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It was LG that first added a tiny convex self-portrait mirror to its camera phones? Well, Samsung has taken the concept to the next level by adding 1.5-inch LCD to the front of its two newly announced compact point and shoots, the Samsung DualView TL225 and TL220. Both cameras also sport nice, big wide-aspect touchscreens on the back (the TL225’s is a 3.5-inch, 1,152,000-dot thing of beauty), but it’s the small screens on the front that provide the real gee-whiz factor. The front-side LCDs not only provide a preview image for taking self-portraits, but they also display a visual countdown when used in self-timer mode (improving on the typical blinking light that no one ever seems to get) and even a short little animation to attract children’s attention when shooting kids portraits.

Both front and rear LCDs are fully touch-sensitive. In fact, when the front LCD is off, it slickly disappears from view on the camera’s glossy surface, but a tap turns it on, automatically setting the camera to Self-Portrait mode which also activates the smile-detection shutter release.

The rear LCD on the TL225 is gorgeous (the TL220’s is a more standard — though still large — 3-inch, 230,000-dot screen) and both cameras offer an intuitive menu system accessed through point-and-swipe gestures as well as tilting motions powered by an internal accelerometer to make menu selections.

Both cameras include 12.2-megapixel, 1/2.33-inch CCD sensors and relatively wide 27- to 124.2mm, f/3.5-5.9 8.6x zoom lenses and can shoot 720p HD videos at 30 frames per second. In fact, the only differences between the two cameras are the size of the rear LCDs, an HDMI output on the TL225, and a negligible 0.2mm difference in overall thickness (the TL220 is a hair thinner). Oh, and of course a $50 price difference: Both cameras will ship in September, the TL225 for $349.99 and the TL220 for $299.99.

Got an iPhone? Check out how you can use it as a tool in photography.

There has been a lot of buzz around the iPhone lately, especially among photographers. And for good reason… the iPhone has a host of photography-related tools that are both fun and useful.

Though the iPhone won’t be replacing our DSLR anytime soon, we almost always have our iPhone with us which means it is available many times when our DSLR isn’t. As the quote goes, “the best camera is the one you have with you”.

One of the most favorite ways to take photos with the iPhone is using an app called Pano. Pano allows you to shoot up to 16 images side-by-side which are then stitched together on the fly in about a minute. The stitching doesn’t quite line up correctly sometimes and the noise levels are higher. But still, you can create a panoramic image in less than 5 minutes without a tripod on your cellphone.

Beyond panoramas, the iPhone is capable of shooting a variety of other styles on the fly including tilt-shift fakes, fisheye images and night photography. Another interesting app, GeoLogTag geotags your images. Once you have the app running (and verify that your camera’s clock and iPhone are in sync) it will keep track of everywhere you have been during a photo trip. The data can then be exported as a standard GPX file or you can link GeoLogTag to your Flickr account and the app will automatically update the map data through that site.

Using the data services of the iPhone, you can publish photos to the web from almost anywhere. Even when you have a DSLR with you, use your iPhone to send a photo and a quick update to your blog or Facebook page so that people can see what you are doing in real-time. With the applications available on the App Store, you can upload photos to just about any social media service on the web.

Keeping your favorite photos synced to your iPhone turns the device a perfect little digital portfolio. The screen is very high quality and having a collection of images in your pocket at all times makes sharing with people very easy. You can use the iPhone to show off photos to friends, and family . I can not overstate the importance of being able to show people your work, and the iPhone is another useful tool for doing exactly that.

Do you have an iPhone? Do you use it’s camera or other features in your photography? Got any images to share with us? Feel free to link to your best iPhone images in comments below.

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Two New York University researchers have created a camera that takes photos with an “invisible flash” of infrared and ultraviolet light to a smarter way to take photos in the dark.

NYU professor Rob Fergus and doctoral student Dilip Krishnan created the camera in an attempt to do away with blinding regular flashes and the “red eye” effect that usually accompanies them.

To make a camera with the advancement, which they call “dark flash,” the duo modified a flashbulb to emit light over a wider range of frequencies and filter out visible light. They then removed filters that usually prevent a camera’s silicon image sensor from detecting IR and UV rays.

There are pros and cons to the approach: though a “dark flash” creates a crisp image, results have an odd color balance something like night-vision. Read the full NYU study.

To remedy the situation, Fergus and Krishnan combined the result with color information from a flash-free (thus dim and blurry) photograph of the same scene taken immediately after the dark flash image. The pair combined the two images using software for the final result.

Unfortunately, some hurdles remain: some objects (such as freckles) absorb UV and IR light, and don’t appear in either the “dark flash” version or the final composite image.

• Visit YouTube and start the video you want to download .

• Watch the video until the complete video is loaded.

• Now go to the Temperory Internet Files folder (Location may vary depending on O.S and Browser version -C:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\temperory internet files).