Somewhat hidden amidst the flurry of new product announcements from Sony yesterday, was the Z100 XDCAM pro 4K camcorder. Capable of shooting 4K at both 50p and 60p with 4:2:2 Intraframe 10-bit recording in an MXF format. Like the consumer AX-1, the camera records on XQD cards.
Sony has updated its Action Cam POV camera. The HDR-AS30V can capture 11.9 megapixel stills as well as HD footage at 1920x1080 60p/50p/30p/25p and 1280x720 60p or 1280x720 120p via a back-illuminated 16MP EXMOR R sensor. It has a 170° lens and a new waterproof housing that is smaller and lighter than its predecessor but a little less rugged.
Sealux has announced their new housing for the Sony NEX-FS700 FS Series Camcorder. Constructed of aluminum with a 90m (295 ft) depth rating, it provides access to all camera functions, and has an eyepiece tube that allows the user to use the camera’s own viewfinder to frame and monitor the images being captured.
Nauticam has announced their housing for the Sony RX100 II compact camera. It features a 67mm thread for the attachment of wide-angle or macro wet lenses, and a bulkhead port to take advantage of the camera’s hot shoe.
Sony has announced the FDR-AX1E 4K consumer Handycam. It uses an XAVC S format, which uses MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Long GOP for video and Linear PCM for audio compression and saves files in an MP4 wrapper. Captures is via a 1/2.3-type Exmor R™ CMOS sensor capturing images at 3840x2160 resolution.
DPReview reports that at the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas yesterday, Adobe announced that it is to offer a new pricing tier to its Creative Cloud. The company will now offer users the option of receiving Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, Bridge CC, Behance, and 20GB of storage for $9.99 per month.
The 2013 Festival Mondiale de l’Image Sous Marine, often known as the “Antibes festival” (even though it is now held in Marseille!) is now calling for entries for its imaging and video competition. Wetpixel will be reporting from the festival and assisting in the judging of the “International Underwater Photography Olympics”.
The 2013 Underwater Festival shootout is up and running. The contest will accept any underwater image or video shot in the month of September in the geographical area of Australasia. In order to enter an image, the camera’s date must be turned to 2018.
The annual dolphin hunts have started again at the Japanese town of Taji. Whatever your feelings regarding the moral rights and wrongs of this harvest of live and dead dolphins, graphic video published by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDC) and filmed by Atlanticblue (in German) seems to show the dolphins being killed in an extremely inhumane way.
Photographer and filmmaker Cristian Dimitrius has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary and Long Form category for his film Untamed Americas. (Picture by Rodolfo Paes).