Cameras: January 2009 Archives

Less than two weeks after it announced a trio of new economy pocket shooters, Panasonic pulled the wraps off a sextet of high-powered ultracompacts. The new sixsome, scheduled to arrive at retailers in April, range in price from $250-$400 and contain an array of cutting-edge features.

The 12.1 megapixel Lumix DMC-FX580 has a three-inch touch-screen LCD and a beefed up version of Panasonic's Intelligent Auto (iA) mode. That mode activates optical image stabilization, face detection, autofocus tracking, intelligent exposure and intelligent scene recognition with the touch of a single button.

New to the iA mix is Face Recognition. When it's activated, the camera will remember faces and optimize their capture whenever they appear in future shots. The technology can also be used to sort photos based on mugs stored in the face recognition database.

The snapper also features a 5x optical wide (25mm equivalent) zoom with 1280 x 720 HD video capture at 30 frames per second, maximum light sensitivity of ISO 6400 and a Panorama mode for both horizontal and vertical stretchies. The FX580 is expected to sell for $399.95.

Digital stills and digital video have never peacefully coexisted. Still camera makers have tried to elbow their way into camcorder makers' turf by incorporating video into their products. Meanwhile, camcorder producers have made stills part of their products' repertoire, too. These maneuvers have presented consumers with a dilemma. Should I get a still camera that takes mediocre video, they often must ask themselves, or a camcorder that takes mediocre stills? For many shooters, the answer to that question is to get one of each. But now Sanyo, with a quintet of new additions to its Xacti line, is bragging that it has a one device solution to the still/video dilemma.

The first of the new hybrid cameras, the Xacti DMX-2000 (photo above) scheduled to reach retailers in February. It can capture eight megapixel stills and shoot high resolution, 1920 x 1080 video at 60 frames per second and 24 megabits per second. It stores its video, as do all the new Xacti units revealed by Sanyo, in AVC/H.264 format. That format makes it easy to share the video with devices like computers and media players.

Despite gloom and doom predictions about the global economy this year, Samsung believes it can grow its share of the world digital camera market. According to a report this week in The Nation, a business daily based in Thailand, Samsung Vice President Soo Bong Kim told the publication that the South Korean company wanted to make inroads this year against rivals Canon and Sony by boosting its worldwide market share in 2009 to 10 percent from nine percent. Canon's market share is 20 percent; Sony's, 17 percent.

While acknowledging digital camera sales missed their mark last year--predictions for the worldwide market were 145 million units; actual units shipped were 140 million--the Samsung executive told the daily that the company was optimistic about sales in the second half of this year. Sales in the the developed world are flat and will continue to be so, he conceded, but demand in the developing world continues to grow.

Kim's comments come just two weeks after Samsung raised the curtaiin on four new pocket cams at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here are the cameras debuted at the show.

Panasonic waited for the dust to settle from CES last week to announce today three new point-and-shoot snappers slated to reach retail shelves this spring.

The Lumix DMC-FS7 is a 10.1 megapixel compact with relatively fast F/2.8 Leica DC Vario-Elmar 4x optical zoom. It has an Intelligent Auto Mode (iAM) that can be activated via a dedicated button. In iAm the camera will automatically activate a battery of smart features--optical image stabilization, intelligent ISO, intelligent scene selection and face detection. It also has an intelligent 2.7-inch LCD, which adjusts its brightness automatically based on available light, and can capture WVGA video at 848 x 480 pixels for viewing on wide TVs or monitors. The DMC-FS7 is expected to be available in March in silver, black, blue, pink and green and sell for $159.95.

Connecting digital cameras to a wireless network for uploading photos to a computer isn't new, but Sony has taken the concept a step further with its Cyber-shot DSC-G3 point-and-shoot camera introduced this week. It has built a Web browser into the snapper so it can plug into public hotspots and upload photos and video to popular sharing sites. The 10 megapixel DSC includes complementary access to wireless hotspots operated by AT&T until January 31, 2012.

The G3 has a 4x optical zoom lens and an enormous 3.5-inch touch-screen LCD with a staggering resolution of 921,600 dots. The shooter, which has four gigabytes of internal memory, also boasts an array of Sony imaging technologies, such as intelligent scene recognition; face, blink and smile recognition; and dynamic range optimization.

The G3 sells for $500 and is available from Sony's online store now.

Also announced by Sony this week was the Cyber-shot DSC-W220. The 12 megapixel pocketcam has a 2.7-inch LCD and 4x optical zoom lens. It has some of the tech found in the G3--intelligent scene recognition, dynamic range optimization and face and smile recognition--as well as 15 megabytes of internal memory and HD video output with an optional HDMI cable.

The W220 sells for $190 and is also available from Sony's online store.

Olympus has always been a leader when it comes to compact digital cameras with monster zooms so it's no surprise that it kicked off a rash of new snapper announcements this week with its latest ultrazoom, the SP-590UZ. The 12-megapixel compact has a 26x optical zoom, or the equivalent of a 26-676 millimeter zoom in a 35mm film camera.

The DSC, which has a 1/2.33-inch CCD sensor, supports light sensitivity settings from ISO 80-1600 and has a 2.7-inch LCD.

Both mechanical and digital image stabilization are built into the unit. Mechanical stabilization moves the camera's sensor to compensate for camera shake. Digital IS uses ISO settings to boost shutter speed and counter shake that way.

While capable of full automatic operation, the bytecam has a manual mode that gives its boss control of aperture, shutter speed and focus.

The camera also features high-speed sequential shooting at 10 frames per second up to 30 frames, but that's only for 3MP images. For maximum resolution photos, the speed is much slower--around 1.2fps. However, the unit has a king-sized auto-bracketing mode--five continuous frames.

Some features introduced in Olympus's latest DSLR, the E-30, have been transported to the SP-590. They include multiple exposure, soft background and beauty mode, which can be applied in the camera as images are captured.

Other features include an HDMI port for displaying images in the camera on an HD TV; perfect shot preview, which allows a shutterrbug to pick the best of several versions of a framed shot from the LCD; support of xD and microSD media; in-camera editing; and 29 shooting modes.

The SP-590UZ is scheduled to reach retailers in March and sell for around $449.99.

Pentax attempted to get a leg up on the new product deluge that accompanies the CES show, which starts at the end of this week, by announcing yesterday a new ultra compact offering, the Optio P70. The Pentax model has a robust feature set at an attractive price, $139.95

The 12-megapixel snapper has a 4x zoom (27.5-110mm equivalent) and will shoot 720p HD video at 15 frames per second. Sensor size is 1/2.3 inches.

Built for the colorful camera crowd--it arrives on the shelves next month in dark blue, wine red and champagne gold--it as has a good-sized 2.7-inch LCD display with a resolution of 230,000 dots.

There's a sop for phontogs, too. It's a Vertical Snap feature that allows the unit's OK button to act as the shutter release and the arrow keys on its navigation pad as zoom controls when the camera is positioned for a vertical shot.

Of course there's smile and face detection--as many as 32 mugs can be recognized and an appropriate focus and exposure reached for them in 0.03 seconds--as well as an Auto Picture mode where the camera automatically chooses a shooting mode--landscape, portrait, night, sport, etc.--based on its analysis of a scene.

Three image stabilization modes are supported by the bytecam--two for stills and one for movies. Pixel Track Shake Reduction mode takes the jitters out of images during processing through built-in software. High-Sensitivity SR boosts light sensitivity to increase shutter speed to counter camera shake. And Movie SR also uses software to curb shuddering.

The Optio P70, which has 33.7 megabytes of internal memory, also has a panorama mode--it'll automatically stitch together three consecutive shots--and "digital wide" mode that will create a wide angle shot (21mm equivalent) by combining two sequential image captures.