@edwardm

Thanks Edward.

Guys, remember to support him using the yellow button above :-)

Couple of video clips:

This is some random product demos:

This one is some 3D printing - that is, one is the output of Casio's 3D printer, and others are lenticular-type printing.

The outside of the CES multi-building complex is ringed with storage crates, cranes and semi trucks. This photo is just one tiny pile of empty crates. There is no way to convey the immense size and scope of CES.

There were over 3,100 separate vendors occupying about 1.9 million square feet of space (or 176,515 sq meters) in separate locations: Las Vegas Hilton, North Hall, Central Hall, South Hall (two floors) and more rooms and floors at The Venetian Hotel conference center.

This was my 3rd or 4th time attending CES. Previously I went for only 2 days but this time was there for 3 1/2, yet felt I saw much less than in past years. That was mostly because I spent my first two days working on business related conversations with selected vendors, and that was time consuming. (I built a prototype product that I showed to some vendors seeking their feedback - the feedback I received was positive and that was what I needed to hear to move onto the next step. Sorry, can't say what it is yet.)

StreamTV is, from what the person there told me, an R&D business that has a group focused entirely on 3D technology. They do not build the tablets or TVs themselves but license their technology to others. They were demonstrating glasses free 3D tablet screens and 3D television. I am a fan of 3D, so I am biased - but I thought this was some of the nicest looking glass free 3D that I saw at CES. The company has also developed a real time 2D to 3D conversion system that works very well. I understand they also have a non-real time converter that is intended for higher quality conversion of old TV shows and movies to 3D. I watched a demo reel on the glass free TV and the quality was excellent.

This is a photo of their demo 10" tablet computer screen.

I did not take many photos of whole booths; wish I had as it would help to see the scope of CES. This is a decent shot of part of the Nikon booth. Nikon had models up on a stage, giving you something to shoot while checking out the Nikon cameras.

On my flight to Las Vegas, NV, I read through a couple of Nikon manuals, and also the Samsung NX200 manual. Samsung has everyone beat with the best camera manual I have ever seen. But Nikon manuals are also really good. The other camera manufacturers need to step up and produce better manual and the should look to Nikon and Samsung to see how they could do a much better job.

I have more things to post but I got really sick last week and am still just getting over this - plus I am now behind in everything. Oh well.

This is the back of the Canon "booth" at the 2012 CES where you can check out Canon's telephoto and zoom lenses on actual cameras. Directly behind me is the Sony "booth" (I put that in quotes because these are enormous "booths") and when I took this photo, Sony had the music group "Earth, Wind & Fire" performing on the Sony stage. Guess where everyone had those Canon lenses pointed?

This next item is a very cool mount from Manfrotto. As we all want to mount extra stuff on our tripods (lights, mics, 2nd camera), lots of vendors have come up with various mounting brackets. This little ball mount has holes all over it, in to which you can insert extender tubes. Using this, you can mount just about anything, anyway you want.

Thanks for the write up on the SnapitHD Cam. It was good to meet you! See: www.snapithd.com for more information which is coming on the 360 Cam ;)

SnapitHD has this interesting fish eye lens, all weather camera, with a huge field of view. They've got software that processes the images so you don't see the gigantic fish eye view but only a perspective corrected section. You can then scroll around the view - without having to move the camera. Since this camera sees everything, I ended up in a self portrait all bent out of shape.

The image can be sent via WiFi or wired networks or even cellular.

Nikon D4 skeleton.

Nikon D4 sensor.

Nikon D4 ASIC.

Photo of sample lens next to JVC 4K camcorder, plus the electronic sign on the wall.

Some answers to earlier questions

the JVC 4k camera "reference model" works with Nikon F-series lenses
• the Fujifilm rep said, in response to PAL and 25p support question, that Fujifilm is an international company and recognizes the importance of 25p support. He did not answer the question, but I do not think he knew the official answer. But that is a sensible answer.
• As to the data rate for video encoding on the X Pro 1, that information was not available. He did tell me that they view the X Pro 1's main focus as still photography, with some video capabilities, and that video is not the main focus of the camera. Every time I visited Fujifilm - about 4x - they were lots of people looking at the X Pro 1. It is a very unique camera with a lot of interest from camera enthusiasts.
• I asked another big photo company about their ever opening up a software development kit for even one camera. The guy I talked to was very technically knowledgeable but said that they have decided their policy is not to open up the cameras over concerns about 3rd parties creating solutions that would cause risks to their reputation, and gave some examples. He understands the desire and mentioned that, for example, they have had requests to put a bar code reader in their cameras, and this is the sort of creative feature that could be added by a 3rd party software developer.
• My wife (who is not a photographer!) suggests that a camera company might, perhaps, OEM a camera model to a partner, who sold the camera under a different brand name and with product differentiation, so as not to risk the well known brand. That is an interesting idea.
• The other possibility would be for a bunch of us to get together and define our own open camera platform.

I will probably post more photos later. Time for a late dinner now!

The JVC 4k is a "reference exhibit" which means no price info. What they did say is that it has a 1.25" (about 32mm) 8.9 megapixel sensor. I assume they mean 1/1.25 sq in but that is not what the display said.

@edwardm - if possible ask how video is achieved - how the camera downscales it's image for video.. Though quite possibly they have no idea about that. It would also be good to know if they have incremental stops of shutter speeds aswell (adjustable from menu or something like that?).