Welcome to Engadget's back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn't nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we've got our optical viewfinders set firmly on digital cameras -- and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back -- at the end of the month we'll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides -- and hit up the hub page right here!
Your smartphone can take pictures, you say? Well, sure it can, but try snapping away at a frat party -- you're likely to walk away with a blurry mess. Your Facebook friends and future employers deserve an accurate account of those glory days, and you'll need a proper snapper to get the job done. College is as good a time as any to learn responsibility, but don't expect to walk out of the experience with all your gear unscathed. To that end, freshmen should look long and hard at our point-and-shoot picks, which include models that you won't be afraid to toss around, or drop in the jungle juice. After that come the mirrorless ILCs, which should satisfy the more advanced photogs in the bunch, followed by our digital SLR picks, which, sadly, may be out of reach of all but photography majors and deep-pocketed private school types. Finally, you'll have yet another opportunity to enter our fantastic giveaway at the bottom of the page, just after the break.
Continue reading Engadget's back to school guide 2012: digital cameras
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Engadget's back to school guide 2012: digital cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Some important news for anyone who bought a Nikon D800 or D7000 DSLR earlier this year. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada announced today that the battery packs sold with the cameras are part of a voluntary recall due to a potential burn hazard. While there's been no injuries reported, Nikon says it has received seven reports outside of North America of the battery packs overheating, which can cause them to melt and pose a risk to users. The recall encompasses 5,100 batteries in the US (sold in March and April) and 1,100 in Canada (sold in February and March), plus an additional 195,000 battery packs worldwide. Those with one of the battery packs in question are advised to remove it from their camera and contact Nikon directly for a free replacement. Complete details can be found at the source link below.
Update: As some have pointed out in comments, Nikon first initiated this recall itself in April, but it has just now risen to the level of the CPSC and Health Canada.
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Nikon recalls battery packs sold with D800 and D7000 DSLRs due to burn hazard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It wasn't long ago that we heard about the "lock-up" woes D4 and D800 owners were experiencing on their shiny new shooters, but luckily for them, Nikon just outed a fix to take care of those issues. Aside from solving the aforementioned annoyance, the firmware update (B:1.01) also mends a problem allowing RAW files to be network-transferred while in JPEG-only mode, as well as a bug causing bits like aperture and exposure compensation to change unexpectedly when using certain custom settings. You can grab the updates now via the source links below, and be sure to let us know how it all turned out in the end.
Nikon pushes out D4, D800 firmware update, fixes lock-up issues and other bugs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 May 2012 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Nikon (1), (2) | Email this | Comments Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment.
One of the reasons we launched this column was to make sure our reviews and hands-on posts weren't the final say on products -- after all, you often need to live with something for more than a week to notice its WiFi signal cuts off past 15 feet, or there's a nasty bug in the settings menu. Indeed, that theme is what ties together this week's roundup of stories: Darren explains why he ditched Sparrow for iOS, Kevin laments the file size of photos he's taken with his Nikon D800 and Brian finds a flaw in his Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight.
Continue reading IRL: Sparrow for iOS, Nikon D800 and the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight
IRL: Sparrow for iOS, Nikon D800 and the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Three years is quite a long time for any one gadget to complete its product cycle -- even a high-end DSLR. The D700 remained on its flagship DSLR perch since its launch in the summer of 2008, all the way through Nikon's D800 announcement earlier this year. During that tenure, the full-frame camera became the primary workhorse for a bounty of photography pros, and it appears safe to confirm that its successor is up to the same task. The 36.3-megapixel D800 has completed its labs tour, leaving reviewers with positive impressions across the board.
As always, DPReview offers some of the most comprehensive analysis on the web, and highlights several advantages over the D800's competitor, the Canon 5D Mark III, including a higher megapixel count (36MP vs. 22MP) and a significantly lower price tag ($3,000 vs. $3,500). CNET struggles to identify cons, and praises the cam for its "stellar photos, excellent videos, speedy performance, and a relatively streamlined shooting design." Ken Rockwell brings a D800E into the reviews mix, concluding that the low-pass-filter-less flavor isn't the best fit for everyone. Finally, newcomer The Photo Brigade put the camera in the hands of Preston Mack, a professional on assignment who used the DSLR to capture a GigaPan photo for MLB.com and offered this takeaway: "I am very happy with the Nikon D800 camera. It is an amazing value." Overall, seems like quite a hit -- you'll find links to all of the above reviews just past the break.
Continue reading Nikon D800 review roundup: significant upgrades to an already top-notch DSLR
Nikon D800 review roundup: significant upgrades to an already top-notch DSLR originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 May 2012 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Okay Nikon owners, stop laughing at your 5D Mark III cronies for their leaky problem. That might be a drip in the pail next to your own worries -- namely, possible "lock-up", focus and viewfinder hitches on your D800 or D4. Nikon verified that a "small number" of units of both DSLRs can lock up and become unresponsive, but until there's a permanent patch you can prevent this by disabling both highlight and RGB histogram displays. The company also verified that a "run" of D800s is suffering from a viewfinder bug, although it has yet to confirm another emerging problem with autofocus in some units, which apparently requires a factory fix. So, if you've noticed any of this with your pricey new D800, or really pricey D4, your best bet might be to reach out to your Nikon repair center post-haste. And don't let the Canon guys see you.
[Thanks, Thinh]
Nikon confirms woes with D4 and D800, joins Canon in high-end doghouse originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 06:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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