/1001/noisy/cameras/

New Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom: smartphone with 10x stabilized optical zoom lens (and 16mp backlit CMOS)

The Cameraholics Debate club will spend many sessions debating whether this is a camera with phone internals or a phone with a telescopic zoom lens attached to it, but regardless, Samsung has officially announced the new Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom smartphone which has a 10x telescopic optical zoom lens! One side looks like a smartphone, the other side looks like a P&S camera!

Samsung has been selling Galaxy products like hotcakes, but they have a hard time breaking out in digital cameras. So this is a smart idea, try to sell digital cameras under the Galaxy brand that people scoop up like crazy :) It is perhaps no coincidence that this is done as part of the "Galaxy S4" flagship. Although at this rate, they'll call every phone they make an "S4 something something" :)

It has a 24-240mm equivalent f3.1-6.3 10x optical zoom lens with built-in optical image stabilization, a 16mp backlit CMOS sensor, 4.3-inch qHD (960x540) display, Android 4.2, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, LTE potential, and the usual smartphone features (Bluetooth, NFC, Wifi, etc), etc, etc, etc.

Details at The Verge and The Engadget and The Samsung.

New Pentax announcements are next...

New Lens: tiny Samsung 10mm f3.5 NX fisheye lens

The schools have barely closed for the summer but the back to school announcement season is already underway in the world of consumer electronics. Samsung joined the announcement party this week with a new tiny 10mm f3.5 fisheye lens for their NX mirrorless system. Price not revealed yet.

Details at dpreview and P. Blog and ePhotozine and Sans Mirror et al.

Samsung-provided sample images at Digital Camera Review.

Byte-size impressions at Photocomment.

New Leica Vario X with 16mp APS-C sensor and glued-in zoom lens

The teasers are over, the new Leica Vario X is now officially announced as a 16mp APS-C digital camera with a glued-in 28-70mm f3.5-6.4 "equivalent" zoom lens. In an era where APS-C primes are the norm, it is perhaps a bit ironic for Leica to be releasing a camera with a zoom lens. The times they are kinda a-changing.

Press release parade at dpreview et al.

The new Vario X is available for pre-order for $2850 at B&H Photo along with its assorted accessories.

Leica Vario X Samples
+ provided by Leica Netherlands including JPEGs on flickr and three DNGs at Box.com

Leica Vario X Reviews and Previews
+ Jono Slack has been using it for a few months now (via SI+, discussed at L-Camera Forum and dpreview Leica forum)
+ review at Reid's Reviews (paying subscribers only, subscription is $33 per year, which is about 1% of the price of the Leica Vario X)
+ preview at Techradar
+ preview at Amateur Photographer UK

Leica Vario X Video Previews
+ preview at Digital Camera World
+ preview at PM Studio News
+ unboxing preview at Robert White Photo
+ unboxing at PCH Brussels
+ 43-second unbox by Casanova Foto
+ photographer on Leica's video channel
+ YouTube embedded below...

Opinions and Discussions
+ why the hostility? at Sound Image Plus
+ various threads at dpreview Leica forums
+ Leica Place forums

Fuji and Panasonic develop together organic CMOS image sensor technology using organic photoelectric conversion layer

An interesting new alliance has been announced. Fuji and Panasonic has developed together organic CMOS imaging sensor technology using organic photoelectric conversion layer. Press release at Fuji News.

Here are a couple of the key diagrams from the above press release...

Impact review: Canon D-Rebel T5i/700D so similar to T4i/650D, dpreview reposts most of T4i/650D review

If you were not convinced that the Digital Rebel T5i/700D is very similar to the Digital Rebel T4i/650D, perhaps this new dpreview review of the camera will convince you. The cameras are so similar that dpreview is mostly reposting the T4i/650D review. Quote: " Our tests have found the image quality and performance of both cameras to be identical and they use the same batteries and accessories as well".

If you are in a hurry or running out of battery, you can jump to the conclusions page. Did it get an Olympic medal or was it referred to the alchemists or was it referred to the scrap metal shop? (just kidding!)

The review is discussed mildly in the dpreview comments. As of the time of writing, there is no thread for it in the dpreview D-Rebel forums.

For more opinions on the camera, check the list of completed Canon T5i/700D reviews.

Have The Digital Rebels Jumped The Shark?
It is bad enough for DSLRs that the excitement and intensity of interest among early adapter and first waves photographers is with mirrorless cameras. Canon added to that by releasing a new D-Rebel that is more or less identical to the previous model, just one year after.

So this triggers the obvious question, have the Digital Rebels jumped the shark? Vote in the poll below or opine in the comments if you have a longer answer...

New Samyang 300mm f6.3 mirror lens for mirror less systems

The previously mentioned Samyang 16mm f2 APS-C lens is going to start shipping next month (see B&H Photo, but Samyang is not done. They have also revealed that coming this year is a new 300mm f6.3 mirror lens for mirror less camera systems. For the speed-readers of the previously intentionally crafted sentence, it is a mirror lens for mirrorless camera systems :)

Early details on this new lens at the bottom half of the post at Fotopolis.pl (computer-translated).

Leakage: Pentax Q system continues with Q7 and slightly larger 1/1.7 sensor

A leakage at Digicame.info (computer-translated) reveals that the Pentax Q system will continue in the new Pentax-Ricoh era. Continue and slightly grow. The sensor will "grow up" to 1/1.7" instead of the 1/2.x" sensor of the previous Pentax Q cameras. New lenses are coming as well. It will go on sale in Japan on the 5th of July which likely means it will be announced at or before that time.

The camera will also have a more photographer-bait look as you can see at the leaked picture below...

Adobe Lightroom 5.0 arrives with new features and new cameras supported

The new Lightroom 5 is now out of beta and into the real world! LR5 brings with it support for these cameras: Ricoh GR, Olympus E-P5 and E-PL6, Panasonic G6 and LF1 and Hasselblad H5D-60 and preliminary support for the Phase One IQ260.

More about this new version at Adobe's Photoshop blog and Lightroom blog and FAQs

Adobe TV has 14 educational videos covering Lightroom 5 with Julieanne Kost. The average runtime is around 10 minutes per video, so grab your popcorn - over 2 hours of videos!

Price and Availability
It comes out of the gate with a starting price of $150, the same as the starting price of Lightroom 4, and less than the starting price of earlier editions.

It is now available for purchase as a software box or as a digital download for $150 full version at Amazon. Full version or $80 as a qualifying upgrade at The Adobe Store. You can also start a free trial.

The Student & Teacher edition goes for $80 for people and institutions who qualify under Adobe's requirements for the educational discounts. Sadly my weekend basket-weaving class does not qualify for educational discounts :)

If you prefer a traditional software box to be delivered by mail, you can place a pre-order at B&H Photo which has a release estimate of June 13 2013 which is not that far away from today.

Lightroom 5 videos
The first Adobe produced video is an 18-minute overview of the Lightroom 5 features. The second Adobe video is a 1-minute overview of the Advanced Healing Brush. Because we could all use some advanced healing :)

(EXPIRED) Father's Day Camera Specials: Free 1-Day Shipping, new low prices for Olympus E-M5 kits, etc

These limited time offers for the time period leading up to Father's Day 2013 expired... For future specials, stay tuned to the Camera Deals blog with the easy to remember url noisydeals.com... Expired items after the jump...

Camera & Lens Reviews pages updated (21 cameras, 7 lenses)

We finally caught up with the "timeline"! We added seven new Lens Reviews and twenty one (21) camera reviews which overflowed to two pages: 1st page of new reviews and 2nd page of new reviews. These are only DSLRs and mirrorless and fixed-lens camera with RAW. No boring point-and-shoot cameras are included in the review-lists!

You can quickly visit the review streams with the easy to remember urls, noisylenses.com for the lens reviews stream and noisyreviews.com for the camera reviews stream.

Fuji will cut their compact digital camera line-up in half (but look at their line-up!)

The invisible hand of the market has encouraged Fuji to cut their compact fixed-lens digital camera line-up by half. Low margins, smartphones, operations and such are some of the reasons. Fuji will also merge their digital camera and optical devices operations for more cost savings. Details at Amateur Photographer UK.

Now to the untrained eye, 50% of their P&S digital camera line-up may sound like a lot, but let's not forget that Fuji is one of the biggest "spammers" in the world of P&S cameras. For example, in just one announcement in January, they announced six nearly identical superzooms that could have easily been covered by 1-2 models instead of six. Three weeks before that announcement, they announced four nearly identical superzooms. These 10 models are all in the S-series of superzooms. We haven't even began talking about the HS-series of superzooms or the F-series of compact-zooms or the J-series and A-series of entry-level cameras, or or or or or models announced in 2012, etc, etc, etc.

You can relive Fuji's "new camera spamming" through the New Cameras of 2013 and New Cameras of 2012 reference pages.

Pentax announces basic P&S Efina for the 2nd time and adds white WG-3

In January 2013, Pentax announced a very basic P&S digital camera, the Efina with a 14mp 1/2.x" CCD sensor and a 5x optical zoom. This week they announced this camera again, perhaps this time it is available in more or different markets. Regardless, does anyone really care about this camera? Raise your hands if you do :)

At the same time, Pentax announced a white color version of their WG-3 waterproof/elementproof camera.

Press release re-parade at dpreview and Photography Blog and DCR and Fotointern and Le Monde and Amateur Photographer UK.

Impact review: Nikon A at dpreview

The Nikon A, yes, the one with the rather unfortunate name, has now received its 16-page dpreview review. As usual, we won't spill the beans here, but if you are in a hurry or if you are running out of battery, you can jump to the conclusions before jumping to conclusions. Did it get an Olympic medal or was it referred to the alchemists?

The review is discussed in the dpreview comments and also the dpreview comments.

For more opinions on the camera, check the list of completed Nikon A reviews.

Tokina reveals price of new 12-28mm f4 DX DSLR lens: $600

Tokina revealed the price of its upcoming APS-C wide zoom DSLR lens, the new 12-28mm f4 DX Pro etc etc. It will be $600 and available in the Canon and Nikon SLR mounts only. Press release at dpreview (via Pop Photo).

The lens is not available for pre-order just yet, but there is a product page for the Canon mount and Nikon mount at B&H Photo waiting for the price so it can become "orderable".

Leica Mystery Camera: 16mp samples with Leica's blessings

Photographer Jono Slack published a handful of real-world JPEG samples taken with the Mystery Leica Camera (to be revealed June 11 in 2013). The samples are around 16-megapixels. The photographer says that he should be able/allowed to post some RAW files next week. He also reveals that the internal code name for this camera is "Paula".

June 11 is not that far away :)