is true of manufacturers too, and while Panasonic may not have released that many 3D gadgets as yet, they have enjoyed incredible success from their 3D plasma sets and they are likely to enjoy similar success for their newly released 3D camcorder. What’s more, claiming that 3D take up has been 3 times better than they initially thought you can expect a whole lot more to appear very soon.

The HDC-SDT750 3D camcorder is a groundreaking piece of kit that lets home video producers create their own 3D masterpieces. It is incredibly simple to use but the addition of 3D recording technology does have its downsides too, not least the slightly cumbersome nature of the device itself as well as the lack of any zoom feature. The quality, though, is pretty good and while it may not be up to 3D blu-ray imagery it is still incredible to watch your own footage in 3D on your TV. As you would expect, it’s not cheap, but at £1,300 it’s not as expensive as it could have been either.

Panasonic also announced that as well as the current line-up of 3D TVs they will be releasing new sizes and new models. They also touted the incredible 153 inch plasma 3D TV which is commercially available for around £400,000. OK, so it’s unlikely too many of you will be buying one of these but it does show the massive potential that 3D has.

Have you gone 3D yet?

Will you be getting the 3DS when it’s released later this year?

SANYO Xacti VPC-S1EX-B High Definition Pocket Camcorder Review

Film buffs, holidaymakers, wedding guests and undercover spies may all be interested in the new Sanyo Xacti VPC-S1EX-B camcorder. It offers several novel features and a wide range of specifications. Let’s look at it in more detail.

 

Design

It scores highly on the dinkyometer, as it should when it is hailed as the world’s smallest, thinnest and lightest full HD camcorder.  It also comes in a range of colours to suit most tastes, including a pink one which you can safely buy as your niece’s birthday present.

Notable Specifications

This is a dual camera, meaning that you can take videos or still photos of equally good quality without having to switch manually from one mode to the other.

There is a 38mm wide angle lens, 10x optical zoom and full HD capability, three things which you don’t see side by side every day. When used to take still pictures you get 8 megapixel photos, so that’s alright then.

There is a choice of three audio modes, to help you get the best sound on your recordings. You can save your work onto SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards.

Summary

Look online and you will find this lovely and practical little dual camcorder for under £250, which is a splendid price for what it offers.

Buy at

currys | PC World | Dixons | Pixmania

Sharp creates 3D camera for mobiles

The world’s first camera that records 3D footage in high definition whilst simultaneously being small enough to fit into a mobile device has appeared from Sharp.

The dinky, high-tech device can capture 3D video in 720p resolution and it is intended to be easily integrated into the smartphones and stand-alone digital cameras of the near future.

Sharp says that it will be putting the impressive gadget into mass-production before 2010 is out and this means we could be seeing the first devices to offer 3D video recording capabilities in 2011.

In order to capture 3D footage, two cameras are required and thus the gadget has one for the left eye and one for the right eye to produce the effect of 3D pictures from a two dimensional display.

Sharp says that its camera has all of the necessary image processing circuitry on-board, which means that image alignment, colour and light adjustment and other tweaks will be handled on the fly as you record, which should minimise the impact on the proprietary processors of the devices that will sport it.

Sharp is clearly in the relatively early stages of preparing the device for production, but it is clear that it has got all of the major functions working and appears confident that it will meet its objective to go mainstream with the first mobile 3D camera.

Sharp will presumably be hoping that 3D technology catches up with the launch of its new camera and with Samsung planning the launch of the world’s first 3D ready phone, it could have at least one industry partner.

Solar-powered camcorder launched

The Jetyo HDV-T900 is notable for being one of the only camcorders for home users to feature an integrated solar panel to make holiday video capture a more environmentally-friendly process.

The camcorder itself is slightly weighed-down by the large solar cell attached to the device above the flip-out LCD viewfinder, but it is a small price to pay if you are truly concerned about the environmental impact of gadget use.

The camcorder captures video directly onto high capacity SD memory cards, although sadly the fixed zoom means that you might have to rely on digital rather than optical image enlargement, which will be a limitation for some.

There is currently no information as to how long the camcorder will take to charge up if you leave it lounging in the sunlight. The energy is used to juice up four standard AA batteries, which is good news if the day is overcast as you can always pop in some fresh units and continue shooting.

According to the calculations of industry observers, the 120mA solar cell would take an entire day to fully charge a single 2500mAh battery. This no doubt leads to the troubling suggestion that trickle-charging the camera will not only mean leaving it out in the sun for ages, but also potentially unattended whilst you go off gallivanting.

The idea behind the HDV-T900 camcorder is a noble one, but you will have to wait and see whether in practice it is a workable solution, or more trouble than it is worth. This is one area eco-friendly technology that will no doubt continue to evolve as photovoltaic cell technology evolves. But it is great to see the manufacturers starting to innovate.

Panasonic SDR-SW21 Camdorder review

The humble camcorder has often made budding Spielbergs and Scorseses of us all, ever since their bulky introduction many moons ago. Many a holiday, christening or wedding has been faithfully recorded by budding handheld enthusiasts, who saw moving pictures as a great complement to, and even superior to, normal still photography, and whose presence would often send the most gregarious person into paroxysms of shyness when the camera was on them!

As technology has progressed however, camcorders have also sought to keep up, including the transition to DVD which came about a few years back. The strides forward in digital storage, including larger in capacity but smaller in size digital memory cards and chips which then allowed the camcorder to become even smaller and even more convenient to use.

One thing has often bedevilled the use of camcorders though, and that is their inherent delicateness. From personal experience, I have had to get rid of one camera as sand from a Turkish beach comprehensively found egress into the workings of the camera. This, however, shouldn’t be read as a slight on Turkish beaches (!), more an example of how older cameras lack the build quality of newer ones.

Another problem was that, often, holidays often consist of water-borne activities; whether it be snorkelling, a boat trip or even jet-skiing, videoing these types of moments caused many problems, as the slightest splash could break the camera. The same goes for skiing, and any other adventure sport activity. You may well want to record what you were getting up to on the slopes, but for fear of having your delicate piece of equipment ruined you might have demurred.

So, after posing these questions and pitfalls we come to one of the solutions. The Panasonic SDR-SW21 is a camcorder that is specifically constructed with these types of situations in mind. It is of a thoroughly sturdy and rugged construction, with compact dimensions and design, with a width of 35mm, a height of 68mm and a depth of 117mm. The super compact camera also weighs, without the battery, a mere 238g. The SDR-SW21 is specifically designed to be tough, and is completely dust proof. This would have been ideal for my ruined camera above, as it keeps out any nasty particles which can get in, including sand.

The toughness of the camera doesn’t end there though. The SDR-SW21 is also completely shockproof up to a height of around 4-5 feet, meaning that you do not have to watch in frozen horror as it tumbles from your grasp once or twice – the way it is constructed means it should be able to survive such falls. The camera boasts a superlatively simple menu set-up which makes it very accessible, and there are numerous features which make for easy transfer. These include a Youtube mode, which records in the right format for the site and then allows for direct upload.

The real feather in this camera’s cap though is its waterproof function. Once you have simply sealed the battery compartment and AV connection covers and activated the underwater mode, you are able to take to the river, sea, lake or pond and indulge your Attenborough tendencies! The SDR-SW21 is waterproof, in seawater too, up to 2m, so whilst it might rule out deep water exploration, this is a great function. It can allow you, for instance, to film you and your family out snorkelling, or to take snapshots of the aquatic life darting around under the sea.

The camera comes with the now standard viewing monitor, which is a 2.7″ LCD screen. The camera also has a number of different shooting options, including settings for low light and capturing sport images, and an impressive array of zooming options; namely, a digital zoom of around 10x-25x and a super digital zoom of 10x-700x. The camera uses SD/SDHC memory cards to record, keeping the camera light and durable, as there is no mechanism to damage from dropping.

The only two niggles, and they are slight, is the lack of a High Definition option and the jittery and rapid zoom. The HD option is really the only thing missing that holds the SDR-SW21back from being almost the perfect camera – but it is not something that totally ruins it. Similarly, the zoom is hard to handle softly, but again with practise you will become used to it.

All in all, this is a fine camera for those who want to do a bit of video-recording in more extreme conditions, and do not want to have to worry about their prized gadget being broken easily, and it does this very well.

Did you know Play have a sale on cameras at the moment? Check it out below

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