Gizmodo: wide angle

This Is How You Sell Wide-Angle Lenses

Jesus Diaz — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:20:00 EDT

It's extremely rare to find a tasteful ad campaign that uses sex and clever humor to perfectly define the qualities of a technology product. This series of print ads for Omax wide-angle lenses is one of them:

The campaign was created by Publicis India, showing alternative uses for the wide shots that these lenses can get. I, on the other side, just point and shoot with no shame whatsoever. [Advertolog—Thanks Eduardo Lozano!]

Magnetic Mount Lenses Add Wide Angle, Telephoto and Fish-Eye Capabilities to the iPhone

Sean Fallon — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:45:00 EST

We have seen several different add-on lenses designed to enhance the iPhone camera, but these versions ditch the case in favor of magnetic mounts. There are also three different lenses to choose from.

Because the iPhone has a plastic case, a self-adhesive ring with a magnet must first be affixed to the area around the camera lens. After that, it's a simple matter of bringing the add-on lens in contact with the magnet. In fact, the wide angle, telephoto and fish-eye lenses can be used on just about any device with appropriately-sized webcams and cameras. How well the lenses work is unknown, but at least they won't break the bank at $17 apiece. [USB Fever via Gear Diary]

Olympus SP-570 Prosumer Cam Has Everything: 20x Zoom, Wide-Angle and Macro Photography

Jason Chen — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:46:47 EST

The Olympus SP-570 10-megapixel camera isn't a DSLR, but it's got fairly pro-level features, which means it's perfect for the Gizmodo reader who's just getting into photography. There's a 20x zoom (520mm focal length equivalent), a macro-mode (26mm focal length equivalent) that allows you to shoot at up to 0.39 inches away, and wide angle capabilities. In addition to that, there's dual image stabilization, 15fps sequential shooting and VGA movies at 30fps. Available in March for $500. [Electronista via Dpreview]

Hands-on With iPhone Zoom, Wide-Angle Camera Lenses (Verdict: Essential Gear for Hipster Perverts)

Jason Chen — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:31:03 EST

The Pitch: An attachable lens for the iPhone and various other cellphone cameras (the likes of which we've seen before) that adds either 8x optical zoom or wide-angle. Evidence after the jump.

The Verdict: The wide-angle lens adds a few more degrees on the shot, but the zoom lens really does give a decent zoom on your camera. Unfortunately, there was no test unit compatible with the iPhone.

New LCD Display From NEC Can Switch Between Wide and Narrow Viewing Angles

Sean Fallon — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:50:07 EDT

Today NEC announced the development of a LCD display that can switch between wide and narrow viewing angles without sacrificing image quality. Essentially, this would allow users to choose between a wide angle "public" mode (sharing photos of your vacation) or a narrow "private" mode (watching porn at work). This development is made possible thanks to a a polarizing plate on the back of the panel that can disperse light over 140 degrees or 30 degrees. Unfortunately, the angle currently needs to be set during manufacturing and there are only two possible fields of vision, but NEC believes that the technology could come of age in the near future. [Digital World Tokyo]

Samsung L74 Includes Wide-Angle Lens, Touchscreen

Travis Hudson — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:25:20 EST

It is nice to see Samsung plop a 28mm wide-angle NV optical zoom lens on their latest L-series camera, the L74. Another notable feature on this point-n-shoot is the 3-inch touchscreen LCD on the backside. This yet-to-be-released camera also includes facial recognition, a 7.2-megapixel CCD, Advanced Shake Reduction, 3.6x optical zoom, 1600 ISO support and 800x592 MPEG-4 video recording. Jump for a picture of its backside.

–Travis Hudson

Samsung L74 [LetsGoDigital]

Wide-Angle Lens Without Distortion, A Mirror

Mark Wilson — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:51:01 EST

Anyone see that recent Hummer commercial that has a really weird shot of a Hummer grill driving through the desert? That's wide-angle distortion. A South Korean researcher at Nanophotonics has invented a wide-angle lens without distortion and it only costs $100. How does it work? Instead of using high-end glass optics, the lens uses a stock lens (the black thing) that shoots a mirror (bottom thing) and translates the image to a pan-ready 180 degree image via software.

Intended applications are security and traffic. Boring. Let's get these in the hands of (fill in pornography production company of choice) asap. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via dvguru]