It's a little jargon heavy, but Dyxum forum moderator Shao Z. has documented the process of modding up some 60's era f/1.2 Minolta lenses and setting them to work with his Sony A700 DSLR. Obviously the Sony Alpha series comes from a Minolta heritage, but it took adding a ROM chip and machining some mounts to get the lenses to work with the A700. The plus side is that the process keeps infinity focus and focus confirmation intact (the lens itself is manual focus), as well as Sony's in-camera Super Steady Shot. The lenses work with all Sony DSLRs, as well as the Minolta 5D and 7D film cameras, and he's selling one on eBay if the whole modding experience isn't your thing.

Could it be that liquid lenses for cellphone cameras are finally about to go from promising-but-undelivered tech to the real thing? We're not holding out hope -- they didn't rock the world when they popped up in a couple nondescript Samsung phones before -- but Varioptic and Seiko have just announced a deal to crank out 500,000 of the goopy buggers a month starting in Q3. It's not clear exactly what cellphones these are going to turn up in, apart from being targeted at 5 megapixel camera modules that require continuous auto-focus in video mode.

[Via Phone Scoop]

We spent some quality time around Sigma's monstrous APO 200-500 F2.8 lens this afternoon, and what can we say? It's gigantic. If you've ever wanted to the look of a portable rocket launcher without all the hassle at the airport, this is definitely the way to go. A feast for your eyes awaits in the gallery below.

We knew they were coming, and here they are -- say hello to Sony's Alpha A300 and A350. The 10.2 megapixel A300 and 14.2 megapixel A350 are just as we'd heard, with flip-out 2.7-inch swivel screens and live preview that retains the ability to autofocus. The CompactFlash DSLRs also go up to ISO3200, and feature burst modes of 3fps (A300) and 2.5fps (A350). Both cams will hit in April, the A300 with a 18-70mm kit lens for $800, and the A350 in a $900 kit or an $800 body-only package. There are also a couple new lenses, but no word of the mysterious A900 yet.

Read - Alpha A300 and A350
Read - New Alpha lenses

Sharp's no stranger to the world of DLP (or business-oriented) projectors, but the firm's latest offers up an interesting mix of features as it attempts to cater to the "high-end installation market" looking for a "powerful, permanently-installed display device." While the word "permanent" scares us all just a bit, we can assume the XG-PH70X is destined for large money-making boardrooms where CEOs won't want to meddle with changing bulbs or dimming the lights. Featuring a whopping 5,200 ANSI lumens, this DLP projector should outshine just about anything else in its price range, and it also sports a 1200:1 contrast ratio, XGA native resolution, Sharp's own CV-IC II video processing chip, six lens options for a plethora of awkward mounting options, and "redundant reliability through a dual-lamp lighting system." Additionally, for users willing to kill off a few lights, you can flip to switch and head to "eco-mode" where a single bulb will output a respectable 4,300 ANSI lumens, and if you need to control the action from afar, the built-in RJ-45 jack allows for web server dictating sans any proprietary software. The XG-PH70X, which comes bundled with a single standard lends, will hit stores in March for $8,495, while the lens-less XG-PH70XN is slated to land right alongside its sibling for a slightly lower $7,995.

[Via AboutProjectors]

The main problem with bog standard wide-angle lenses is their inherent tendency to distort images, this distortion creates obvious problems for remote operators of robots and camera surveillance of large rooms, for instance. A team of South Koreans, however, are claiming to have improved on bulky and expensive "rectilinear" lenses -- which offer up a low-distortion, wide-angle view -- by developing a lens that offers this clear view as well as being cheap, light, and small. That makes it far more suitable for use in monitoring devices with strict weight / size constraints, such as the aforementioned robots. At around $100, the price should also give security teams little excuse to not upgrade their gear by screwing one of these onto existing bullet cameras.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have gone back to the source for inspiration with their new artificial lens, creating a so-called "shape-shifting" lens that mimics the way a human eye works. Like other liquid lenses, theirs uses a glass-oil-water interface, but it also adds a a ring of polymer gel around the lens that acts like a muscle, changing the focal length as it expands and contracts. What's more, the gel apparently works simply by reacting to environmental changes, like a rise in temperature or change in acidity, allowing for both smaller and more power-efficient imaging devices than other similar lenses. One example the researchers give is an implantable lens that could react to protein changes in the human body. Not quite Fantastic Voyage territory, but we'll take what we can get.