Cameras

I love gadgets, especially if they can fit on my wrist. Televisions are cool, but TV watches are cooler. Lasers are awesome, but watches with lasers built into them? Even more awesome. And now there's a camera you can fit onto your wrist.

The Digital Hero 3 is a 3-megapixel, wrist-mounted, waterproof sports camera. It's tiny and hardly the most impressive shooter at CES, but it can take 3-megapixel still images and 30fps VGA videos with sound. It fits inside a waterproof case that straps to your wrist, so you can easily shoot snowboarding, surfing, or any other … Read more

I'm starting to believe that camera manufacturers are able to stuff tiny quantum singularities into their products. The only way I can explain the increasing range of the internal zoom systems in ultracompacts is with a fold in space. Casio's latest fold holds a 7x zoom, with the 35mm-equivalent range of 35mm-266mm, in an inch-thick ultracompact.

With a camera so small and light, shake can be even more of a problem than usual with long zooms. Casio compensates with no less than four different antishake techniques, including a mechanical CCD-shift image stabilizer and the usual combos of high-ISO … Read more

Over the last couple of years, Samsung has made a real effort to step up its still camera offerings. This year's CES introductions continue that trend with more stylish designs and smattering of convenient features. You won't find any new dSLRs here, but there are six new compact cameras with pixel counts ranging from 6 megapixels to 10 megapixels. Two of the cameras fall into Samsung's L-series, which is aimed at advanced shooters, while the other four belong to the S-series, targeted at the point-and-shoot crowd. All of Samsung's new still cameras include in-camera editing, so … Read more

A few months back, when we asked Kodak reps why the company wouldn't have its new digital photo frames available in time for the 2006 holiday buying season, they said it was because the frames that Kodak would announce at CES 2007 were going to be ambitious, and the company needed time to get them right. Well, now that I have final specs and pricing, it's hard to argue with that strategy. On paper, at least, the new frames--the top-end ones anyway--offer most of the features I'd want in a digital photo frame and should put a … Read more

Kodak's contribution to this week's camera announcements are a pair of high-resolution compact digital cameras. The EasyShare V803 and V1003 are two colorful, inexpensive shooters with some handy automatic features.

The two new cameras focus on style, with slim, inch-thick metal bodies that come in a variety of colors. Kodak hasn't finalized what colors will be available, but you can assume a nice selection including black, silver, red, pink, and blue models. If the solid colors don't offer enough variety, Kodak will offer an entire catalog of vinyl skins to further decorate your camera.

With suggested … Read more

For every trend, it must be assumed, there will be a backlash. But we've noticed one of the more curious forms of this axiom in inexpensive cameras that use film--not for quality or aesthetics, but for novelty items.

Just as the "Split Cam" intentionally cuts bodies in half, the film-based "Oktomat" from Lomo seems designed only to create an odd special effect. "Just press the shutter once, and eight tiny lenses fire in turn and create a multi-frame mini photo," as Shiny Shiny says. We would have no interest in this ourselves, but … Read more

Fujifilm is gearing up for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by announcing a handful of new cameras just a week before the show. Budget-minded shooters will be pleased by news of two new FinePix A-series, while fans of family photos can look forward to the face-detecting follow-up to the FinePix F20. Finally, scientists and law enforcement professionals have a sub-$1000 infrared camera to look forward to in the coming months.

A pair of budget shooters replace the FinePix A600, the FinePix A800 and the A610. Both sub-$200 models are simple cameras, with the 3x optical zoom … Read more

Joining the fray of announcements preceding next week's Consumer Electronics Show, the new 7.1 megapixel Optio E30 compact camera has been announced by Pentax. With a 3x optical, 36mm-to-108mm (35mm equivalent), f/2.7 to f/4.8 zoom lens and a 2.4-inch LCD screen, the Optio E30 is geared toward the general snap-shooter audience. According to Pentax, the camera can shoot up to 760 shots when powered by a pair of Lithium AA batteries, 550 shots with NiMH AA batteries, or 200 shots with alkaline AA batteries. The Optio E30 records images and video clips (up … Read more

Just before Christmas, Hoya and Pentax quietly announced plans to merge their companies into a new entity to be called Hoya Pentax HD Corporation. The deal--which the official announcement is calling "a management integration of the two companies"--is expected to be completed on October 1, 2007. Fumio Urano, currently president and CEO of Pentax, will become chairman of the board of Hoya Pentax HD, while Hiroshi Suzuki, currently president and CEO of Hoya, will be the new company's president and CEO.

In the USA, Hoya is best known for its filters for SLR and video camera … Read more