lens

There's a more secure way to capture your skateboarding and mountain biking exploits than by duct taping your iPhone to the top of your helmet.

Optrix, a company that once ran over one of its own cases with a very large Dodge truck, has now taken on the task of protecting your iPhone during extreme sports activities.… Read more

Nikon will add an 800mm f5.6 supertelephoto to its product line, closing a competitive gap with its longtime rival Canon.

Nikon didn't announce when the lens will ship or how much it will cost, but you can bet it'll be expensive. Canon's Canon EF 800mm f/5.6 L IS USM costs more than $13,000.

But for some photographers, notably those who shoot wildlife and especially bird images, supertelephoto lenses are worth the price. And now that videographers are buying SLRs, some new purse strings may be loosening.

Nikon plans to show the lens off … Read more

Apple has applied for a patent that would let iPhone users change its camera lens, according to a patent application published today.

The patent would cover for a portable electronic device, such as a mobile phone, and would make the device's back panel removable, allowing users to switch to a different lenses. In design terms, this would mark a significant departure for the iPhone, since Apple has always shipped its signature device completely sealed.

Instead of switching out the lens, iPhone photography aficionados currently use add-ons to get around the limitation.

The patent may have been part of the … Read more

Nikon announced two image-stabilized lenses today, a 16.7x superzoom that reaches from 18mm to 300mm and more modest model reaching from 24-85mm.

The AF-S DX Nikkor 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, with a $1,000 price tag, is geared for travel shooters and others who are willing to sacrifice some optical quality for versatility. It's designed for Nikon's mainstream DX-format SLRs, whose image sensor is smaller than a 35mm film frame and therefore gives the lens an equivalent range of 27-450mm. And it's a notch more expensive than Nikon's earlier 18-200mm superzoom, which … Read more

Fixed-lens glasses are so last year -- if U.K.-based company Eyejusters has anything to say about it, that is.

Eyejusters' "SlideLens" technology enables users to turn a dial on one of the glasses' temple arms to slide two lenses across one another and thereby adjust the focus. That just might help some of the world's estimated 670 million people who need glasses but don't have them manipulate their own prescriptions.

Eyejusters calculates that its two types of glasses -- positive power (to correct near-sightedness) and negative power (to correct far-sightedness) -- could help roughly 90 percent of people whose poor vision can be corrected using glasses.… Read more

I had the opportunity to check out the Trygger iPhone Camera Case for iPhone 4/4S firsthand a couple weeks ago in Portland, Ore. Its co-creator, Joel Kamerman, and I sat down to test the prototype and I was immediately blown away.

As a fashion photographer in my spare time, the benefit of having the Trygger case secured to my iPhone was easily apparent. With a solid and sturdy case structure that maintained a slim feel to my iPhone, the Trygger case adds great functionality without the bulk. … Read more

As the saying goes: "The best camera is the one you have with you." More often than not, for me, that camera is my iPhone. I always have it on me, it's ready to take a photo in a matter of seconds, it takes amazing photos, and I can edit and share those photos all from the same device.

With the iPhone's camera continuing to be used more and more, there are plenty of accessories available to aid iPhone photographers in getting the best shot possible.

Here are five tools you should have in your bag:… Read more

BOULOGNE BILLANCOURT, France -- So you think you're a camera expert? Well, when was the last time you evaluated a camera by spending days analyzing hundreds of test photos?

That's what DxO Labs does, over and over, publishing results so far for 185 cameras on its DxOMark Web site. To see what lies behind those performance scores, CNET visited the company as it put one hotly anticipated camera through its paces: Canon's hot new video-capable SLR, the EOS 5D Mark III.

The results might not surprise close watchers of the camera business: Canon's score of 81 … Read more

Carl Zeiss today announced 15mm and 135mm members in its CP.2 family of adaptable lenses geared for both cinema and SLR uses and due to ship in the fourth quarter.

The CP.2 line of Compact Prime lenses can be fitted with adapters to Canon or Nikon SLRs, to PL-mount cameras common in the video and cinema industry, Micro Four Thirds cameras from Olympus and Pansonic, or Sony's NEX cameras with E-mount lenses. The CP.2 line is geared for cinema purposes, though, for example with a long-travel focusing ring.

The lens family spotlights the convergence of traditional … Read more