Fuji got quite a few products out at CES 2016 for photographers but nearly all had no real slow motion capabilities except for the Fuji XP90 Rugged waterproof compact camera. It is the same 16.4 Megapixel CMOS sensor with 5x optical zoom and a pretty standard 28mm lens at the wide end as last year’s Fuji XP80.
It is still shockproof from 6ft, waterproof to 50ft and freeze-proof down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. But aside from the harsh treatment capabilities the camera has a larger 3 inch screen vs 2.7″ on it’s predecessor and the 1080p video spec has been upped to 60p for a little slowdown.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Regardless of what the GoPro and Ambarella marriage can provide in tandem hardware it is clear the company wants to branch out of the fledgling sales of GoPro which have tanked in recent quarters and the stock price from a high near a $100 USD is now trading at a mere $12 which is half the IPO price. By branching out it seems they want their chips in many more imaging devices and be less affected by the GoPro product cycle.
The announced H2 and H12 chips are able to provide beefy 4k specs at high frame rates for mobile devices at a mere 2 Watts of power. As to 1080p frame rates it will remain to be seen how this powerful new chip can handle that in a camera design and how it is implemented to squeeze that performance. 120fps at 4k from the H2 in theory should be able to yield 480fps at 1080p just counting the Pixel processing. This however can be limited by the rest of the components like imaging sensor.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Another big set of releases at CES regarding cameras that have a slow motion mode fro the consumer are the Sony Handycam and Action cam models that were refreshed. The Sony FDR-AX53 is the most interesting of the two as it is probably the smallest and lightest Handycam from Sony that shoots 4k in a near professional quality level.
It offers so much for under 1k that it will pose some problems for other cameras in it’s segment. It is not as advanced in the zoom department as the Panasonic WXF991 which can ramp zoom and focus on dolly motion but it does have a jack of all trades feel about it.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Panasonic has been quite busy this morning with a plethora of camera announcements. It seems 4k is strongly anchored in the product line matrix by adding the feature on pretty much every product category this year. It seems to throw the message to the rest of the electronics camera industry that 1080p is so last year and that 4k is the make it or break it feature for compact and larger cameras alike.
The Nexus 6P has had a rough start due to it’s somewhat lackluster build quality that buckled on the bend tests against the improved iPhone 6s which fixed that problem that appeared on the iPhone 6. However that does not detract from the fact that the Nexus 6P is a serious powerhouse of specs and camera performance which brings true competition at 120fps and 240fps quality against the iPhone hegemony.
The compression has been improved and the scaling is actually pretty good generating fewer artifacts than ever before on an Android Phone slow motion mode. While there is a bit of Moire and aliasing in the images especially at 240fps, it is in line to what the iPhone 6s delivers. That is why we ranked them side by side on our best slow motion cameras of 2015.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The end of 2015 is upon us and now it is time to look back and see what the year brought us in the shape of affordable slow motion gear. While many cameras had higher frame rates, only a few really shined and delivered on the promise of offering HD quality and higher than normal frames per second in an attractive price point and one that you may already own if you have a recent mobile device.
