Samsung's new TL9 point-and-shoot camera replaces the standard digital meters that show battery life and flash memory storage space with two pleasingly analog gauges. I hope this starts a trend!

Samsung fleshes out new digicam line with TL9, SL310W and SL201 [Engadget.com via Music Thing]

The Flee is wonderful: a throwable, flingable digicam with the floating, aerodynamic design of a badminton birdie. It pairs via Bluetooth to your mobile phone: just hurl it up into the air and it will automatically take as many pictures as it can before it lands, which are automatically transfered to your phone, to be ruthlessly expunged until you find that one-in-a-million shot.

Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, it doesn't appear to be real: the Flee floats on the zephyrs of the concept design ether. It's a shame, because it's a neat idea... the perfect thing to take dramatic overhead shots of sweating iPhone 3G crowds. Of course, actually doled out for comes the psychological hump of hurling your expensive camera away from you as hard as you can, to either smash into a million pieces or be quickly carried off by quick-thinking thieves.

flee digital cam [Behance via OhGizmo]

Hasselblad's new H3DII-50 may look like an old-school camcorder, but inside is a ridiculously high-definition 50-megapixel sensor capable of producing 65MB images once per second. It's designed for custom shooting, of course, but for the well-heeled who could afford a camera sure to cost more than $40k, the H3DII-50 will capture every last pore and wrinkle in the faces of your use-once-then-destroy vat-grown harem. Why bother keeping their bodies alive, selfishly consuming resources, when such a lifelike picture will do?

Product Page [HasselbladUSA.com via Gearlog]

Bits is reporting that Getty will be trolling through images on Flickr and soliciting photographers for rights to resell their photos:

Yahoo and Getty Images said Tuesday that they have entered into a partnership under which Getty editors will comb Flickr in search of interesting images. They will then invite photographers to participate in the program and ensure that their images have the proper releases to be licensed legally. Those who are included in the program will get paid at the same rates that Getty pays photographers who are under contract with the company.

Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You For It [Bits.Blogs.NYTimes.com]

After months of meticulously crappy fakejob Photoshops — grainy '7's superimposed over the D300 imprint up the wazoo — the Nikon D700 has finally been officially announced, and it's what everyone expected: a new semi-highend DSLR falling somewhere in between the D3 and D300.

The D700 matches the D3 with its 12.1 megapixel CMOS, and a remarkable sensitivity to low-light conditions, with an ISO range from 200 to 6400 (with some sort of magic toggle that allows it to go up to ISO 25600). There's also a new Kevlar / carbon fiber shutter, which should allow quick-reflexed photographers to deflect incoming bullets with just a click of the shutter, provided they have already attained a state of Zen Buddhist meditation. There's also an EXPEED processor with four levels of Active D Lighting and a built-in flash with wireless controller.

In truth, this is way too much camera for me, but if you know how to use half this crap, you may well be interested. The Nikon D700 will be in stores later this month for $3,000.

Nikon D700 [Official Site]

Image: Bulldog in Pearls!

Wired's notorious Charlie Sorrel — who was the only one of us who managed to bicycle home from boozing on Friday night without being detained and breathalyzed by German police officers — nursed his weekend hangover in a most wonderful way: he spent all day Saturday at the Deutshes Technikmuseum Berlin, photographing the many magnificent specimens of retro German cameras that were on display, thoroughly vivisected.

He also encountered a staircase for horses. I suppose this is the sort of productive weekend a gadget blogger in Berlin can have when he's not huddled in the corner of a Prenzlauerberg drunk tank, shaking in fear and silently dry retching. I hate you, Charlie.

Gallery of Sawn-in-Half Cameras [Gadget Lab]

These easy-to-make glasses use infra-red LEDs to obscure your face from cameras... and, perhaps most usefully, from ubiquitous CCTV observation. This is going to the top of our list of things to make Cory for his birthday.

Anti-Paparazzi Sunglasses [Metacafe via Red Ferret]

Backed by positive reviews from Orange County's SWAT team, the $695 Pistol Cam affixes to handguns and records up to an hour of MPEG4 audio and video.

Taking bets: how long until the first "missing footage" scandal from a botched raid?

Pistolcams [Wired via Chipchick via UberGizmo

Berlin-based artist Julius von Bismarck has invented the Image Fulgurator... a camera-like device that implants messages in a sub-visible spectrum on its object. These messages are invisible to the naked eye, but are clearly visible when photographed. Naturally, as an artist, he's using the device primarily to mess with tourists and flash them non-sensical political statements they could care less about.

That would usually honk me off, but if you watch the video (a bit long, scored by a series of musical blorps), he's using it to fuck with people at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum... which is a historically inaccurate sham, Berlin's own Cold-War-themed answer to Disneyworld. How bad is it? It's not located on the original site of Checkpoint Charlie. Everything about it is a recreation... and a ludicrously botched one, at that. For example, depending on which direction you approach it, you will either see a huge picture of a GI (welcoming you to the West) or a picture of a Russian soldier (welcoming you to the East, comrade). The Russian soldier is wearing military insignia that makes him four different military ranks at the same time.

On one hand, who cares if people vacationing in Berlin take pictures and enjoy themselves at an iconic site that just happens to be a totally manufactured tourist attraction? But it rankles, somehow. I got a kick out of his prank, the mystified double-takes of his unwitting victims. I hope for his sake, though, he doesn't try aiming his suspiciously gun-like device at any real monuments, though.

The Fulgurator [Julius von Bismarck via MAKE]

Update: Charlie Sorrel has an interview with the Fulgurator's inventor, Julius von Bismarck. [Gadget Lab]

I've just about had it with Logitech and its platform-specific headsets and web cams. Dear idiots: there is no reason in the world that technology as fundamentally simple as a web cam or a Skype headset should require 100 megs worth of platform-specific drivers, the absence of which turns your new, stupidly-purchased "Windows only" headset into a $50 jangle of worthless plastic on OS X. Get your act together. All this stuff should be able to use generic drivers, even if the fancier features aren't supported on some systems.

But Logitech's new USB 2.0, 2-megapixel QuickCam Vision Pro is simply incredible, in that it is a Mac-only web cam. You know. A web cam for a platform that has had an embedded camera in all its laptops and the vast majority of its computers for years.

Oh, sure, there's a market there: people with old PowerBooks. Customers with Mac Pros. Grannies with Mac Minis. But it just seems like such an infinitesimally small one that releasing this as Mac only makes zero business sense when they could simply shove a driver for Windows into the USB dongle and reach out the vast market of cam-less PC users.

For those who are interested, though, the QuickCam Vision Pro will be available in July for $130, and it is certainly a higher-quality web cam than the one built into your Mac, if you have use for such a thing. Apple vloggers, take note.

Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro [Official Site]

Motorola's ZN5 candybar-shaped cell phone has a 5mp camera and hardware image stitching, WiFi for quick photo uploads, and compatibility with GSM/EDGE networks. China will get it first, says Wired's Danny Dumas, with the rest of us having to wait until later this year.

Commenter Metafizzicaluv at Gadget Lab nails this one: it's a cheap camera with a phone in it.

5-Megapixel Motorola ZN5 Cell Phone Announced [Wired]

Minox's TLX, a classic 8x11mm-film concealed carry, is dead. The last batch will be sold for £399, half the usual sum, and then be sold no more.

There will doubtless be a strong enthusiast following to carry the torch—and keep a third-party supply chain alive—but is this not another herald of film's greater doom?

Minox halves classic spy camera price [Amateur Photographer via Gadget Lab]

The C905 Cyber-shot claims a "complete digital camera experience" on a phone, with the style and responsiveness of the real thing. Picture quality? Sony Ericsson says it's "outstanding."

A 2GB memory stick is included on the phone, which has GPS geo-tagging and can send photos over Wifi, or display them using the bundled TV-out cable. This GSM/EDGE/HSDPA device will be offered in Q4, in black, silver and gold.

The S302 Snapshot s a less capable affair, with only a 2 megapixel camera and 20 MB of internal memory. There's no free memory stick, but it can upload its photos over bluetooth and has basic photo-editing tools built-in. It will be available in the fourth quarter, in gray and this delightful shade of blue.

No prices yet.
Press Release [Sony Ericsson]

That D90 badge looks ropey to me: whites too bright, edges too sharp, angle o' dangle not quite right...

Check this marketing image for the D300, offered by a commenter at Nikon Rumors.

Update: Putting the images atop one another results in a telling matchup of what one would expect to be random patterns in the texture:

Nikon D90 - is this what's coming tomorrow? [Nikon Rumors]

Minox's high-precision replica of the vintage Rolleiflex 6x6 camera doesn't meet any of my requirements in a a digicam — it's not sleek, thin and it only has a 5-megapixel camera — but good lord, is it sexy. The finder is waist level and you have to turn the crank to prepare the next shot (I was hoping you'd have to continuously turn the crank to record a video clip, but I can't find any mention of that). The Minox Rolleiflex even comes in whore red, albeit for €30 more than the black model's €299 retail price. I need to buy a new digicam and this won't be it, but I really wish it could be.

Minox DCC Rolleiflex AF50 [Let's Go Digital]

Gizmodo rounds up many of the cheap, solid-state camcorders now flooding the market after the success of the Pure Digital Flip Ultra. The verdict? The Flip Ultra, now superseded by the Flip Mino, is still the best overall camera. That's good news for most, as the price on the Ultra should continue to drop.

Flip Ultra: Yes, the first is still the best, and there are good reasons why so many companies want to capture its success: The Ultra works, and it works well. Low light video is great, the camera feels good in your hand, and it's so simple that you could probably train your cat to record their own cute videos with it. The small screen is a drawback, but it captures a good chunk of space. The Ultra is the best value of the bunch when you consider the criteria, remaining the Cadillac of cheap pocket camcorders.

The Ultimate Cheap Camcorder Battlemodo [Gizmodo]

Previously • Flip slammed for being no better than digicam video

Michael Arrington says there's one essential problem with cheap, fashionable video cameras like the Flip and the Vado: the quality is worse than what you'll get from a half-decent pocket camera like a Canon Elph.

"So I haven’t actually tried out the new Flip Mino. But I’ve spoken with people who have, and I used the Flip Ultra, which launched late last year, for a while before abandoning it. And I just can’t figure out why people like this thing.

None of the reviews compared the Flip to it’s core competition: normal digital cameras. Instead everyone focuses on the fact that Flip has sold nearly a million units, saying that’s 15-20% of the camcorder market - and the Flip is a fraction of the price of most of those competitors.

The Flip’s video quality (640×480) is much lower than most people would expect from a camcorder. But it happens to be exactly the same resolution as most digital cameras, almost all of which now offer video as well. And nearly 40 million of them sold in 2007. Canon alone sold nearly 9 million digital cameras last year.

The key response—that Flip is easier to use—is directly addressed: the Canon, he says, is just as easy to use. I have a recent Exilim, which comes with a record button on the back that immediately wakes the camera up and starts shooting YouTube-ready video: even easier! For Arrington, it comes down to this: "There is no way I’m going to drag two devices around when I only need one: The Flip loses."

There's a lot of purportedness in this photoset: is this pile of Canon cameras really worth half-a-million dollars? Were they really damaged during shipping, forcing the company to destroy them all before they hit the grey market? Was there really not a better solution for these than destroying them?

It's easy to understand why Canon wouldn't want these cameras to go on to the market: they don't want to damage their reputation, nor be responsible for supporting cameras that may already be wonky. But it's all so wasteful. The serial numbers were known, surely; that would take care of the warranty problem. Couldn't they have scraped all the branding off the units and donated them to schools or something? Argh.

Mass destruction of the Canon cameras [Paradoxoff.com] (Thanks, Matt!)

The plastic analog Diana+ camera is cute, so it stands to reason any accessories would continue the cheap, jet-age theme. The "Flash for Diana+" meets the challenge, turquoise housing and all. And even if you don't own one of the retro-reissue film cameras, the Flash includes an adapter so you can use place it incongruously atop a fancy, modern DSLR.

It's $60, though — nearly as much as the Diana+. Worse, it's available (for now) only at Urban Outfitters, the hipster mall store that blithely steals from indie designers.

I think I'll stick with my current plan: smudging up a cheap lens for my DSLR and then adding some blur and saturation effects in Photoshop.

Catalog Page [UrbanOutfitters.com via GeekSugar]

Bushnell, making of outdoor optical equipment like binoculars and infrared-triggered trail cams, has offered a $1,000,000 prize for a verifiable picture of Bigfoot taken with their hardware, reports Loren Coleman.

Bushnell Corporation (also known as Bushnell and Bushnell Outdoor Products) is an American company specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include binoculars, spotting scopes, telescopes, night vision equipment, GPS devices, laser-guided rangefinders, riflescopes, holographic gun sights, and other high-end optical equipment. The company also sells Bollé ski goggles and sunglasses, H20Optix water sports sunglasses, and Serengeti all-purpose sunglasses. It was founded in 1948 by David P. Bushnell, during his time in Allied-occupied Japan.

One of the best little trail cam models to use is Bushnell’s new camouflage Trail Scout Pro 5.0 night vision digital camera, which is designed to be mounted to a tree in the forest. It automatically snaps 5-megapixel digital photos of anything that crosses its path.

I believe there is a good chance that sasquatch exist. I'm so confident, in fact, that I will award a $1,000,000 bounty to the first sasquatch who can deliver to me a verifiable picture of a Bushnell trail camera.

Also, no, this picture is not a bigfoot. But that makes it no less amazing.

Bushnell: $1,000,000 For Bigfoot Trail Cam Photo [Cryptomundo]

There shall be a smaller version of Flip Video, the successful miniature camcorder. Revealed in B&H's catalog, it's listed at $180 and comes in black and white, with a release date of June 4.

Mino among sharks: New Flip camcorder coming [Crave]

Creative continues to transform into the niche electronics vendor it has always — despite proclamations otherwise — strived to be. It's announced the "Vado Pocket Video Cam," a $100 just-press-the-button-dummy VGA camcorder unmistakably designed to take a healthy 2-4% chunk of the Flip Video Ultra's share of the cheap YouTube camera market.

The Vado is available in silver or hot pink, has a removable, rechargeable battery (that's nice, and additional batteries are just $15), and can copy movies from its non-expandable 2GB of RAM over the flip-out USB connector.

Press Release [PR Newswire]
Product Page [US.Creative.com]

Previously • Creative Stops Hacker from Improving Their Product [BBG]

Next to the Flip Video Ultra, the one white-and-orange geegaw that had people yapping rapturously this year has been the Eye-Fi, the SD card that added Wi-Fi to any camera. It was cheap, it worked well, and it added features that should have be de riguer in cameras for years.

Now the company has announced two models and rebranded the original as the "Eye-Fi Share." A low-end model comes in as the "Eye-Fi Home," which only works a cable replacement, not an uploading tool to photo sharing sites like Flickr.

The one most people will be picking up is the new $130 "Eye-Fi Explore," which adds geo-tagging using the same quasi-GPS that is in the iPhone and the ability to upload to your preferred photo sharing site at any one of 10,000 Wayport Wi-Fi hotspots in the US free for one year. Since there is no way to access the Eye-Fi Explore once it's in your camera, the service will send you an SMS or email once the uploads have completed.

It'd still be nice if these cards could connect to any open Wi-Fi hotspot and upload pictures automatically — a simple "I can upload" light on the back or a status JPG browsable by the camera would suffice — but for obvious reasons I understand why they don't offer that capability. Still, since I suspect the difference between the three models of Eye-Fi are simply software, not hardware, I wonder how challenging it would be for someone to write a firmware that does just that.

Press Release [Eye.fi via Gadget Lab]

Last time we saw Joel, he was murmuring something about charging forth and finding a coterie of Costa Rican bikini babes willing to make a martini in his mouth. We haven't heard from him since. But over at Joel's other blog, Dethroner compatriot Jason has a post about a scuzzy New York camera shop that charged him $75 shipping for his $5,000 Nikon D3, then threw it loose into a large box and allowed a sumo wrestler to belly flop atop it. This prompted Jason to leave an understandably negative Amazon review of the seller. Now they're trying to bribe him to remove it...

After looking into the said situation, we are not sure who you spoke to. However, we are looking into the situation as customer service is our number one priority here at Cameta Camera. In addition, we are also going to be speaking to the shipping manager in regards to how the unit was packaged and shipped. We also have the following option to offer you as a remedy.

We are ready to issue you a credit for $75.00 back to your Amazon account (which is the original freight paid). Our’ only concern is that in the past we have made an accommodation for a customer but they have left us negative feedback anyway. If you would be willing to remove your negative feedback remark to our account (and then email me to let me know that it has been done) I will issue the credit right away. We pride ourselves on good customer service and we are willing to work with you.

The first part of their response is good: we fucked up. The second paragraph, though, completely dismisses the value of fessing up to a mistake: "oh, we'll give you your shipping back, but only if this remains between you and me."

NY Camera Store Offers Bribe to Fix Amazon Rating [Dethroner]

Japan Trend Shop's wireless mini video camera has 45 minutes of battery life and records it all at a claimed 2.7 megapixels (as commenter Pinup57 suggests below, this is likely a typo of .27 megapixels). Moreoever, it transmits what it sees at 1.2 GHz up to 98 feet to a receiver, which itself hooks up to any old TV or capture card with a composite video jack.

At $270, it's very expensive—and it doesn't record audio, either—but given that it's waterproof and less than a square inch in size, I expect those with an application already in mind won't mind the tag.

RC-12 Wireless Mini Video Camera [Kilian Nakamura via Oh Gizmo! and Ubergizmo]

The Tortuga 5 is a plumwood encased pinhole camera hockey puck, crafted in Luxembourg, that captures 242 degree panorama on standard 120 format film. Despite its ante-diluvian looks, the film can be loaded without a dark room or a dark, moist sack, and fits on a standard tripod mount. The Tortuga's a limited edition of 30, and it costs €1,230, so you may want to stick with your shoebox pinhole, but it's refreshing to see an attractive non-digital come down the pipe now and again.

Tortuga 5 [Official Site via Retrothing]

IC Die Photography

Trust nothing, thieves. Even the potted plants and teddy bears are against you. Such concealments lack one thing, though, which makes long-term surveillance a chore: power. What better, then than a camera hidden in a wall-wart power adapter?

With a microSD slot and a 2GB card, the fake will record up to 66 hours at a time. The resolution, unfortunately, is very low: 176x144 at 15 fps. For fire 'n' forget simplicity, however, it might be a winner—if you know who the intruder is, that's surely good enough evidence to prove their presence, even if you'd never ID some random burglar at that woeful, Atari 2600-like resolution.

Product Page [Ajoka via Oh Gizmo!]

The Pet's Eye View Camera offers voyeuristic pet owners an affordable way to experience their dog's many incredible adventures. Hanging around your dog's collar, the Pet's Eye automatically takes first-person photographs from your dog's perspective every 1, 5 or 15 minutes. The resolution is only 640x480, but let's face it: the chances of your pet snapping an Ansel Adams caliber masterwork while licking his scrotum are pretty slim. You probably won't be framing these pictures. The price is just shy of fifty bucks.

Since dogs are wonderful but intrinsically foul creatures, I expect that the sweet and gummy Mother Hubbard who buys one of these, eager to experience her Schmookums' daily adventures, is in for a horrible surprise when she gets the film developed. Picture 1: racing out the doggy door. Picture 2: a close-up shot of another dog's hemorrhoidal anus. Picture 3: the pink blur of a first-person tongue enthusiastically lapping at a pool of vomit. Picture 4: waiting patiently in line behind a doberman for a turn in the doggy-style gang bang of the bitch up the road. And picture 5: the gelid, bloodless face of the neighborhood postman, his blind eyes protruding, his throat a spurting mess of canine-torn flesh.

Pet's Eye View Camera [Discover This via Book of Joe]