'On Tuesday, Taser will announce a camera, a half-ounce unit about the size of a cigar stub that clips on to a collar or sunglasses of an officer and can record two hours of video during a shift.' '“Once video is up in the cloud, why not photos? Why not all sorts of evidence? It will make it easier for different agencies to collaborate.”'

"Defined more carefully, slow photography is the effort to flip the usual relationship between process and results. Usually, you use a camera because you want the results (the photos). In slow photography, the basic idea is that photos themselves—the results—are secondary. The goal is the experience of studying some object carefully and exercising creative choice. That's it."

I've always liked Petteri Sulonen's camera reviews, so it's good to see him writing about Panasonic's compact interchangable lens offerings. "The best thing about the GF1 is shootability. It feels like everything is at my fingertips. After a bit of tweaking, all of the critical controls are one or two button-presses or dial-turns away."

Of all the responses preserved in this Tumblr discussion, the one I sympathise with most is Sean Bonner's. Still, it's an interesting product to watch.

"Babcock has spent the summer creating 1,000 cameras for the exhibit, and he says anything that can keep out light and accommodate a pinhole or lens as well as film or photo paper will work." Closes 5th November.

"My iPhone can tell me where I am, tell me where the sun is and the moon will be, put watermarks on my images, stitch panos, apply tilt-and-shift-like effect, email them or send them directly to places I want them, and much, much more. My US$7999 D3x can't do any of those things. Doesn't anyone else find something wrong with this picture?" The whole thing piece (collection, really) is long, but well worth reading if you're interested in cameras, customisation, and computing.

A review of AddLib, with some examples. Looks interesting.

"addLib changes your photos into graphic design pieces. The types of design are infinite. It produces beautiful and sophisticated pieces one after another based on the golden ratio and a fractal theory."

An analysis of lenses for Micro Four Thirds and similar cameras. "The lenses we'd really like to see [are] fast, compact primes covering a range of focal lengths from wide to short telephoto." I don't disagree, but I do wonder if there's not too much wishing going on in here; there are very few digital-specific primes for APS-C bodies. On the other hand, the new mounts can't reuse working (but not optimal) older lenses. We'll see.

"The system takes a novel approach by offering interchangeable slide mount 'lens units' - sealed modules containing both optics and sensor, meaning it can switch from a large (APS-C) 12 MP CMOS with a fast prime lens to a tiny 10 MP CCD (with a 24-70mm lens)." Bonkers.

Wired's interesting article on Polaroid, although a bit more technical detail would have been nice (I should read up on the process; why were negatives so tricky?)

"The Canon's PowerShot S90 appears to represent exactly the sort of compact we like - a bright lens, good screen and easy access to a selection of manual controls. Then we discovered the control ring around the lens and thought it worth publishing our first impressions." As it says, it looks like a response to (the by all reports very good) Panasonic DMC-LX3.

"Recently, camera companies have begun diverting their research efforts from 'how to get more megapixels' to 'how to get better photos.' They’re working on things that really do matter in a consumer camera, like sensor size, stabilization — and fixing low-light photography." David Pogue reviews interesting Fuji and Sony compacts.

"The E-P1 is painfully slow to focus. To capture a shot like this, you have to pre-focus on an object the same distance away as your subject will be. Then, when your subject swings into view, the camera is ready to fire without having to focus." There's also a link to the full review.

"For the kind of subjects that require lightning responses - young kids, street photography, sports and so on - the slow focus (especially in low light) seriously limits the E-P1's usability." Generally, though? "Highly Recommended".

More convenient for me than Calumet. "Special weekend rates from Friday pm to Monday am = 1 day."

"Do you have multiple cameras? Do you spend time quitting iPhoto every time you connect your iPhone? Wish you could have your DSLR open Aperture and have iPhoto launch when you connect your point-and-shoot camera?" Yes, not really, and sure, for free, why not?

I should probably have made this a proper blog post, or fixed comments on husk.org/blog, but: I noted the way cropping works with the Pen (the sensor is 4:3; you can use 3:2 or 16:9, and then JPGs are cropped, while RAW gets embedded cropping metadata). I also found the pictures to be have good saturation and contrast compared to my Canon, but obviously opinions differ.

JDD on the Pen. "Any lag that people run into in day to day operation will probably be from autofocus acquisition." That's probably true for what I was trying to do (shooting from a cold start) and so setting to manual focus would have fixed it (and in retrospect, it's what I do for the Canon too).

A new Ricoh compact camera, with a CMOS (not CCD) sensor, and built-in HDR compositing. "However, Hongoh stresses that its feature isn't trying to produce the fashionable, heavily-processed 'HDR-look.' 'it aims to portray the scene in as natural a way as possible,' he says."

Ooh, competition for the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, kind of. A crop-factor 50mm equivalent prime lens from Nikon, with a decently wide aperture, built-in autofocus motor (for those D40/D40x/D60 owners), and pretty reasonably priced (in the US at least, where it's $200; the 20%+ UK markup is a bit galling). Once again I wonder if Nikon don't have the better lens lineup.

"A photo taken during Xmas eve had no EXIF tags whatsoever; Two photos taken on Dec 31st 2008 had the date one year in the future." Oops.

Apparently Camera Finder shows the iPhone being the first mobile to break into the top five cameras. I can't say I'm surprised; although it's damned near awful as modern camera phones go, it comes with a data plan that doesn't make you fret about uploading, nor a UI that makes it feel like hell. It's probably the first decent camera-enabled networked phone in the US, fwiw (Nokia never broke that market).

"If I had but one backdrop to use for portraiture I would choose a simple roll of white seamless paper. With one roll of paper you can create many options." via Tom Armitage, who seems to be doing this sort of thing.

A lot of very good reasons for me to be happy with my consumer-grade 12MP DSLR. After all, I'm having enough trouble clearing a hard drive enough to download 2GB of shots to it. And I don't have two and a half grand spare.

OK, I changed the title a bit: it was "Plan Assault on Fortress of Pretentious Photography", but that's quite long. Anyway, Wired's Gadget Labs spells out what the new Micro Four Thirds lens mount means: "SLRs" that don't have mirror boxes (and hence no viewfinders), but do have live view (do consumers prefer that now?) while retaining big sensors. It'll be a struggle to market them, but it's interesting.

Candace has the Leica-branded version of previous model, and complains about the noise above ISO 100. This has the same number of pixels in a bigger sensor. It'll be interesting to see if they can convince the market, but we're tempted.

Well, that was quick. An actual preview of the 1000D, complete with comparison charts (against the 400D and 450D, but sadly not the 40D). I note the viewfinder is more like the 400D than the 450D; most consumers won't care, but I would.

So, the rumoured 1000D surfaces. They'll sell a ton, because the minor differences between this and the 450D won't matter to most (and it's still less compromised than the entry-level Nikons). I'm curious about how the product lines will shake out.

Typical; you complain about 10.5.3 not having 450D RAW support, and in the morning a freshly minted software update shows up. Oddly, doesn't require 10.5.3. Also oddly, adds supports the ancient Epson R-D1.

Their conclusion? "the DP1 has not been developed to its full potential yet and can only really be recommended ... to photographers who can live with a frustratingly slow speed of operation"

A good review of the new full-frame compact camera from a Helsinki-based photographer. He doesn't rate the DP1 for low-light stuff - mainly due to the lens, not the sensor - but reckons it matches a EOS 5D for image quality.

If you're willing to pay the premium to avoid eBay, here's where to get your Polaroid cameras.

The lowest price from anyone I trust, but do I want to pay well over two hundred pounds more for an IS lens and the other incremental updates from the 400D? Hmmm.

Not the most detailed of user guides, but then, it's nice to see a manual less than a hundred pages long, with large clear pictures rather than dense type and denser diagrams. (PDF.)

Interesting interview with Canon, touching on a few decisions I've wondered about: megapixels vs noise, RAW on "prosumer" compacts, and the lack of the old Powershot S.. range, for example. Also: wideangle, wifi, GPS.

Just in time to compete with the new Canon 450D, here's an update to Nikon's D40 line. Unfortunately its lack of an autofocus motor makes it useless if you want prime lenses (and you should).

"The standard 450D kit will include a redesigned, image stabilized version of Canon's 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens" Saw that coming when they announced the IS last year. Also good: live view, ISO visibility. Ambivalent on the CF/SD switch.

DPReview have finally released a few reviews I've been waiting for. The Leica M8 one is of academic interest, but the GX100 - a zoom lens variant of the GR-D, kind of - is much more realistically priced. Unfortunately still has small-sensor noise issues.

Special advice on buying DSLRs. Excerpt from one of the TidBITs online books. Seems generally sane (unlike that awful ten point thing that made it to digg and slashdot).

An interesting fixed-focal-length digital camera. Doubt I'll buy one but the review might be interesting reading (posted unseen)

An interview with the designer of Panasonic's new (first) DSLR, which as I noted when it was announced looks like a "proper" old-fashioned camera.

I keep coming back to this page too

Shot in burst mode. Interesting idea. Can't watch it properly now but what I've seen looks worthwhile.

In case you were wondering what I was on about

Nicely retro-looking DSLR and IS lens. Live preview on the LCD, and a dust removal gizmo. Shame about the 2x crop factor though, and no prices yet.

Of course the news comes out on DPReview before any Canon sites, sigh.

Likely to appeal to the sort of people who (over)use the word "ludic".

What's the point of wireless on a camera again? Especially as I'm seeing the price listed at around €600