Today Canon announced two new camcorders, the XF105 and XF100. These two small cameras are part of the new Canon lineup of memory recording cameras, which also includes the XF305 and XF300. The new cameras share many of the same features as their bigger brothers, including the same 1/3″ CMOS chipset, and recording to the Canon XF Codec (MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps) on Compact Flash cards.

Surprisingly, the XF105 comes complete with HD-SDI output, Genlock, and timecode inputs/outputs, which makes it one of the most capable small cameras out there. The compact form factor, 3.5″ LCD, and 10x lens are the big factors that differentiate these cameras from their larger brothers. However, those are the only real differences – exciting news for anyone in need of a small camera. Additionally, Canon has integrated their infrared low-light feature, enabling the capture of HD video in complete darkness. Finally, they have also added a feature that allows two of these cameras to be linked up for 3D capture. Details of this feature have not yet been released, but it probably will be some form of synchronized lens control and recording. Both the Canon XF105 and XF100 are scheduled to be available in the first quarter of 2011, but pricing has not been announced yet.

Read Canon’s official press release here.

The New York Times Magazine is the first to publish footage shot with the new Phantom Flex. The NYT used the camera to document the world’s top women tennis players in super slow motion for an article called “Women Who Hit Very Hard”. Watch the video here.

A video feature called “The Beauty of the Power Game” accompanies the article and was shot with the Flex – the fastest frame rate, highest quality and most light sensitive high-definition camera on the market. Players like Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Jelena Jankovic are shown in their finest form at over 1,000 frames per second. Watch the video here.

“The goal was to balance the grace and femininity of these athletes with their sheer power, and the Flex allowed us to do just that,” said Producer Sandrine Lima of Reel Sessions. “The amazing slow mo ability of the Flex allowed us to accomplish the vision Dewey Nicks [the Director] and the Times had.”

Read more about the New York Times tennis shoot on the NY Times Well blog, and on the SPD blog. A gallery of still images is also available on the NYT website.

Vision Research, the manufacturer of the Flex, will begin shipping cameras to customers next week. The camera has had some key improvements made to its form factor since being introduced at NAB this past April. Above are our first images of the Phantom Flex as it will be released to customers.

The overall length has been shortened, the controls have been moved to the front side of the camera and the weight has been reduced. These improvements, combined with the numerous technical breakthroughs in the Flex’s image-making capabilities, put this Phantom on a new plateau.

Panasonic has just announced the new lightweight HPX3100 P2 Camera, which features a 2/3″ CCD sensor at full 1920×1080 resolution. Panasonic has taken the lightweight design and slim form-factor of the HPX300/370 cameras and added the 2/3″ chips found in the HPX3000. The camera has two P2 card slots and can record in AVC-Intra (100 & 50), DVCPRO HD, and standard definition formats. A new version of AVC-Intra 100 is also included that supports 24-bit audio. Standard frame rates are supported including 1080 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p, and 24p. However, like the HPX3000, 1280×720 resolution is not supported. With the new slim body design also comes lower power consumption, which is now only about 34 W. This is very low for a 2/3″ 1080P CCD, and can significantly improve battery life. Two brand new features of the HPX3100, are wireless meta-data input and a new high-quality proxy record option card. The wireless meta-data option will allow clips to be tagged with meta-data over a wifi connection, which makes it much easier to name clips on the fly. The new proxy card will produce better quality proxy clips which are compatible with Final Cut Pro. The price of this camera has not been announced yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated as more information is released. Read the press release here or download the brochure here.

The Decimator is intended as a rack-mounted or monitor-mounted unit, and a mounting plate with screws is supplied. However, with a low weight of only .45 lbs, it can easily be rigged to a camera such as the RED.

Powered by DC 5-24V power, the Decimator comes with a power supply. Abel Cine Tech also sells a P-Tap adaptor that allows use with an on-board camera battery. It can also be powered by a Nebtek plate accepting Sony, Panasonic or Canon batteries.

USB and HDMI cables are included in the box.

As a standard we started with the Super-35 film frame. For clarity, an aspect ratio of 16×9 was selected for all of the cameras, which is both the native aspect ratio for most of the cameras as well as the HD framing standard. For cameras that can shoot various aspect ratios (like the REDs), the largest available 16×9 motion picture shooting mode was selected.

On every sensor, the Super-35 image area has been indicated in Kodak yellow, with the individual camera’s image area indicated by a full color image. So on sensors larger than Super-35, that sensor’s extra image area has been indicated in full color surrounding the yellow Super-35 area. On sensors smaller than Super-35, the smaller image area has been indicated in full color, surrounded by the yellow Super-35 area. One will notice that on several of the sensors the difference is almost invisible, and to additionally help understand the difference in size there’s also a number indicating the percentage difference compared to Super-35 (a sensor a little bigger than Super-35 may be 103% while one much smaller might be 85%).

Underneath each image, the Shooting Format indicates the setting selected on the camera, with the physical size of the selected Shooting Format noted alongside in millimeters. The required Image Circle (projection size of light from the lens) has also been indicated in millimeters.

The chart is not meant to be a comparison of resolution or image quality in any way, but rather a specific comparison of relative frame sizes and their resulting fields of view.

Click here to download a larger .pdf version of the 35mm Digital Sensor Comparison Chart.

While 2D noise reduction analyzes an individual frame and reduces noise where it can, 3D noise reduction looks across multiple frames to reduce noise. 3D noise reduction is very effective, but too much can produce smearing if there is motion in the image. Therefore, Panasonic uses both methods together by increasing the amount of 3D noise reduction in a static image, and decreasing it when there is movement in the images. There is some pretty sophisticated computing behind this technology, and the effect is quite good. However, the change in noise level between static and moving images is sometimes noticeable, so Panasonic has released a firmware update to address these situations.

The update adds a feature in the OPTIONS menu called P.A.P FILTER. According to Panasonic, P.A.P is a “picture processing technology which enables high sensitivity and high resolution images by 3D adaptive processing.” This setting can be changed between Type 1 and Type 2 — Type 1 gives you the full 3D noise reduction while Type 2 reduces the effect. This setting can be saved in a User file or a Scene file, so the function can be easily enabled or disabled depending on the situation. Download the new firmware update from Panasonic here.