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Technology

Kingston’s Best Tech Recommendations for Photography Lovers

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With World Photography Day around the corner, all photography lovers can splurge a little bit extra in capturing, sharing, preserving and storing memories. Kingston Technology has a curated list of products for the photography lovers, so that preserving, transferring and storing memories is a cakewalk while you can focus on getting your best shots.

Kingston XS2000 external SSD

Catering to photography and travel aficionados looking for storing their memories as well as important data, Kingston XS2000 is a pocket-sized portable SSD utilizing USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 speeds to deliver next-gen performance in a compact, external on-the-go drive. It delivers lightning-fast transfer speeds up to 2,000MB/s giving users enhanced productivity with little interruption. XS2000 offers remarkable performance and capacities up to 2TB to offload and edit high-res images, 8K videos and large documents in a flash, transferring up to 400 HD photos per second or taking less than 30 seconds to transfer a 1-hour 4K video, making any location an instant studio workspace. All this makes it the best external SSD for backing up memories. The drive connects with USB Type-C®1 allowing content creators to easily store and access their files anywhere on a PC or mobile device. At nearly half the size of a typical portable SSD, XS2000 includes a removable ruggedised sleeve and IP55 rating to withstand water and dust, making it the perfect companion for on-location adventures whether you go from work to play to passion projects

Capture, Connect and Create with Kingston Workflow Station

Kingston’s Workflow Station and Readers provide a flexible system to transfer video, photos, and audio from multiple sources at once1. Expedite your post-production workflow and create a file offload setup that fits your needs. The Workflow Station Dock is customizable so you can use only the USB miniHub, SD readers, or microSD readers that your shoot requires. Whether you’re on a 4K/8K multi-cam shoot with portable audio recorders for each host, or filming B-Roll with drones and GoPros, you can connect up to four readers to the dock simultaneously and transfer footage quickly. The Workflow Station and Readers support USB 3.2 speeds which get you to your post-production process faster than ever. For added flexibility, the card readers can be used on the go. When you need to shoot on location simply drop the hub or readers you need into your bag and connect them to your laptop using the included USB-C® cable.

Creativity and inspiration in professional quality with Kingston’s Canvas React Plus SD card

Kingston’s Canvas React Plus SD card delivers high-performance speeds which are designed to work with industry-standard professional cameras for creatives that shoot 4K/8K videos and high-resolution photos. Designed with the latest UHS-II standards and top-of-the-line U3 and V90 speed classes, the Canvas React Plus SD enables you to shoot sequential burst-mode shots with recording speeds of up to 260MB/s. Execute your creativity without experiencing slow speeds and dropped frames while maximising workflow and efficiency. With transfer speeds of up to 300MB/s, enhance your post-production process and handle heavy workloads with ease while capturing cinematic quality in high resolutions.

Kingston Canvas Select Plus microSD Card

For photography lovers, Kingston’s Canvas Select Plus microSD is compatible with Android devices and designed with A1-rated performance. It offers improved speed and capacity for loading apps faster and capturing images and videos in multiple capacities up to 512 GB. Powerful in performance, speed and durability, the Canvas Select Plus microSD is designed for reliability when shooting and developing high-resolution photos or filming and editing full HD videos. Kingston Canvas cards are tested to be durable in the harshest environments and conditions so you can take them anywhere with confidence that your photos, videos and files will be protected. Available with a lifetime warranty.

Intel Showcases 12th Gen Processors

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Intel showcased the 12th Gen family of processors at the 12th Gen Intel Core Experience event. The latest processors redefine multi-core architecture for PCs with an all-new performance hybrid architecture. The experiential event showcased the latest suite of cutting-edge desktops and laptops powered by Intel’s latest family of processors, and enthusiasts experienced unprecedented performance like never before.

Built on the Intel 7 process, the 12th Gen Intel Core processors feature a new architecture design breakthrough that brings together two types of specialised cores to deliver class-leading performance and responsiveness. The latest platform also integrates technologies, like DDR5 memory support, Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, and Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), to elevate user experience even further.

All-new performance hybrid architecture: Intel’s performance hybrid architecture is its most significant shift in x86 architecture in more than a decade, re-envisioned to provide the performance to match the way people use their PCs today. The new performance hybrid architecture brings a combination of performance cores and efficiency cores to deliver ultimate performance. These performance cores are the highest performing CPU core Intel has ever built, for maximum burst and single-threaded performance. The Efficient-cores are designed for scalable performance-per-watt, for multi-threaded and multi-tasking performance. Intel 12th Gen family of processors scales from U series to P series to H/HX series for notebook platform and going up to S series for desktops.

The new cores include the Intel Thread Director, one of the most significant and exciting innovations in the new performance hybrid architecture. Built on top of Intel’s performance monitoring unit, it provides the best hardware telemetry in the industry according to Intel. Traditionally, the OS would have made decisions based on limited stats that are available aligned to foreground/background workload or task characterization, but Intel Thread Director adds a new dimension with this HW telemetry so threads with higher performance requirements end up on the cores that provide the performance, Performance-cores or P-cores.

The 12th Gen Intel Core HX Series processors are Intel’s latest versatile portfolio of mobile products that bring breakthrough power performance. The family of processors features up to 16 cores to deliver unrivalled mobile performance and speed, enabling studio-level creativity and hardcore gaming, and offers support for overclocking.

The 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processors offer up to 14 cores paired with discrete graphics, delivering an elite gaming and professional video editing experience. The 12th Gen Intel Core U-Series processors feature up to 10 cores and is designed for ultrathin laptops that accelerate your office productivity on the go. The 12th Gen Intel Core P-series combines the best of both worlds for enthusiast levels of performance in a thin-and-light form factor.

The company also showcased the Intel Evo Third Edition designs, specifications, and Key Experience Indicators for Intel Evo laptops. The 3rd edition Intel Evo platform features 12th Gen Intel Core processors and sets more demanding Key Experience Indicators for no-compromise mobile experiences that go-getters need. Intel also elaborated on the new cache architecture found in the 12th Gen Intel Core processors at the event. With the 12th Gen Intel Core Architecture, Intel is introducing a new Common Intel Smart Cache architecture shared among the P Cores, E Cores, and processor graphics.

Review: Beyerdynamic Phonum

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Price: ₹24,999

Handsfree calling devices are often a great blessing especially when you need to discuss something and access another device at the same time in addition to facilitating group calls. Beyerdynamic is a German audio brand with almost a 100-year history behind it, and the Phonum is a Bluetooth speakerphone for conference calls.

The Phonum is beautifully designed, with a cylindrical cross-section, flat base and a mesh speaker dome on top. The flat base is metal with soft anti-slip padding, while the main unit has a polycarbonate exterior. The speaker dome is surrounded by a ring-shaped touch-responsive control panel that gives access to Bluetooth connection, Volume control, Microphone mute/unmute and Microphone mode control, which are permanently marked, in addition to Accept Call and Reject Call buttons that light up when you receive a call on your connected device. There are also eight LEDs indicating the microphone pick-up direction. The power button and USB-C port are at the side. Contrary to the most likely perception, the upward-facing speaker dome houses a 360-degree downward-firing speaker, which allows all participants to hear clearly. The speaker is designed for clear vocals and offers distortion-free output with optimal volume. The speakers feature echo cancellation for speech legibility. The Phonum can be connected with a smartphone or laptop via Bluetooth or with a non-Bluetooth device via USB.

Apart from the regular features of a speakerphone, what makes the Beyerdynamic Phonum special is the Gecko 360-degree technology and the intelligent microphone system. This system lets you customise the microphone pick-up pattern to suit the conferencing setup. The Microphone Mode Control button cycles between three modes of voice tracking. The Gecko Fix mode switches the microphone to single direction pick-up, which is ideal when there is only one speaker participating in the call. This filters out disturbances from other directions. In Gecko Follow mode, the microphone follows the speaker even if the person moves around, making it perfect for situations where one person has the floor. In Gecko 360-degree mode, the microphone assumes omnidirectional pick-up so that all people gathered around a table can freely participate in the conversation and is clearly audible. In each of these modes, the LEDs around the touch panel illuminate, indicating the microphone’s active pick-up direction. The strongest pick-up direction is indicated by the brightest LED, while the peripheral LEDs are dimmed, and those in the direction of least pick-up remain off. In omnidirectional mode, all LEDs remain switched off.

We found the Beyerdynamic Phonum to be extremely portable and quite responsive to touch input. Connection proved quick and seamless, facilitating quick set-up. In Follow mode, the microphone quickly changes direction according to the speaker’s position, making it a versatile conference device. If you plan to use this as a music player, you will be disappointed simply because the device is not designed for that purpose, and the volume is quite low for music playback. The device offers 12 hours of operating time on a single charge and features quick charging via the USB-C port. The Phonum is sold in India via headphonezone.in .

RATING

WE’RE IMPRESSED Light, portable and sturdy design, responsive touch panel, Gecko 360-degree system, good battery life, sturdy case

WE’D IMPROVE Speaker volume

THE LAST WORD Beyerdynamic Phonum is an extremely versatile speakerphone for any type of conferencing situation with a highly functional intelligent microphone system

Hikvision Reveals TandemVu PTZ Cameras

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Hikvision has launched its new TandemVu PTZ camera range, which integrates PTZ and bullet camera capabilities into a single unit. The cameras allow security teams to continue monitoring large areas with no interruptions, while simultaneously zooming in to monitor specific security incidents that occur.

7C series

The cameras provide high-definition imaging with 2 x 4MP lenses and a super-wide view of 180°. Its bullet unit features Hikvision’s ColorVu technology, which provides full-colour imaging, while its PTZ unit employs Hikvision DarkFighter technology that enables HD colour images down to 0.0005 Lux. Engineered with AI, the cameras can differentiate between moving objects such as falling leaves, heavy rain or animals. They can also, reportedly, differentiate between vehicles and people and use smart linkages to check on trespassers as they move within the PTZ coverage. The cameras boast of advanced security, owing to its AI chipset that allows deep learning algorithms available for complex scenarios, including automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), facial recognition and multi-target-type detection, among others. They use sound and light alarms that warn would-be trespassers before they enter a site or building. Hikvision reports that the cameras reduce installation, configuration and maintenance costs.

8C series

The latest devices have been grouped into two product families viz. the SF8C series and the SE7C series. The SF8C series provides two bullet lenses with 180° panoramic view, come with ColorVu technology, incorporate AI algorithms and offer 42x optical zoom capabilities. The SE7C series features one bullet lens, come with ColorVu and AcuSense technologies and support up to 32x optical zoom.

Nikita Distributors Expand Portfolio

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Moza Aircross 3 Kit

Nikita Distributors recently announced a range of product releases, expanding their portfolio.

Their latest additions include Godox Parabolic Softbox Kit (68/88/128/158), Samyang 135 mm f/1.8 Sony Mount lens, Moza Aircross 3 Professional kit, Vanguard Vesta 8320M (monocular), Vanguard Vesta TB 204 AB/CB (tripod), Vanguard VEO HD2 (binocular), Vanguard VEO ED 1050 (binocular), Nisi Enhance ND 5-9 stops 77 mm (variable ND filter) and Viltrox EF Z2 (adapter).

The Godox Parabolic Softbox Kit comes in 3 different sizes (88/128/158) and incorporates a quick-release system for rapid setup and breakdown. Its key features include reflective silver interior, soft diffusers, fabric grid and compatibility with a range of products using the adapter.

The Samyang AF 135 mm f/1.8 FE telephoto lens delivers an 18.9˚ angle of view for full-frame and 12.5˚ for APS-C. Its optical design is made up of 13 elements in 11 groups (1 U-ASP, 2 HR and 3 ED). Reportedly optimised for portraits, astrophotography, landscapes and video shooting, the lens’key features include a focus lock button, custom switch, and focus range limiter switch.

The Moza Aircross 3 is a 3-axis handheld gimbal stabiliser embodied in a compact (folds down to the size of an A4 size paper) and lightweight design with a fast charging battery (integrated with Spark Power Supply System 3.0), OLED UI, a single start/stop/shutter button, metal construction, and manual control. It is reported to support cameras that weigh up to 7 lb, which can be set up in different configurations such as Classic mode, Sling mode and Dual-Handle mode.

The VESTA 8320M is a lightweight and compact monocular, which comes with a PA-60 universal smartphone adaptor and Bluetooth remote control for digiscoping, while the Vanguard 1050 VEO ED is a binocular that features anti-reflection, fully multicoated, extra-low dispersion (ED) glass with phase-correcting coatings on the BAK4 roof prisms. The VESTA TB 204AB,VESTA TB 235CB is a lightweight and compact aluminium and Carbon fibre travel tripod kit that is designed for mirrorless and small D-SLR camera kits.

The NiSi Enhance ND-Vario 5-9 stops 77 mm is a variable neutral density filter that allows users to control depth of field. The nano-coating on its glass surface helps to prevent reflections, glare and repel water and dust. It can be rotated using the side lever and sports a slim frame.

Lastly, the Viltrox EF-Z2 Speed Booster is an adapter that enables a Canon EF lens to be used on a Nikon Z camera body. It comes with a built-in 0.71x optical multiplier and the electronic contacts are gilded with copper. A USB port is provided for firmware upgrades, and a 1/4″-20 tripod socket on the bottom of the adapter allows for tripod mounting.

The above mentioned products are available with all leading photography equipment dealer shops and e-commerce websites, distributed by Nikita Distributors.