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

I’ve been a little preoccupied lately and have had trouble getting anything done on Fotohacker, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to talk about the second coming of Photosynth, the spacial photography browser being developed by some folks over at Microsoft.

Photosynth is a product being worked on by Microsoft Live Labs, and about two years ago they unveiled a tech demo upon the world which got everyone excited. In a nutshell, the application gathers photos from a source and using an advanced set of algorithms it creates paths between these photos allowing you to browse around geographically local environments, almost like a 3D virtual world. It was really cool, but now they’ve gone and outdone themselves. » MORE

Sharpening is one of those terms that often makes photography purists shiver. After all, if a camera and the lens are doing their job properly, the picture should naturally be sharp and require no further processing, right?

Well, yes and no. Ideally this would always be the case. In a perfect digital world, the picture would be perfectly sharp, perfectly exposed, and the color levels would all be perfectly recorded by your camera.

Sadly, the world of the digital photographer is often times less than perfect. » MORE

I’ve been really occupied lately with other things that have kept me away from the site, and I apologize for not having any posts in the last month or so. This happens, and there’s little we can do about it – but I appreciate all the emails inquiring about me and the status of Fotohacker. I’m fine, we’re fine… just busy. But the photo world has been busy too, over the last few weeks, so let’s check out some cool stuff.

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 2 is out now, and I’ve had a chance to play with it. It’s got some really nice new features and a few interface changes. You can download the Lightroom 2 Beta yourself, if you want.
• Do you like quick access to your camera? Do you like westerns? If so, you may like the camera holster. If you own a Canon Rebel XTi or a Nikon D40, D40x, D60, D200, or D300 – you’re in luck! Grab your leather camera holster today!
• If you’re still on the fence about whether to keep your photos in their native RAW form or to convert them to DNG files, you may want to inspect this article.
• If you haven’t heard already, Flickr now does video.
• Depth of Field… if you’re like me, you love being able to achieve a narrow depth of field, but it can be tricky with slower lenses, which is why a handy DOF calculator is required. Here’s a good online DOF calc.
• There are 16 days left to contribute to issue 17 of JPG Magazine.

Geocoding or Geotagging has become increasingly popular in the last couple of years. That’s likely because the number of cameras that can accomodate GPS integration has risen and their cost has dropped, not to mention the growing list of photo sharing websites that use that kind of GPS data for extended features like mapping. So, it seems like GPS and Photography are now intrinsically linked.

With many higher end cameras, you can now connect a GPS directly to the camera if you have the right equipment. With Nikon cameras like the D200, D300, or D2X, or D3 – a 10-pin port allows you to connect a GPS directly to the unit (provided you have the right cables). The problem is that this can be unwieldy, and it typically requires a high end SLR that not all of us have.

There are two slightly better solutions around this, which we’ll discuss. » MORE

Yup – Adobe is ready to unveil Lightroom 2 to the world, in beta form. After their very successful first version, a lot of photographers are anxious to see what kind of improvements they can expect from the next iteration of Lightroom.

Keep in mind that while the Lightroom 2 beta is free to download and try out, it’s still in a very early stage and shouldn’t be considered as production software. This is strictly for testing and providing feedback to Adobe, and shouldn’t replace your current photo software at this point.

You can download the LR2 beta from here.