CES-Something for Everyone

CES Highlights
Talk about something for everyone. As electronics become more and more a part of virtually everything we use day-to-day—in business or our personal life—the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keeps growing bigger and bigger.

A few years ago, the giant annual trade show became increasingly important for camera manufacturers. After all, mass-market stores sell the majority of digital cameras and their accessories. The days of independent camera stores are largely gone, at least at the consumer level.

Ironically (although the mood was definitely upbeat at this year’s CES in Las Vegas and the crowds returned), with accompanying high hotel room rates and long lines everywhere, there wasn’t any real buzz surrounding a new product category.

The major players pushed bigger and thinner TV monitors, car companies were more present than ever and 3D was still being touted as the next big thing. Again. And there were dozens of companies showing off cases and other accessories such as stands and chargers for iPhones and iPads.

From a photography point of view, it was good to see cameras taking center stage on several companies’ stands. Based on my own observations I would say Panasonic had the largest display of cameras—both still and video. Sony, Samsung and Fujifilm all showed off their high-end mirrorless compact cameras. Fujifilm told me they were really pleased with the positive reaction to the upcoming retro looking, yet futuristic FinePix X100 compact camera with an APS-C sensor.

Canon had a fairly big booth, as did Kodak. Sadly Olympus, Pentax and Nikon did not have booths, but relied instead seeing their trade customers in meeting rooms. It strikes me that in today’s world, it would be important to make sure all 140,000 visitors at such an important show see your product.

 So, you’re asking—what caught my eye? Among the numerous new compact cameras the most intriguing was the Casio TRYX. It reminds me of the Nikon COOLPIX 990 I mentioned last month with its revolving body. This 12.1-megapixel camera has a fixed wide-angle lens (21mm equiv.) and is not much bigger than an iPhone, but the folding handle works as a tripod and is an effective way to hold the camera steadily while shooting.

Canon showed off its latest camcorders, from the top of the line consumer camcorder, the VIXIA HF G10 ($1500) to the pro XA10 ($2000). The only real difference between the two is the addition of a top-mounted handgrip with extra controls and XLR sockets. What’s impressive about them? They only have a 2-megapixel sensor, while most consumer camcorders have upwards of 5MP sensors.

Canon has developed the new HD CMOS Pro sensor to deliver good low-light video since each pixel is 61% bigger than in previous sensors. Canon says, as full HD is only 1920 x 1080, anything more than 2MP is really wasted. It’ll be interesting to see how its quality shapes up against HD video captured on a DSLR with anywhere from 10- to 18-megapixels. It is only a 1/3-inch sensor (4.8 x 3.6mm), which is only a shade bigger than the 1/3.2-inch sensor (4.5 x 3.4mm) sensor in the iPhone 4, and is obviously way smaller than the 36 x 24mm sensor found in the EOS 5D Mark II.

As is the case at most trade shows, many of the most interesting new items are often found among the smaller exhibitors and CES is no exception. It would be almost impossible to see every display among the 2700 exhibitors in the four-day show, so I know I missed some things. However, here’s a quick comment on some products that might be of interest to pro photographers:

SanDisk displayed its upcoming 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash card, which it claims is the world’s fastest high-capacity CF card. Victorinox, the Swiss Army knife company, unveiled smart looking USB flash drives with up to 256GB capacity that can be incorporated in knives or “airplane-friendly” holders without knives! Brother displayed an inkjet printer that prints on cloth materials, such as T-shirts. LensPad, who makes the useful lens cleaning “pen,” displayed a similar product for cleaning the surface of an iPad.

Do you find your bifocal or progressive lens eyeglasses are sometimes annoying because they throw your vision out of focus—such as when you look down? Pixel Optics showed off prototypes of eyeglasses that have an electronic lens that automatically changes focus as needed. They can be long distance lenses and then with a light touch on the edge of the frame the lower part of the lens magically changes focus for close-up reading. Just to clarify, you still need a prescription, so they are essentially an electronic version of bi-focal or progressive focus eyeglasses. I see no reason why this technology could not be used on a camera lens. It could turn a normal lens into a macro lens as the touch of a switch. The possibilities are intriguing when you think about it.

Mobile phones were present but not ubiquitous. Verizon was showing off capabilities of its 4G service ironically just days before it announced the iPhone 4 would be available only with its current 3G service. One phone that caught my eye was from JCB, the British company that is the third largest manufacturer of construction equipment. It is selling a line of GSM phones that are waterproof and crash proof. When you think how many people destroy their phones through abuse it’s surprising how few rugged phones there are on the market, so it’s good to see a company actively chasing this untapped segment.

OmniVision is a California-based company that produces imaging sensors that are used in cars as well as cameras. It just so happens that its sensors are the ones found in Apple’s iPhone 4, which produces amazingly good images. It had a small booth at CES where it showed off a new sensor that packs 10-megapxiels onto a 1/2.5-inch (5.8 x 4.3mm) sensor. It can shoot full 1080p HD video and can capture 10-megapixel still images at the same time while video is being captured. OmniVision brags that each pixel on the sensor is only 1.4 microns in size, but still has low-noise levels. When you consider each pixel in the Canon camcorders mentioned above is 2.75 microns in size, it’s difficult to imagine how this is possible. We may have to wait some time before we can see the real life results though as the sensor does not go into production until the middle of the year. It’s a physically larger sensor than used in the iPhone 4, so it’s unlikely to find its way into the next generation iPhone.

Finally, I’d have to say that one of the most fascinating products at CES was the ArtPro Nail printer that prints images or graphics on fingernails. It was attracting a lot of attention as the Chinese company, Guangzhou Taiji Electronics, demonstrated how you could print photographs on a person’s fingernails. I can imagine this being a hit at weddings—you could print images or greetings on guest’s nails. Amazingly the printer only costs $1500, but is only available directly from the company in China at present.

Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W3
3D photography has come and gone several times in the past century. Is it here to stay now, as the major electronics companies displaying at CES would have us believe?

In the eyes of many, 3D is currently the hot ticket. However, old-timers like to politely point out that it’s a “new” technique that has come and gone several times in the past century. People in their 60s probably remember stereoscopic cameras from the 1950s, and we’ve all seen historic photographs of cinema audiences wearing geeky 3D glasses. The consumer electronics industry is busy pushing 3D TVs, while Hollywood keeps coming out with new 3D movies. Cynics will say, “been there done that.”

I must admit I am in that boat. The thrill of watching things in 3D wears thin after a while. In fact it can be distracting in a movie that was not carefully crafted as a real 3D movie from the get go. Most pundits tend to agree with this point of view and cite Avatar as the one exception that does work well as a 3D movie.

With this in mind I was ready to be disappointed with the Fujifilm Real 3D W3 camera. But I wasn’t!  It’s an intriguing point-and-shoot camera that uses twin lenses and two 10MP CCD sensors.
It did not take long for me to figure out that most pictures don’t work very well in 3D. However, when I captured one that did work everyone who viewed the images said, “Wow, that’s much better than I expected.”

Essentially, the secret is to take a picture with three planes of attention—a foreground that is not too close, followed by the main subject and then a background somewhat further away. This technique helps make the main subject really pop. I used it one photograph for example where I incorporated a videographer shooting a car at the Paris motor show on a rotating display with a backdrop behind the car.

Naturally, the big problem with 3D is that viewing images is cumbersome. The LCD display on the back of the Fujifilm has a 3.5-inch, 1.15-million dot ventricular screen that shows off the 3D effect very effectively. However, it only works for someone who is looking squarely on to the monitor—preventing it from being viewed by more than one person at a time. It can also be viewed on an optional 8-inch monitor or on 3D TV sets. I don’t have the privilege of owning one of these TVs so will have to delay comment on its effectiveness. The camera has to be connected to the TV for it to work.

Incidentally, the camera takes regular 2D images and it can be set so each lens/sensor captures different zoom lengths or different color balance settings.

Bottom line—I was expecting to be underwhelmed by the camera, but wasn’t. If you’re interested in immersing yourself in the world of 3D—oh I forgot it also shoots 720p HD 3D video—this camera is probably as good as any to get your feet wet.

Is it the start of a new trend or will 3D die from lack on interest yet again, as it has in the past? Only time will tell…

John Rettie is a photojournalist who has been covering digital photography since its earliest days. He resides in Santa Barbara, CA and readers are welcome to contact him directly by e-mail at [email protected].