Samsung has officially unveiled the much-anticipated Samsung NX10, a compact digital camera with a large sensor, electronic viewfinder and interchangeable lenses. The NX10 incorporates an allegedly fast and decisive auto focus system, 14.6-megapixel APS-C size CMOS sensor and large 3.0” AMOLED screen, allowing users to easily view their images, even in bright sunlight. The camera has a wide range of manual controls as well as a Smart Auto function which automatically detects the surrounding environment of the shot and selects the best shooting mode. Its Smart Range feature also enables the user to vividly express both bright areas and dark areas in the same frame, and the Supersonic Dust Reduction system keeps those dust particles clear of the image sensor that can often impair an image. It even senses when the user brings the camera close to their face to look through the viewfinder, and puts the AMOLED screen on standby to conserve power. The Samsung NX10 takes NX-mount lenses, which are completely new. The NX10 will be on display during the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show, January 7-10, in the Samsung booth #11026 in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, and should be available at retail by Spring 2010. The final pricing is not yet known, but the Samsung NX10 is expected to sell for £600 with an optically stabilised standard zoom lens, £650 with a fast normal prime, and about £750 with both of these lenses.

Panasonic is going to (finally!) offer the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 camera as a body-only option in the UK, starting January 2010. Able to shoot 1080/25p or 720/50p HD videos in AVCHD format, the GH1 is arguably the best implementation of the interchangeable-lens hybrid digital stills/video camera concept to date; with a large and high-resolution body-integral EVF, articulated LCD screen, fast continuous AF and full manual control when recording movies or stills. Up to now, the Panasonic GH1 has only been offered in a kit with the 14-140mm HD lens, which has made it a fairly expensive proposition.

Via Four Thirds User

A new, 26-gigapixel panoramic image of Dresden, Germany, is now the world’s largest-resolution photograph. Taken from the rooftop of the “Haus der Presse” building, the giant panorama is made up of 1,665 individual shots captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera and a 400mm lens. This massive number of shots were taken with the help of a photo-robot, in the course of less than three hours, but the processing took 94 hours using a computer with 16 processors and a main memory cache of 48 Gigabytes.

Website: Gigapixel-Dresden.de

Hireacamera.com has announced a Christmas offer on the whole of its rental base of equipment up to Tuesday, 22 December 2009. Clients can hire a camera, camcorder or any lenses, pay for a weekend and have the equipment up to 4th January 2010. To take advantage of this offer, call 01892 603440 between 9am and 6pm. All equipment is subject to availability.

Website: HireACamera.com

Olympus Europe has announced a limited-time offer on the Olympus E-P1, whereby every new buyer of the camera receives an FL-14 flash for free. The promotion starts on 12 December in the UK and on 15 December in continental Europe, and runs until the end of January 2010. This is strictly a European offer, and applies in each country to locally purchased stock only. The flash will be sent out direct to your home address, once you have registered online and sent in your receipt and barcode, which you need to do before 28 February 2010.

Website: Olympus E-P1 Promotion

The Imaging Source, a multi-national manufacturer of imaging hardware and software for industry, medicine and astronomy, is now offering amateur astro-photographers a series of highly affordable, low-noise astronomy cameras to capture high-quality images of the night sky. The cameras are outfitted with a tripod socket and a Gigabit Ethernet connector. Monochrome and colour models are available with and without an IR cut filter in three resolutions: 640x480, 1024x768 and 1280x960. The astronomy cameras deploy low-noise CCD chips from Sony, which have an exposure time of up to 60 minutes and a maximum frame rate of up to 60 fps. The astronomy cameras are available worldwide and start at $350 or €290 (without shipping and sales tax).

Website: Imaging Source

Panasonic has announced that its Lumix cameras have been used to capture 109 images for The Caravan Gallery’s latest book, Is Britain Great? 2. The Caravan Gallery is a mobile exhibition and visual arts project run by artists Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale who are on a mission to record the ordinary and extraordinary details of life in 21st century Britain.Looking carefully at cultural trends and paying attention to juxtapositions, the pair take a detailed glance at today’s society asking the question is Britain really that great? Panasonic’s relationship with Williams and Teasdale began with the purchase of the DMC-FZ30 camera. The pair now use the Lumix DMC-G1.

Olympus has announced a limited-edition E-P1, whose body is covered in Swarovski crystals. According to Pocket-lint, the Olympus E-P1 Swarovski edition will be available exclusively to order from Harrods’ Micro Anvika department. The two-lens kit, which comes complete with a flash and a wooden box, can be yours for £1999.99.

Via Pocket-lint

Panasonic has released firmware updates for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 camera and five Micro Four Thirds lenses. Version 1.1 of the GF1 firmware enables the use of the manual focus assist feature by pressing the rear dial when an MF-only third-party lens is attached to the camera via an adapter, improves autofocus performance during video capture, improves high-ISO image quality, auto white balance accuracy, and autoexposure accuracy in a couple of scene modes. The lens firmware updates, which concern the Lumix G VARIO 7-14mm, 14-45mm & 45-200mm, Lumix G VARIO HD 14-140mm and Lumix G 20mm lenses, improve AF performance in movie recording, and enable AF in full HD mode on lenses that had previously not had this feature.

Website: Joint Update Service

A giant pigeon “landed” on the grass beside London’s City Hall this morning. The life-like sculpture, which was specially commissioned to mark the UK launch of Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-ZX1 compact camera with an 8x optical zoom, graphically brought to life one of London’s most iconic and hotly debated creatures, Panasonic says. A team of five artists spent two months constructing the 1.52 metre high and 3.2 metre wide fibre glass structure which was lifted into place in Potters Fields, central London at 8am before moving further along the banks of the Thames for a national photo call in front of The Houses of Parliament. The giant pigeon is one of a series of objects which have been magnified and brought to life by Panasonic to illustrate the 8x optical zoom lens of the new, ultra-compact Lumix DMC-ZX1. Users are invited to submit their own photographs which showcase the fun that can be had with perspective for their chance to win a trip to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games by visiting the website below.

Website: Panasonic 8xLife

Olympus have announced their second Micro FourThirds camera, the Olympus PEN E-P2. Essentially a modified version of the existing Olympus E-P1, the new E-P2 retains the basic specifications and control interface, but adds an accessory port for optional extras such as a detachable electronic viewfinder (EVF) and microphones, AF tracking, two additional Art Filters (Diorama and Cross Process), a colour-boosting i-Enhance function, remote slideshow control via HDMI, and an option to shoot high-definition movies in M (full manual) mode. Another point of difference is that the E-P2 is finished in black rather than silver or white. The Olympus E-P2 will become available in January 2010. The recommended retail price of the E-P2 kit (including a 14-42mm lens and a high-resolution external EVF) is expected to be £849. The US MSRP for the same kit is $1,099.99.

Update: Ian Burley has posted a hands-on preview of the Olympus E-P2 over at Four Thirds User.

Epson’s P-6000 and P-7000 photo viewers can now be tethered to a DSLR camera. Images are then automatically saved onto the camera’s memory card while a backup copy is also saved to the viewer’s hard drive. The viewers’ high resolution, 4-inch color-accurate LCD can be used to preview images and confirm any adjustments to be made on the spot. “The new tethering feature in the Epson P-6000 and P-7000 Photo Viewers can dramatically enhance the workflow of any photographer, and is yet another demonstration of our commitment to developing products that meet the needs of the professional photography marketplace,” said Rick Day, senior product manager, Epson America. The new Epson P-6000 and P-7000 Multimedia Photo Viewer tethering feature will be available in late-October as a free download.

The Sony DPP-F700 is a new digital photo frame with a built-in printer. The Sony F700 allows you to edit images before printing, and it features one gigabyte of internal storage capacity with an auto-resizing adjustment that downsizes photos to store up to 2,000 photos. The DPP-F700 digital photo frame-printer will be available for about $200 in January.

FOTOBOX Plus is a USB device that enables the creation of rich multimedia slideshows from photos and videos. FOTOBOX Plus contains an integrated memory card reader and embedded PC software with Flash memory, and automatically runs without any installation. In Easy mode, users can just import their photos, select their favorite theme template and view their final creation, while Advanced mode is designed for those that want more control over their slideshows. Priced at $79.99, FOTOBOX Plus can now be purchased on Honest Technology’s Web site, and at leading retailers including Amazon.com, Buy.com, Micro Center, OfficeMax and others.

Lexar have unveiled a new 600x Compact Flash card with a guaranteed minimum write speed of 90MB/s. Available in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities,  the Lexar Professional 600x CF card works with the latest UDMA 6 enabled cameras, including the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, EOS 7D and the new 1D Mark IV, and the Nikon D3x, D3s and D300s.

Lexar’s 600x card also offers increased image transfer speeds from card-to-computer with minimum sustained read speeds of 533x (80MB/s), or faster when paired with the new Lexar Professional ExpressCard CompactFlash Reader. This is a portable, high-performance reader that requires no cables and connects directly to a PC or Mac laptop computer’s ExpressCard slot.

The Lexar Professional 600x CF cards will begin shipping on October 22nd in 8GB and 16GB capacities for £149 and £219 respectively. The 32Gb version will be available in November for £399. The Lexar Professional ExpressCard CompactFlash Reader will cost £29.99.

The Leica S2, which was originally scheduled to go on sale in the summer and later postponed until October, will apparently not hit the shelves before December. According to Amateur Photographer, Leica is citing unexpectedly high demand and says, ‘Orders for the system have been much higher than expected, and in order to meet this higher demand, we have decided to adapt the S-System production lines to enable a higher daily output.’ The new launch date is calendar week 50, i.e. mid-December.

Via Amateur Photographer

The Leaf Aptus-II 5 is an “affordable” 22-megapixel digital back for medium-format cameras. Take the word “affordable” with a grain of salt though - while the Leaf Aptus-II 5 is the least expensive Aptus back manufactured today, it still sets you back some $7,995; and that’s without a lens, or indeed a camera body. However, for $2000 more, you can get both a Phase One 645 AF body and a 80mm lens, which means that for just under $10,000 you can now have a completely functional medium format digital system up and running. While this is still nearly $2000 more than the price of a Nikon D3x with a comparable 50mm lens, the Leaf back does have a couple of head-turning features in its favour, like a 16-bit A/D converter and a claimed 12 stops of dynamic range.

Website: Leaf Aptus II-5

Sony today announced the development of a single-lens 3D camera technology capable of recording natural and smooth 3D images of even fast-moving subject matter such as sports, at 240 frames per second. The introduction of a single-lens system resolves any issues that may occur as a result of having different optical characteristics for each eye, the company says. Also, by developing a 240fps frame rate CMOS image sensor with properties close to the human eye, which is capable of capture natural images of even fast moving subject matter, Sony has allegedly succeeded in further enhancing the quality of 3D images. The combination of Sony’s new single lens 3D system and its 240fps high frame rate technology has realised a single-lens 3D camera system, based on universal properties of the human eye, which enables natural and smooth 3D movies. Sony aims to bring 3D to the home in 2010.

Fujifilm U.S.A. has announced the immediate availability of the Finepix Real 3D system in the US. The FinePix REAL 3D system consists of the 3D digital camera, FinePix REAL 3D W1, a 3D digital viewer, FinePix REAL 3D V1, and 3D prints. Featuring the newly developed “FinePix REAL 3D Lens System,” the FinePix REAL 3D W1 has dual Fujinon lenses that layer together two images. An aluminium die-cast frame protects the 3X optical zoom lenses from vibration and impact for ultimate accuracy. The “Real Photo Processor 3D” synchronises data passed to it by the two lenses and two CCD sensors, to determine shooting conditions such as focus, brightness and tonality to instantaneously blend this information into a single symmetrical image for both still photos and movies. The FinePix REAL 3D V1 digital 3D viewer features Fujifilm’s newly developed 3D/2D display 8.0-inch LCD panel. This allows users to enjoy and playback 3D images without the need for special 3D glasses. The FinePix REAL 3D W1 Digital Camera and REAL 3D V1 Digital Viewer are available through ShopFujifilm.com.  Prints will also be available, starting mid-October, through SeeHere.com, Fujifilm’s photo printing, gifting and sharing web site, for $6.99.

We’ll be bringing you a review of the Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1 camera later today.

Phase One has just announced the Phase One 645DF camera. Engineered in partnership with Mamiya Digital Imaging for superior quality image capture and ease of handling, it sets a new standard for high flash sync speeds – up to 1/1600 of a second. The new camera introduces many performance improvements over its predecessor. Capture responsiveness and autofocus speeds are claimed to have been highly improved, allegedly giving photographers up to 5 times faster performance in a typical fashion set up. The Phase One 645DF is compatible with digital backs designed for the Phase One / Mamiya AFD mount, including backs from Phase One, Leaf, Mamiya and others. Also today, Phase One announced the availability of three new high performance leaf shutter lenses, 55mm, 80mm and 110mm, all f/2.8 and all designed with the Phase One 645DF camera in mind. The lenses are a result of close collaboration with Mamiya Digital Imaging and Schneider Kreuznach. The Phase One 645DF camera body starts at $5990/€4290 and is expected to ship in the last quarter of 2009. The new leaf shutter lenses start at $2490/€1790 and are also expected to start shipping the fourth quarter of 2009.