Nikon has a new camera hitting the shelves very shortly which I’m sure you’ve all had a chance to hear about. It’s called the Nikon D90, and it’s a 12.3 megapixel step up in their mid-range of cameras. This will be the successor to the D80. However, a few things seem to radically set it apart from the D80. First, it’s basically using the D300’s CMOS sensor… so you’ll get the kind of low noise the D300 has been enjoying. Still not as good as an FX sensor, but far better than anything that came before. It shoots at 4.5 fps – so it’s no slouch at capturing action.

But perhaps the most major new feature you’re getting… is the ability to take HD movies with the camera. Interested yet? » MORE

Just when you may have thought “It’s all been done”, you find out it really hasn’t. Gizmodo published this story earlier today of ten interesting and fun camera rig hacks. While many are mounting concepts, there are a few homemade cameras in the list as well. I really dig the red-eye mount, which is essentially a rig designed with one thing in mind – to induce the maximum amount of red-eye possible. Genius. » MORE

Having just made the plunge into the iPhone, I’ve finally come to appreciate what all the hype and fanfare was about. It may not be the messiah device that Steve Jobs and his loyal fans would have you believe, but it’s pretty close. Apple has engineered a fantastic phone mobile computer which is now extensible with third party applications. For photographers like you and me, there are a few apps that could come in handy, so I thought we could take a moment to talk about those.

If you don’t have an iPhone, these apps will also work on an iPod Touch updated to 2.x firmware (though some will require you to be located within a WiFi hotspot). If you don’t have an iPhone or an iPod Touch… you’re dead to me already. I’m kidding. But no, seriously, what are you waiting for? » MORE

When you’re shooting in cold weather conditions, there are a number of considerations that you need to remember when shooting, and one of them is that a cold camera will tend to fog up once you move back into a warm environment.

This isn’t just annoying, but that moisture build-up on the camera could get inside the optics or the electronics and cause issues. Maybe not at first, but down the line you could hit a snag with corrosion or mold. Here’s how you prevent it. » MORE

For digital SLR owners, the megapixel war is over. Six megapixel is the magic number for most consumers who want “big prints” (ie. 8×10) and ten megapixel is the magic number for publication. Anything more is gravy.

Much more, and you could be running into alternate problems. When you cram more pixels onto a sensor of the same size, you’re making the pixels smaller, and smaller pixels have less capacity to handle light. » MORE

Today we’re talking about color spaces. There isn’t a good general understanding of color spaces and their limits, and because of that – there is a lot of confusion and bickering about what to use. These are shark infested waters we’re wading into. If we’re not back in 30 minutes, call the authorities.

While there are plenty of color spaces available out there, the two that are most often available on digital SLR’s are Adobe and sRGB. While you can convert these to any other space in post processing, there’s typically not much benefit, so the question is – sRGB versus RGB (or Adobe RGB)… what’s better? What are they? » MORE

You remember Radiopopper – the RF piggyback units that are designed to extend your range beyond that you can get with existing systems inside the Nikon or Canon flashes. There were a few different units, set to be released in a staggered schedule – but the news of them has been received with suspicion amongst many pro shooters who already use similar systems. Many claim they are vaporware – hardware that will never be approved for use in North America and thus, never see the light of day.

Radiopopper might beg to differ – and has several new images posted that show off the design of the little unit.

Engadget reported earlier this week that Canon had an “eye-based biometric photo watermarking system” patent pending. That is, the camera will have a sensor which will read the user’s iris and will record a registration code embedded in the image at the moment of power-off. » MORE