Nobel Prizes for Camera + Photography (Noisy edition)

The Nobel Prize committee is busy with their regular work, so we will help them by launching a brand new Camera+Photography category.

We will also be giving each category winner $1.4 million, but due to liquidity issues, the first payment will be made in November 2099 ;-)

The Camera-Physics prize was highly contested, with the Fuji SuperCCD, the Sony Exmor-R, and the Foveon sensor making strong cases. But by bending the laws of physics, and with heavy lobbying from the pro-more-megapixels crowd, the Canon 7D managed to squeak by and get enough votes to win in the second round of delibrations.

The Lensologie prize was another difficult decision, headed by our expert lensologist Bokehno Lensflareannen, with the award ending up in the hands of the Canon 100mm f2.8 hybrid IS lens. However, they also handed out honorable mentions to the Tamron 60mm Di-II, Panasonic 20mm pancake, and Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX.

On to the Photography-Journalism category, the prize goes to Thomas Hawk for his work on tracking the heavy-handed censorship on flickr, and their stubborn insistence on not providing a way to undo wrongful deletions. (yes, the world-famous Yahoo "customer service" fundamentals, they also delete your email if you haven't logged in three months)

Next up, the Photography Poetry category. Which camera can help you "create" poetry in pictures? That is a tough question, but our latte-sipping artistic panel quickly ruled out the professional DSLRs because they are just too big and commercial-looking. Nostalgia is in these days, so they agreed, the Ricoh GRD III is the most poetic camera out there right now.

In the Camera-Literature category, the award goes to Yvon Bourque for his work on the novel, A Day In the Life of the Pentax K7.

And we close with the Camera-Peace category, where the Pentax K-x is declared the winner. The committee feels that its 100-colors approach sends a powerful message of peace, love, diversity, and understanding, showing that we may all be different on the outside, but deep inside, we are all the same. And if you look behind your eyes, you will find a 12mp Sony CMOS sensor ;-)