cameras

James Bond and robotic spy-camera penguins have a lot in common. They both wear tuxedos and they both sneak into precarious places to do spy work. The robot penguins were unleashed by John Downer Productions for an up-close BBC documentary look at penguin life.

"Penguins: Spy in the Huddle" documents nearly a year hanging out with penguins through the surrogate eyes of 50 different spycams. Some of the spycams were disguised as chunks of snow or small boulders, but the most adorable cameras were those in the guise of robotic penguins.… Read more

BlackBerrys haven't always had the top cameras in the industry, but with the BlackBerry Z10's 8-megapixel camera, things are turning around.

In my tests so far, the Z10's shooter largely succeeds. Over the course of my testing period, I got some really nice outdoor shots, plus some crisp indoor photos of everything from food labels to receipts. Of course, not every indoor picture or portrait turned out great, but I found the images usable overall (check out my Z10 review for even more photos).

So let's see how it compares with two other high-quality smartphone cameras, … Read more

With the multitude of camera applications on the market, it's always hard to choose one that is both functional and fun to use. Pudding Camera promises fast save times, great effects, and quality photos. Unfortunately, it does not deliver completely.

Installing this app is easy enough, and you can to get right to the fun. Pudding Camera takes a novel approach to its user interface. From a bright main menu you select a camera and a film combination. The camera portion of the selection is merely a filter. You may select camera options such as panorama, fish-eye, macro, and … Read more

Google has been granted a patent for LED technology that could be used to boost smartphone camera capabilities.

Patent 8,363,157, granted yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, documents how LED lighting could be used to give a mobile device the ability to fire with multiple flashes.

Relating to "flash mechanisms for digital cameras that are incorporated into mobile communication devices such as smartphones and tablet computers," the patent documents how a smartphone's shots could be improved by boosting flash capabilities.

As shown, one hypothetical design for the LEDs would ring the LED … Read more

While there are plenty of rugged digital cameras to go around these days, Pentax and Olympus have been making them the longest. The new WG-3 is Pentax's 15th-generation ruggedized camera and it's going directly after Olympus' top models, the Stylus Tough TG-1 iHS and TG-2 iHS.

The key features of the Olympus are its 4x f2.0-4.9 25-100mm lens and the option to attach a lens adapter for add-on conversion lenses. And that's exactly what you get with the WG-3; the exact same lens specs, and you can put on a lens adapter and wide-angle conversion … Read more

Camera+ (99 cents) Camera+ is a solid image-editing tool that makes creating cool-looking shots easy, and all the upgrades since its release mean it has tons of useful tweaks. You can use digital-camera-like scenes to apply common camera effects in specific situations like simulated flash, sunset, backlit images, and portraits. You also can crop your images to your specs or select from several standard sizes.

When you want to add filters and effects, Camera+ makes it easy with a gridlike layout you can touch to see nuanced or drastic changes to your original image. The filters are organized by category … Read more

Some of the most trending photo effects are cartoon-style effects. Cartoon Camera applies a cartoon effect to pictures taken through the application's user interface. This app is very limited, however, and might not appeal to many users.

Cartoon Camera offers an easy setup and is easy to use. The application is quite limited, though. Once it is opened, the screen instantly turns into a viewfinder. The image shown is through a cartoon-like filter. The resolution is turned down and the edges of objects are outlined in dark black as though they were drawn into the scene. The only options … Read more

LG announced a pair of five-figure TVs already, one OLED and another 4K, but among models mortals can afford, its flagship 2013 series of LED-based LCD TVs is the LA8600.

Unlike last year's LM9600 flagship, the LA8600 will forgo a full-array local dimming backlight in favor of an edge-lit variety. While that seems disappointing from a videophile perspective, it's worth noting that the LM9600 was among the worst-performing full-array LED TVs we'd ever tested.

Available in a 60- and 55-inch size, it will feature all of the latest tricks including an onboard, retractable camera. LG initially told … Read more

The good: Your iPhone has a pretty decent camera. Better than decent, in fact, if it's an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.

The bad: Not everybody likes using the iPhone's screen to frame their shots, especially outdoors, where the ambient light can wash out the display. What's more, anyone accustomed to old-school, SLR-style photography no doubt misses their old-school, SLR-style viewfinder.

To the rescue comes the Photojojo iPhone Viewfinder, which combines hardware and software to give you a more traditional camera experience.

The kit consists of a round, black eyepiece that uses a suction cup to affix … Read more