A new, 26-gigapixel panoramic image of Dresden, Germany, is now the world’s largest-resolution photograph. Taken from the rooftop of the “Haus der Presse” building, the giant panorama is made up of 1,665 individual shots captured with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera and a 400mm lens. This massive number of shots were taken with the help of a photo-robot, in the course of less than three hours, but the processing took 94 hours using a computer with 16 processors and a main memory cache of 48 Gigabytes.

Nearly every other diver on my boat had some sort of photography rig. And not just simple lexan underwater cases, but imposing contraptions with powerful strobes and sturdy handles. I was a little bit intimidated gripping a small plastic mass.

But once I got underwater and watched many of the divers struggling with their rigs, catching protuberances on errant kelp fronds, I felt a little better about wielding this simple Canon setup. As a point-and-shoot (and shoot and shoot) piece of equipment, the whole rig is simple, capable, durable, and—especially compared to similar underwater gear of just a couple years back—cheap enough that it won’t be a tragedy when it gets lost at sea. The street price of the HF20 (an AVCHD camcorder with 32GB of flash memory) is $800; the WP-V1 can be found for around $400.

Everything you’re seeing in these two videos was shot with natural light. Canon added an “Underwater Mode” to the HF20 which attempts to mitigate some of the strange color and contrast issues you’ll have underwater. Light at the red end of the spectrum is absorbed especially quickly by water, so the camera tries to account for that by boosting the color toward red.

As small as the Canon rig was, lights would have been nice. Underwater photography and videography is a challenge, because even perfectly clean water refracts light much more aggressively than air. Add to that all the plankton and fish droppings and god-knows-what-else in the murk that obscures light like a living fog.

I could have screwed down the WP-V1 onto a light rig—it has a tripod mount on its bottom—but I didn’t. If I had, I might not have felt like I needed to tweak the colors later to get them closer to what I felt I had seen with my own eyes. (Or, on some shots, what I wish I had remembered; I’m a bit color-saturation-mad at the moment.)

Additionally, most of the fine controls on the HF20 aren’t accessible through the underwater housing. (Unless you use the included infrared remote, but I don’t think it nor its magic beams would last long under the ocean.) That leaves just power, record, and photo/video mode buttons, as well as a large lever that controls the zoom. The zoom lever couldn’t quite push the toggle on the camera all the way, making zooms a bit slow. Still, for me the controls were sufficient.

Since you can’t charge the camera underwater or swap batteries, the easily spotted yellow power button is handy, too. No need to leave the camera on when there’s nothing you plan to film.

Of course you can change any setting before you hop into the water. (I turned off Canon’s face-following focus system, which means that any mermen I happened to spot remained indistinct.) And getting the case open is a breeze—just push up on the yellow tab at the end, flip open the large black buckle, and do your best not to mangle the rubber gasket that is all that keeps your $800 videocamera from the caustic sea.

I shot a few scenes at the beach before I went on my dive trip, plunging the WP-V1 in and out of the waves. Worked perfectly—except for when I got back to my hotel and realized there was tons of fine sand gummed up against the gasket. I wouldn’t call that a failing of the WP-V1 at all—sand is insidious—but it is something of which users should be aware. Like all underwater gear, it needs a good soak in fresh water, too, to make sure that the salt doesn’t slowly corrode it in open air, even after the water has dried.

In all, it’s quite a deal, especially when compared to the prices of other 1080p-capable cameras and 130-foot-rated underwater housings. The footage, even without any compensatory lighting, can be gorgeous. And while my fellow divers were breaking down their rigs, swaddling them in foam, and packing it all into massive hard cases, I slipped the WP-V1 with the HF20 inside my carry-on bag and walked down the dock.

Find Canon VIXIA HF20 HD Dual Flash Memory with 32 GB Internal Memory and 15x Optical Zoom at Amazon.com for $800 and enjoy your diving!

Canon’s consumer SLR line has a new flagship: the 15.1-megapixel Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Once again, we see a new SLR from Canon in less than 18 months from the last in a given line. It’s actually only eight months since the XS was announced, and about 14 since the XSi; either way you look at it, competition has shortened product cycles in the digital SLR space.

Now at the top of the Rebel line, the Canon T1i takes on the Nikon D90, with its video mode, while the XS and XSi are left to challenge the Nikon D40 and D60. With the Rebel T1i, Canon is answering the pincer move that Nikon’s put on it in the past few years, now matching them model-to-model at the low end, because the XS and XSi will remain in the lineup.
Canon Rebel T1i Features

While the new HD movie mode is going to be the gee-whiz feature on the Canon Rebel T1i, the important feature for most photographers is the still image quality at 15.1 megapixels. According to our tests on a beta (prototype) Rebel T1i, its only rival even near this price point is the Canon EOS 50D.

Controls and body styling are nearly identical (differences are broken down in the User Report below); the main changes are internal. The Canon T1i’s new sensor is ever slightly larger at 22.3 x 14.9mm compared to the 22.2 x 14.8mm measurement of the XSi’s sensor, but the bigger change is the new sensor’s high ISO capabilities, running from 100 to 3,200, with two expanded settings: 6,400 and 12,800.

Canon’s new DIGIC 4 processor handles the larger 4,752 x 3,168 at a slightly reduced speed of 3.4 frames per second (at 1/500 second or greater — down from the XSi’s 3.5 fps), with a maximum JPEG burst of 170 frames or 9 RAW frames. You can also now capture RAW images in all of the Canon T1i’s modes, whether Basic or Creative Zone.

The Canon T1i’s 3-inch LCD is a 640×480 design with 920,000 dots, making for a noticeably sharper onscreen image, great for focusing and confirming sharpness after capture. The Canon T1i is the first Rebel to have such a high-res screen.

Other features come to the Canon T1i from the 50D, including the Peripheral Illumination Correction and multiple noise reduction settings. Auto Lighting Optimizer and Highlight Tone Priority were already brought over with the XSi, but Creative Auto is now included, a unique mode that endeavors to bring creative control to the amateur shooter.

Movie mode comes to the Rebel T1i with quite similar capabilities to the Canon 5D Mark II, though it’s highest complete HD resolution is 720p at 30fps. It can capture 1080p videos, but only at 20fps, which isn’t technically fully up to spec. Standard 640×480 movies are also available at 30fps. You can manually focus or autofocus via contrast detect by pressing the Canon T1i’s rear AE/AF-Lock button.

The Canon Rebel T1i accepts EF and EF-S lenses, and uses SD/SDHC cards, including Eye-Fi wireless cards. The battery is the same as the XSi, and it uses the same battery grip.

Also introduced at the same time is the very small Speedlite 270EX, a new flash that is easy to pocket and gives cameras like the Rebel T1i and the PowerShot G10 an accessory flash that won’t threaten to flip these lightweight cameras over. The flash head zooms manually from 28mm to 50mm coverage, and flips up to 90 degrees. Like other EX Speedlites, the 270EX transmits color temperature information to the camera. Power comes from two AA batteries.
Canon EOS Rebel T1i Pricing and Availability

Body-only, the Canon EOS Rebel T1i lists for $800, and the kit with the 18-55mm IS lens carries an estimated retail price of $900; both are expected to ship in May 2009. No price or ship date have been set for the Canon Speedlite 270EX as of this writing.