360 DEGREES Weblog

If the Holga filter dial is at the cheap, tacky, plastic end of the iPhone lens case market, then the iPhone Lens Dial is at the very top end. It also costs ten times the price.

The chunky case is a carved from aircraft-grade aluminum, has two tripod mounts (for portrait and landscape shots) and features an unmissable disk with three lenses. Like the lens turret on old Super-8 movies cameras, this allows you to twist each lens into position.

On that dial you’ll find a 0.7x wide-angle, a 0.33x fisheye and a 1.5x telephoto lens. It’s a lot like the triple-lens pack but without all the sticky magnets and easy-to-lose lenses.

Despite all this metal and glass, the case weighs in at just 10 ounces (280 grams). Not light, but still lighter than your camera.

The price for this magnificently extravagant accessory is $250. That’s probably more than you paid for your iPhone.

In time for Christmas, Lomography presents their new range of Gold Special Edition Cameras. Three of their camera models, Diana F+, Diana Mini and Fisheye 2, have gone through a shiny make-over, dangling from a bling bling gold chain. These would certainly make for a nice accessory for Christmas and New Years Eve.

Belkin has popped out two new accessories for iPhone-wielding photographers — the LiveAction Camera Grip and the LiveAction Camera Remote.

The Grip adds a physical shutter-release to your iPhone, plugging into the 30-pin dock connector and working in tandem with a free companion app. It has two buttons, one for stills and one for video, and costs $50. A few months ago this may have seemed like a good idea, but now iOS5 lets us use the volume-up button to snap a photo, it seems rather pointless. Especially as it only works with the Belkin LiveAction App.

The Remote is handier. It consists of two parts which join together when not in use. One is a clip-like stand that holds the iPhone steady, the other is a Bluetooth unit with two buttons (again for separate triggering of stills or video recording). It, too, requires the LiveAction app to work, but in this case that limit is probably worth it. The Remote also costs $50.

Both work with the iPhone 4/4S and the iPod Touch, in or out of a case.

Get the best of both photographic worlds with the Polaroid Z340 Instant Digital Camera ($300). Sporting a body that’s immediately identifiable as a ‘roid, the Z340 mixes a 14 megapixel sensor and 2.7-inch LCD with a built-in Zink printer, allowing it to spit out 3″x4″, full-color prints in no-time, without the hassle of ink cartridges, and with the ability to print 25 photos per charge. Take that, silly Polaroid-mimicking apps.

A 16 megapixel MOS live sensor and up to 14 interchangeable lenses are just two of many, many features that the LUMIX GX1 has to offer, Panasonic’s latest and greatest pocket DLSR camera.  While it embodies much of the same features as the GF1, GF2 and GF3, the GX1 is better suited for an all around photographer that demands customizability, but also the easy of use from a point and shoot.

The body of the GX1 is crafted from aluminium chassis resulting in a weight of just 413 grams.  You’ll be able to choose from two finishes: Gunmetal Grey and Raven Black, but both sound equally attractive, so no going wrong there.  In addition to a 16 megapixel sensor, Panasonic has reduced the auto focus time to just .9 seconds, which the company says is the fastest “ among Compact System Cameras”.  Burst mode lets you capture up to 20 frames per second and you can also record full HD video, though when the ISO is cranked 12,800 you can expect some of those capabilities to be reduced. Much like the GF3, the GX1 includes a 3-inch touchscreen allowing to touch to focus and activate the shutter.  A hot shoe makes room for an angle adjustable viewfinder and since there is a built-in flash you can have both mounted at the same time unlike some other cameras in the same class.    There is of course face detection, an auto scene mode as well as auto mode.  Panasonic has also added two macro touchscreen button as well as two macro buttons for engaging your favorite options in a moment’s notice.  And what kind of camera would the GX1 be if it couldn’t capture 3D photos, though you’ll need to invest in a special digital lens, though we’d rather opt for the all new pancake sized 14-42mm X Zoom lens.

The GX1 with their  H-FS014042 lens will launch mid-December for about $800, though you can buy the body for $100 less.

It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between today’s launch by Canon of its EOS C300 digital cinema camera and the launch of RED’s long-awaited Scarlet. Canon’s event was huge and long-winded with a string of cinematography heavyweights on stage. At the RED gathering half an hour later, an ad hoc bunch of the faithful turned up at RED studios, ostensibly just to watch the same web page update as the rest of the world. Alas it didn’t quite work out like that.

Due to what RED believes was a malicious attack, their servers (beefed up for the occasion) collapsed and red.com went dark. Head Honcho Jim Jannard had to come out and address the gathered 300 or so himself whilst the rest of the world gleaned tidbits over twitter. This sort of thing is part of the fun of RED that is both enjoyable and infuriating in equal measure. Let’s not forget though that RED is, by far, the most successful manufacturer of digital cinema cameras with nearly 10,000 units in the wild and they are in use on the majority of Hollywood films in production.

The news of Scarlet itself was quite simple yet quite significant, and an interesting counterpoint to Canon. The concept for Scarlet announced three years ago envisaged a video-sized chip (2/3-in) providing a 3K picture for 2K deliverables after processing. All that has gone away. What the world wants, argues RED, is an EPIC (RED’s flagship 5K cinema camera) for less money. So that’s what’s happening. Jim Jannard explained that the ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) in the Epic are expensive and advanced and many of them fail to reach the high performance required for the Epic’s stellar spec’s. These are of course rejected and just sit on a shelf. By matching these chips with less complex electronics and accepting the lower data rates and capabilities, RED’s per unit costs drop dramatically and a baby Epic can be manufactured at a reasonable cost. So that’s what Scarlet X is.

At 5K resolution Scarlet X will shoot 6 fps, suitable for high quality stills photography (similar resolution to Canon 7D, 60D, 600D etc.). At 4K resolution Scarlet X will shoot 1 to 24 fps, suitable for film making, and at QuadHD it will shoot 30 fps. At 2K it will shoot up to 60 fps, and at 1K it will shoot at up to 120 fps. The camera block (brain) is the same size as the Epic brain, the inputs and outputs are the same, and all the myriad RED accessories will fit both cameras. The lens mount is the standard cinema PL mount or, and this is genius, the Canon EF mount, with autofocus support.

Price for the Scarlet X brain plus a SSD (sold state disc drive) is US$9,750 (GBP6,000 / EUR7,000). For a kit with battery, controller and LCD the cost will be around $14,000 (GBP8,700 / EUR10,000) depending on options. Delivery on the PL mount version will be this month and the Canon mount version will be available in December. In a significant announcement Jim Jannard promised that as of next February RED will have ramped production such that for the first time in their history, cameras should be available from stock.

Ever wish you could return to a simpler cinematic era — one characterized not by 3D graphics and Spielberg, but by silent images and Eisenstein? Well, you can now spearhead the movement yourself, with Lomography’s new LomoKino Super 35 Movie Maker. With this device (pictured above), amateur filmmakers can manually produce their own frill-free movies on any roll of 35mm film. All you have to do is load your film into the so-called “magic box,” turn the crank and let the LomoKino work its magic. The camera, which boasts a 25mm lens and max aperture of f/5.6, will capture 144 shots on a single roll of film, good for about 50 to 60 seconds of footage. It also supports a wide array of effects, including slide film, color negative, redscale and black and white. Once that’s developed, you can run it through Lomography’s LomoKinoScope, direct it toward a light source, and watch your homemade Baby’s Lunch or Nanook of the North unfold before your eyes. You won’t find any sound, special effects, or fancy post-production tools here — just moving images, plain and cinematically pure. Lumiere enthusiasts can grab one now for $80, or opt for both the LomoKino and the LomoKinoScope, bundled together for $100.

And you thought your DSLR was advanced. The Lytro Camera ($400-$500) is an all-new type of shooter called a Light Field Camera that captures the color, intensity and vector direction of the rays of light — 11 million of them, in the case of the Lytro — and then uses powerful software to substitute for the internal pieces of regular cameras and also add incredible new capabilities, like the ability to focus the photo after you’ve taken it. Yes, that’s what we said.

Thanks Uncrate

What do you need to take stunning pictures, yet ensure that you look every bit an opulent photographer thanks to all that classy equipment? Act fast, I say! Leica Camera is out with a stunning special edition Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium. The 10.1 megapixel silver-grey hued compact camera will come with a premium titanium-colored leather case and the latest Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software to process your images professionally. I love Lightroom, and it’s an incredible deal, really!

Well, not everyone has a whole stack of notes, £1million lying around, though if you’re the daughter of a Formula One CEO, say, Bernie Ecclestone, rolling around naked in those sweet smelling £50 notes isn’t that big a deal. For a recent photo shoot for photographer Tyler Shields, the rich and beautiful Tamara Ecclestone posed with notes fallen all around and on her bed at her £50m mansion. Also, Ecclestone posed with a frying pan, pretending to fry eggs with her expensive Christian Laboutin heels on the kitchen platform. And if that wasn’t enough, Tamara hopped outside to pose for the camera yet again, this time with designer footwear again, sweeping the streets of London! Tamara Ecclestone hopes to make a mark for herself in the reality television world with her show, Billion $$$ Girl, and by the looks of these pictures, we’re pretty sure we’ve got yet another famous heiress in the making.