Polaroid announced a unique Android-based camera, whose sensor is built in to the lens. This has led to some confusion that I can clear up.

They will be shipping in the spring, a micro four thirds adapter. The adapter itself also includes a sensor but can then work with any m43 lens. In other words, the camera body does not have a sensor - its in the kit lens, or in the adapters.

Adapters for other lenses are expected a short time later. Pricing is suggested to be surprisingly affordable. Each adapter will have a sensor built in but many different lenses can be used with the adapter. The m43 adapter is expected in April, and a second lens adapter for another lens line will also likely be out in the spring.

This is a different kind of camera on many levels. Android-based, hope to see 3rd party apps developed for the camera features. Emphasize image sharing capabilities (FB, Twitter, etc).

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5724/corning-usb-optical-cables#Item_1

Not as close as I wished. I will try to swing by the Panasonic booth again in the next couple of days and use a different lens to get closer. I just had the kit 14-42 on the camera while shooting these but I have other lenses with me.

Vitaliy, would you like these on a different thread or is this a good one for these updates?

Ed

More photos

1st photo. More of the insides of the GH-3. Because I was shooting with a GH-2, the sales rep removed the glass shield for this photo opportunity. He said he likes people shooting with the Lumix cameras.

2nd photo - Canon's Powershot line. They introduced the Powershot N which is a small square camera. Definitely a rethinking of the lower end camera line. All camera companies are trying to figure out what to do about smart phone cameras. The N camera is square (not rectangular like most cameras), very thin. You take photos and can apply Instagram like filters to the photo (and in my view, ruin perfectly good photos, but what do I know about Instagram) and then has Wi-Fi connectivity so that you can work with your smart phone to upload to sharing sites.

3rd photo - a map of the Canon booth. They sprawl so much they have their own map. Big like their cameras. Oops, my bias is showing.

I am at CES and here is a report from the show floor today.

Pansonic showing the GH-3, of course. One Panasonic person said the GH-3 video is now as good Vitaliy's hacks :)

Panasonic also showing a 4K video camera prototype.

Sigma continues to show their 19 and 30mm micro four thirds lenses and there was a hint that there may be a future 50mm micro four thirds lens from them.

I did not yet get to the Olympus booth, nor JVC. Pentax had a corner of the Ricoh booth.

Lots of Wi-Fi capable cameras - Nikon has a $60 adapter that adds Wi-Fi to many cameras in their line up. Interfaces to iPhone and Android phones for complete remote control and access.

Nikon, Polaroid and Samsung showed cameras running Android OS. I see these as market experiments to see what happens. Adding a public OS to the camera means software developers can add capabilities and access anything the Android OS and SDK make available. As to battery life, the general sense is that cameras eat batteries, period. Adding Android doesn't make that much of a difference - the camera itself eats up too much power. One vendor said their Android camera gets about 150 shots per battery charge.

Everyone is showing 4k HDTV are, as some call it, Ultra TV or similar names. 4k has four times the resolution of today's HDTV.

As I understand it there will be - but is not yet - a 4k Bluray standard. For the time being, there is no 4k content available for anyone, but the show demonstrations are very sharp, well shot imagery.

For most consumers, in a typical home, with a typical screen size, and with typical eyesight, might not really notice the difference between 2k and 4k. Some of us may notice because we care about such things, but the 4k marketing message was not yet clear to me other than "it really is way cool".

Samsung, and presumably others, were showing 4k 3D and here, the 4k did show its capabilities. 3D likes detail, and more resolution also enables some very clean, narrow parallax images that would not be possible with less pixels. But the market demand for 3D is still muddled although is growing slowly.

Tomorrow I hope to find Olympus and some other camera vendors, plus visit some of the small international vendors who have show interesting technologies before we see them from the big vendors.

One area I follow is the consumer market for 3D cameras. As you may know, the week before Christmas, B&H Photo and Walmart.com both showed the Fujifilm W3 as discontinued. Amazon and B&H are both running half price sales on the Toshiba Z100 consumer 3D camcorder, and the Lumix 3D1 is no longer carried by Amazon (itself) and is now available only from 3rd party vendors.

Here's what I picked up from reputable people connected with the companies. Fujifilm W3 sales have fallen off and they are not now being manufactured but will continue to ship from inventory for the foreseeable future. If demand resumes, they will make more.

Sony confirmed that the Bloggie 3D camera has been discontinued, but they have continued to evolve the Sony TD10 into the TD20 into the TD30 3D video camcorder (uniquely records dual 1920x1080p streams).

Toshiba was not showing any cameras at all at this year's CES and no one knew anything about the Toshiba Z100.

And then Samsung introduced the first single lens 3D camera.

My thoughts are that there was a mismatch between low end consumer 3D cameras and the target customer. The consumers likely to pursue 3D may be the higher end purchaser looking for great solutions, not necessarily lowest price.

Samsung is going after this higher end market with a interchangeable lens camera and their first 3D lens, priced more like a GH-2 and m43 lenses. The NX300 is a higher end, more sophisticated customer, buying an APS-C sized sensor. The 3D lens is also an f/1.8 2D lens that is reported to be very high quality as a 2D lens. If this lens sells well, they are likely to introduce other 2D/3D lenses. They 3D results out of this lens, from the demo, are quite good.

First 3 photos attached Panasonic illustration of the Canon solution, big camera, big lens, huge backpack versus the m43ds solution, with modest camera, small lenses, small backpack. They should do more comparisons like this. I like small.

2nd photo shows the m43 lens line up from all vendors. Sorry I didn't get these two rotated to vertical.

3rd photo shows the 300mm telephoto form Kenko Tokina. This is a telescope like design, which uses a couple of internal mirrors to increase the lens length.

Procision JVC GC-PX100

• Full HD 1920 x 1080/60p video at 36Mbps
• Five shooting speeds ranging from 120fps to 600fps (what resolution?)
• 1/2.3” 12.8 megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor
• F1.2 lens and optical image stabilization

Others specs & pics here : http://newsroom.jvc.com/press-releases/camcorder/new-flagship-jvc-camera-designed-to-capture-fast-moving-action

Anoto Announces Panasonic will integrate its Digital Writing Technology into Next- Generation Tablets and Mobile Devices

Dot Pattern Solution Proposed for Future Product Development

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. - and CES® Las Vegas, January 8, 2013 - Anoto, the world leader in digital writing technology, today announced Panasonic's intention to employ Anoto technology in the development of the next generation of its high-quality, world renowned products.

Anoto's unique dot pattern is ideal for digital writing on tablets and screens because of its accuracy, flexibility and almost unlimited application potential. The technology can turn virtually any surface, including large formats, into a "live digital surface" in which the dot pattern is read by a digital pen and converted into computer-usable data.

Panasonic will be on location at the 2013 International CES, the world's largest consumer technology event, January 8-11, 2013, in Las Vegas. This year's show features a keynote speech by Mr. Kazuhiro Tsuga, president of Panasonic and showcases the company's newest technologies including the "4K tablet" being demonstrated live at the show with the Anoto digital pen.

If you ask me - it is very important, as all tablets will have very big resolution soon, so option to have separate pen without needing Wacom solutions is good.

Sony 4K camera prototype

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/105421#Comment_105421

Feel free to add references to interesting things

Even more fun

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5707/fujifilm-ultrazooms-topic#Item_1