enthusiast

Between Canon and Nikon's inexpensive full-frame bodies and Sony's full-frame press of a compact, pro body and camcorder, there are going to be a lot of photographers and videographers lining up to sit on Santa's lap this holiday season.

But if you prefer something smaller, there's plenty of that for you, too, in the form of new enthusiast compact cameras from almost every manufacturer and updates to interchangeable-lens models. Plus Panasonic gave its video-friendly GH2 a complete overhaul for the GH3.

Here's a guide to our complete Photokina coverage. Just because.… Read more

Headlining Canon's barrage of cameras at the show: the EOS 6D. While the company has had the cheapest full-frame camera available since the 5D Mark III shipped and it dropped the price of the 5D Mark II, the latter (while still an excellent camera) has an old autofocus system and needed some performance updating. Especially if it were going to stand up to Nikon's recently announced D600. But Canon took away some of the features of the 5DM2 for the 6D, such as the 100 percent coverage viewfinder, substituting Wi-Fi and GPS. It's got a new sensor, … Read more

While Samsung's been updating and expanding its interchangeable lens camera lineup, its enthusiast compact, the TL500, or EX1 depending where you live, hasn't been updated in more than two years. That changes today.

The EX2F looks for the most part the same as its predecessor, measuring 4.4x2.4x1.1 inches and retains a fast ultrawide-angle lens and a swivel 3-inch AMOLED display. However, the lens gets even faster now at f1.4 instead of f1.8. Plus, the 3.3x 24-79mm zoom lens only goes down to f2.7 with it zoomed in.… Read more

Released over a year and a half ago, the Alpha SLT-A55V was at one point the flagship of Sony's (then) new translucent-mirror lineup. It's since been surpassed by the A77 and the A65V, leaving it to occupy the a-bit-less-entry-level position above the A35. The new replacement, the SLT-A57, comes in at the same price as its predecessor but without the built-in geotagging capabilities that were notable in the A55, and with a few new features.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Slipping in at the top of Canon's enthusiast G line of PowerShots, the G1 X introduces the largest sensor yet for enthusiast compacts with fixed lenses.

I'm really excited by what's happening in the enthusiast compact market; interchangeable-lens cameras seem to have spurred development in the fixed-lens models, presumably as people learn as a side effect of ILC marketing that you don't need a camera the size of a dSLR to get dSLR quality. A lot of people think that Canon's missing out by lagging in its ILC development--and it is. But the G1 addresses a growing part of the market, composed of people who don't really care about changing lenses and just want better photo quality.

That presupposes that the G1 X will deliver better photos than the G12, but it sounds at least like all the pieces for better photo quality are in place. The 1.5-inch sensor isn't quite as large as it sounds, but it's still larger than all but the significantly more expensive, APS-C-size Fujifilm X100. Coupled with the support for 14-bit image data, claimed better noise reduction and white-balance algorithms in the Digic 5 processor, the only wild card is the lens.

First, here's how its specs stack up against the competition (except for the Nikon Coolpix P7100--no room in the chart):… Read more

Incorporating the same 2/3-inch EXR CMOS sensor as its smaller sibling, the FinePix X10, the Fujifilm FinePix X-S1 brings a higher-end sensibility to the megazoom market--along with a hefty price and design.

The X-S1 was quietly announced in Europe last November, but doesn't yet seem to be available there. We get it this month, for $799.95; the only megazoom more expensive is Leica's $950 V-Lux 3, Leica's twin of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150.

Because it uses a larger sensor than the typical megazoom, it has a smaller focal-length multiplier--3.9x, versus 5.6x for the typical megazoom with a 1/2.3-inch sensor--and therefore its f2.8-5.6 lens needs to be physically longer to achieve its 24-624mm-equivalent focal length. So it should come as no surprise that the camera weighs over 2 pounds, compared with, say, 1.2 pounds for the FZ150, and occupies over twice the volume. It's even bigger than some dSLRs.… Read more

The Canon PowerShot S95 is a very good, popular camera with some commonly complained about flaws: among those are the poor flash design, lack of a grip, narrow maximum aperture at the telephoto end of the zoom range, short battery life, slow performance and relatively expensive price. With the S100, Canon seemingly addresses a few of these--the addition of a small grip looks like the exception--plus it adds some desirable new features: a wider-angle 24mm start to the zoom range, manual controls and zooming during video, and a built-in GPS.

Here's the product landscape into which Canon's releasing the S100:… Read more

There are two ways to look at the Fujifilm FinePix X10. You can view it as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the fanboy frenzy of the X100 with a camera that looks a lot like it, but that lacks everything that made it desirable to the fans. Or you can look at it as Fujifilm's first serious entry into the enthusiast compact market, going up against stalwarts from Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic (and newcomers like Olympus), with a design and specs that don't look too shabby in that crowd. I'm taking the latter view.

Keep in mind, however, that Fujifilm hasn't released the price, which makes it close to impossible to say anything meaningful about the camera. So I'll frame it this way: unless it can deliver absolutely stellar, X100-class photo quality, which I doubt, then anything more than $599 is too much.

With that in mind, here's how I picture its competition:… Read more

With the Web abuzz with hopes that Nikon would announce its rumored mirrorless interchangeable-lens model today, the actual announcement of the Coolpix P7100--a camera ostensibly targeted at the same shooter--must have come as a big letdown.

And based on the specs, I suspect it would have been a letdown regardless. It has the same sensor and lens as its predecessor. Nikon does claim to have improved overall performance--the P7000's raw shooting was quite slow--so that would be welcome. Plus it finally has an articulated LCD. And as usual there are tweaks to the shooting features, including a couple more … Read more