Welcome to this week’s accessory roundup. If we’re being honest, it’s been a bit of a dry one out there for accessory news; manufacturers have likely been busy getting ready for the upcoming Amazon Prime Day event that starts on October 8th, and the busy sales season that’ll follow the month after. However, we’ve dug deep and found some accessory news for you. Before we get to that though, let’s go back to talking deals for list a moment…

OM Cameras on sale

The OM-5, OM System’s compact Micro Four Third camera, is currently on sale for $1,000, $200 off its MSRP. When we reviewed it, we appreciated its capable stabilization, size, and weather sealing. While it certainly has some drawbacks like using microUSB instead of USB-C and the company’s older menu system, the less expensive price takes the sting out of those a bit.

The company’s high-end camera, the OM-1 II, is also $400 off, bringing its price to right under $2,000, body-only.

Taking a slight – okay, massive – step up in size, weight, and price, the Nikon Z8 is also $400 off. It’s one of the most powerful full-frame cameras we’ve reviewed to date, and won our Gold award last year.

Frame It

It’s easy to understand where the name comes from, but Lexar better hope that a certain animation studio isn’t feeling particularly litigious. Image: Lexar

Lexar, a brand probably best known for its memory cards and readers, has launched a new sub-brand to sell digital photo frames called ‘pexar.’ The announcement was made at IFA last month, but it flew under the radar for a bit until sites like Digital Camera World and PetaPixel picked up on it.

The first pexar-branded product is a 28 cm (11″) digital picture frame with a 2000 x 1200 touchscreen display that can go up to 400 nits of brightness, 32GB of built-in storage, a magnetic stand that lets you use it in portrait and landscape, and an anti-glare display. It also has an SD card slot and a USB-A port to let you expand how many pictures it can hold, but the company says you should be able to fit “over 40,000” images on it before you need to do that.

There’s also an app that lets “up to 512 users” connect to the frame and upload images or videos to it. This could be useful for those giving it as a gift to a family member or friend and who want to keep it updated with recent photos, or someone who wants to use it as a way to display their own photography without having to do prints.

At $160, it’s certainly positioned as a premium product, though it’s also not the most expensive option in the category. It also has a higher resolution than The Wirecutter‘s pick for a 38cm (15″) digital photo frame. The company also says that a smaller 25.7cm (10.1″) version is in the works and will launch sometime this month.

$159 at Amazon

Lights, camera, action

Image: SmallRig

Chip-on-board lights, or COB lights, have become popular tools for both photographers and videographers looking for a continuous light source. Recently, both SmallRig and Lume Cube announced portable COB lights, which could be handy if you find yourself needing a fill light. Both lights can be remotely operated with an app.

As its name implies, the SmallRig RC 100B is a 100W-class light. It uses bi-color LEDs, so you can have it output light at 2700-6500K. There are two different RC 100B kits; the first is the “mobile” version which mounts to a handle and includes an adapter plate that lets you use two NP-F batteries instead of the V-mount ones the light natively takes. The standard version, meanwhile, includes a light stand adapter and USB-C cable for power. Both versions also have a mini XLR input for DC power.

The mobile version retails for $199, and the standard one is $229.

Buy at B&H

Buy at SmallRig

Buy at Amazon

Image: LumeCube

The Lume Cube XL puts out less light – it’s only a 60W-class source – but adds RGB capabilities that let you output in different colors. Like the SmallRig light, it includes a reflector, and can accept power input via USB-C. It doesn’t include a built-in battery mount, though you can buy a battery handle separately, but does come with a power adapter that lets you plug it into the wall.

The Lume Cube XL is available for $249.

A trip to the museum

Photo: Nikon

This one is less of an accessory and more of a place you can go to see a ton of camera gear. Nikon has announced that it’ll reopen its museum on October 12, after closing it while relocating its headquarters. There, you’ll be able to see around “1,300 products and technologies” from Nikon’s camera, lens, binocular, and industrial businesses. Perhaps most excitingly, the consumer section has a “touch and try” section, though the company’s map doesn’t have much detail on what types of products you’ll be able to get your hands on.

Admission to the museum is free, but you’ll obviously have to physically be in Tokyo if you want to visit.

Image: Nikon

If you do want to buy something, the museum has a gift shop that sells “15 types of acrylic keychain” that depict cameras and lenses, which are quite adorable and only 500 yen (around $3.40 US at time of writing).

Click to see last week’s accessory roundup

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Welcome to this week’s accessory roundup. If we’re being honest, it’s been a bit of a dry one out there for accessory news; manufacturers have likely been busy getting ready for the upcoming Amazon Prime Day event that starts on October 8th, and the busy sales season that’ll follow the month after. However, we’ve dug deep and found some accessory news for you. Before we get to that though, let’s go back to talking deals for list a moment…

OM Cameras on sale

The OM-5, OM System’s compact Micro Four Third camera, is currently on sale for $1,000, $200 off its MSRP. When we reviewed it, we appreciated its capable stabilization, size, and weather sealing. While it certainly has some drawbacks like using microUSB instead of USB-C and the company’s older menu system, the less expensive price takes the sting out of those a bit.

The company’s high-end camera, the OM-1 II, is also $400 off, bringing its price to right under $2,000, body-only.

Taking a slight – okay, massive – step up in size, weight, and price, the Nikon Z8 is also $400 off. It’s one of the most powerful full-frame cameras we’ve reviewed to date, and won our Gold award last year.

Frame It

It’s easy to understand where the name comes from, but Lexar better hope that a certain animation studio isn’t feeling particularly litigious. Image: Lexar

Lexar, a brand probably best known for its memory cards and readers, has launched a new sub-brand to sell digital photo frames called ‘pexar.’ The announcement was made at IFA last month, but it flew under the radar for a bit until sites like Digital Camera World and PetaPixel picked up on it.

The first pexar-branded product is a 28 cm (11″) digital picture frame with a 2000 x 1200 touchscreen display that can go up to 400 nits of brightness, 32GB of built-in storage, a magnetic stand that lets you use it in portrait and landscape, and an anti-glare display. It also has an SD card slot and a USB-A port to let you expand how many pictures it can hold, but the company says you should be able to fit “over 40,000” images on it before you need to do that.

There’s also an app that lets “up to 512 users” connect to the frame and upload images or videos to it. This could be useful for those giving it as a gift to a family member or friend and who want to keep it updated with recent photos, or someone who wants to use it as a way to display their own photography without having to do prints.

At $160, it’s certainly positioned as a premium product, though it’s also not the most expensive option in the category. It also has a higher resolution than The Wirecutter‘s pick for a 38cm (15″) digital photo frame. The company also says that a smaller 25.7cm (10.1″) version is in the works and will launch sometime this month.

$159 at Amazon

Lights, camera, action

Image: SmallRig

Chip-on-board lights, or COB lights, have become popular tools for both photographers and videographers looking for a continuous light source. Recently, both SmallRig and Lume Cube announced portable COB lights, which could be handy if you find yourself needing a fill light. Both lights can be remotely operated with an app.

As its name implies, the SmallRig RC 100B is a 100W-class light. It uses bi-color LEDs, so you can have it output light at 2700-6500K. There are two different RC 100B kits; the first is the “mobile” version which mounts to a handle and includes an adapter plate that lets you use two NP-F batteries instead of the V-mount ones the light natively takes. The standard version, meanwhile, includes a light stand adapter and USB-C cable for power. Both versions also have a mini XLR input for DC power.

The mobile version retails for $199, and the standard one is $229.

Buy at B&H

Buy at SmallRig

Buy at Amazon

Image: LumeCube

The Lume Cube XL puts out less light – it’s only a 60W-class source – but adds RGB capabilities that let you output in different colors. Like the SmallRig light, it includes a reflector, and can accept power input via USB-C. It doesn’t include a built-in battery mount, though you can buy a battery handle separately, but does come with a power adapter that lets you plug it into the wall.

The Lume Cube XL is available for $249.

A trip to the museum

Photo: Nikon

This one is less of an accessory and more of a place you can go to see a ton of camera gear. Nikon has announced that it’ll reopen its museum on October 12, after closing it while relocating its headquarters. There, you’ll be able to see around “1,300 products and technologies” from Nikon’s camera, lens, binocular, and industrial businesses. Perhaps most excitingly, the consumer section has a “touch and try” section, though the company’s map doesn’t have much detail on what types of products you’ll be able to get your hands on.

Admission to the museum is free, but you’ll obviously have to physically be in Tokyo if you want to visit.

Image: Nikon

If you do want to buy something, the museum has a gift shop that sells “15 types of acrylic keychain” that depict cameras and lenses, which are quite adorable and only 500 yen (around $3.40 US at time of writing).

Click to see last week’s accessory roundup

Source link

Here at DPReview, we love DIY photography projects, and one recently came to our attention that we just had to share.

Boston-based engineer and photographer Wenting Zhang has been experimenting with DIY electronics for over a decade and also loves taking photos, so building his own camera was a natural extension of these interests.

“I initially had the idea of building my own camera during middle school. Back then, I wasn’t allowed to use my parents’ camera and couldn’t afford a real camera. I naively thought it would be possible, and cheaper, if I just built one myself,” Zhang told DPReview. His initial attempt didn’t go well, and he eventually saved enough to buy a used Nikon D90, but the itch to build his own camera stayed. Whenever he saw someone posting about a DIY camera project, he thought, “If other people can pull that off, I should be able to as well.”

Zhang says he started the project in 2017, and it’s not finished yet. “Engineers are usually bad at estimating how long things will take. I am probably particularly bad at that. I expected this project to be challenging, so it would take a bit longer, like probably one year. Turned out my estimation was off,” he says.

He makes clear to point out that this is a hobby project, purely for fun, and that his camera isn’t going to achieve the level of image quality found in commercially available products from established companies. Despite that, his project provides a fascinating look into what’s involved in building a camera from the ground up. What’s more, Zhang has open-sourced his entire project on GitLab for anyone else who might want to build upon it.

Zhang took this photo with a monochrome version of the Sitina, which uses the same sensor but without the Bayer color filter array. Photo: Wenting Zhang

Although CMOS has become the dominant sensor technology in consumer cameras, owing to factors like speed, lower power consumption and cost, Zhang’s camera is built around a 10MP Kodak KAI-11000CM CCD sensor with a global electronic shutter, which he selected for a rather pragmatic reason: it was easy to source. “Most manufacturers (like Sony) aren’t going to just sell a sensor to a random hobbyist, so I have to buy whatever is available on eBay. This 10MP CCD turned out to be available,” he explains.

Zhang attaches the CCD sensor to his heat sink. Photo: Wenting Zhang

The choice of sensor has a useful benefit. As he explains in one of his videos, designing and building a mechanical shutter is complicated and beyond his area of expertise, so his DIY design is based on using an electronic shutter. For similar reasons, he chose to use an LCD screen as a viewfinder rather than a prism-based optical design, resulting in a mirrorless camera.

Photo captured with the Sitina S1. Photo: Wenting Zhang

Zhang wanted his design to be compatible with existing lenses. His mirrorless design, with a short flange distance, provided a great deal of flexibility to adapt different lenses to the camera, and he’s currently using E-mount with active electrical contacts.

And that’s just the start. Zhang also needed to integrate a CCD signal processor with an ADC (analog to digital converter), a CPU, battery, an LCD screen and buttons. He also designed and built his own circuit board with a power-only USB port, flash sync terminal, power button and SD card slot, and create the software and user interface to tie it all together.

In order to build his camera, Zhang had to design and print his own circuit boards. Image: Wenting Zhang

Finally, everything fits inside a 3D-printed enclosure that, to my eye, looks rather attractive.

As for the camera’s name, the Sitina S1? “I simply put the word ‘silicon’ and ‘retina’ together to form the word ‘sitina’. I don’t have any better ideas of naming the camera model, so I simply call it the ‘Sitina S1’, he explains. “But the name may change in the future if I ever have better ideas.”

Zhang was kind enough to share some photos from his DIY ‘for fun’ camera.

Photos: Wenting Zhang

Now that he’s built his own camera, Zhang has an appreciation for how much work goes into the design, development and optimization of a modern consumer camera. “I would imagine it would take an army of designers and engineers of various disciplines to build a modern consumer camera,” he says. “There are so many different components but few ‘off the shelf’ parts.”

“On top of the hardware, we still have layers of software. There’s no standard camera operating system (like Android or Windows) so each vendor is developing its own OS. On top of the OS, you have image processing algorithms where each vendor probably has their own secret sauce for better color, lower noise, etc. I think it’s quite incredible that camera vendors are able to do all these things in-house.”

Zhang is still working to address issues in his current prototype. “I think in another year or two it could reach a state where it can be a useable and useful camera. I do wish to sell the camera either as a kit people can put together or as an assembled machine. Not for profit, but so people can play with it, and my effort on this project won’t go to waste.”

If you’re curious to learn more about how a camera is built, I encourage you to watch both of Zhang’s videos in their entirety as he goes into great detail about the process. And, if you have the technical skills and interest to try this type of DIY project yourself, his open source project could be invaluable. I’ll be the first to admit it goes beyond my level of engineering know-how, but I would be first in line to order a Sitina camera DIY kit if the opportunity arose.

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