It is not just Photokina which has become the default destination for camera makers to launch their new cameras for the past few days. There are organizations that are launching some amazing new cameras without even taking the advantage of Photokina media attraction. Leaf Aptus-II 12 is one such super attractive camera which has recently been made public but not at Photokina.

There's no question that more megapixels in an image sensor offers significantly higher detail and larger output sizes," said Tim Grey, photographer, author, and respected digital imaging expert. "While there are software products that can enhance and enlarge a photo, the result will never truly be more information than was captured by the image sensor. For photographers who need maximum detail and the potential for particularly large print sizes, medium format digital backs represent ideal tools."

The Leaf Aptus-II 12 can bear up to 80 MP of imaging data with the help of its 53.7mm x 40.3mm x CCD sensor. The 3.5 inches touchscreen on its back does its job pretty well. The ISO range for this box is between 80 to 800 with 0.6 fps capture rate. Something which can leave you astonished as the max file size of an image can be as large as 480 MB.

[via DPreview]

I was recently invited to the pre-launch of the Nokia N8 in the Middle East, which took place in Dubai, and while it was my first time handling the N8 and I came away pretty impressed, one thing I wanted to do was be able to test the camera. We were in Dubai, Nokia was launching a 12MP cameraphone, and they didn't think it'd be smart to give us each an N8 to take photos, you know, to convince us of how cool their phone is! They only had 4 or 5 N8s for us to test, hooked to an alarm-triggered table, inside the conference walls, with awkward lights around them. Not cool. Especially when you think that with Xenon flash and the largest sensor for a cameraphone, the N8 is basically made for night photography.

Lucky for me though, I was able to snatch one prototype from a Nokian (insert evil laugh) and get loose around Dubai for a few minutes before having to hand it back reluctantly, not forgetting, obviously, to bluetooth the images I took over to my N97 Mini.

You can see the results below, with Burj Khalifa (the tallest man-made structure in the world), the Dubai Marina Walk, and the area around the Dubai Media One Hotel. Now keep in mind, this is a prototype, it wasn't running firmware PR1.0, and apparently I was using the wide-angle 9MP resolution not the 12MP one. I was also tinkering with the settings every 3 seconds, using Night Mode sometimes, changing the ISO settings, turning the Flash on and off, using Sports Mode for the 3rd & 4th photo from inside the bus… Basically, I was playing and I'm not a pro-photographer. So the quality of the results will vary. Note: click on the thumbnails for the full-resolution image.

For the record, the ice cream in the last image was definitely not as tasty as the N8 makes it look like. I wish. When I showed it to the journalists next to me, we had a long debate over how well the N8 would do for false marketing Oh and for comparison's sake, this is one image I took of Burj Khalifa with my Kodak V1273 12MP digital camera, with Auto settings.

I won't make any judgment call based on a prototype device or my less than average photography skills, but I'll say that for my own usage, something like the N8's camera is way WAY more than enough for night photography. What do you think?

Note: This post is cross-published on The Dotsisx Blog.

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Google announced the Google TV during the Google I/O, and Sony is one of their partners. Sony has announced that they will be introducing their first Internet Television on October 12th, and they has sent out some invitations to selected people. The event will start at 5:30 PM somewhere in New York. Well, I think the day is here when Sony and Google will officially unveil the Google TV. Google TV is really an innovation, and it's a device that we may think about. We say improvements in TV, but this Google TV will change everything. As Google said that they are inventing the TV again, but in their own way. I am a Google fan, and I like their stuff. And I am sure that Google TV will be something awesome. What do you guys think about the Google TV?

via Android Community

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Nokia released a new firmware update for its popular QWERTY phone, the Nokia E63. Even though Nokia E63 has support for User Data Preservation (UDP), you should backup all your data before updating this device. The new version 411.21.001 can be easily downloaded from Nokia Software Update (NSU) or via. Over-The-Air.

The complete changelog of this update is not yet available, but it brings some fixes and improvements. If you haven't got this update then don't worry, it may not be released for your product code yet. You may have to wait for few days or even for few weeks before this update is available in your region.

If you find something new or if you have some screenshots or videos of this firmware update, please share with us.

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