Review The ST1000 was Samsung’s first Wi-Fi enabled Camera that not only allowed users to e-mail pics from a hotspot, but had GPS thrown in just to prove you were really there. With the SH100 wireless compact, the company goes beyond snap and share by offering tight integration with its top tier Android products enabling tethering with a compatible handset or tablet, so that it becomes the SH100 viewfinder for remote capture.
The SH100 sports a 14.2Mp sensor, 3in touchscreen and a 5x optical zoom with the 35mm equivalent of a 26-130mm lens. It can handle 720p HD video recording and has an ISO range between 80 and 3200. At 93 x 54 x 19mm and 110g, the SH100 is highly pocketable and designed to operate as closely to an Android phone as possible. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Sitting somewhere in the middle of entry-level scale, Nikon’s D5100 represents a considerable leap from its predecessor the D5000 and can be seen in some respects as a smaller, cheaper-built D7000. From its bigger brother it inherits the 16.2 DX-sized CMOS sensor; the Expeed 2 processor with 14-bit Raw shooting, the extensive ISO range and the higher 920k screen resolution.
Entry-level with all the extras: Nikon’s D5100
To avoid in-house competition and market overlaps, Nikon has been careful not to equip the D5100 with some of the more advanced, pro-appeal functions of the D7000. Instead, the D5100 features a trendy HDR mode, new effects for videos and stills including a Night Vision option and enhanced video capabilities. The D5100 currently sells at £580 body-only or at £620 with the 18-55 VR lens kit. Read the rest of this entry »
Review The X1 is Leica’s first expert digital compact that, along with some top quality optics, lives up to its billing by offering easy access to manual controls akin to its bigger and pricier brother, the M9. It has no rangefinder focusing to match the M9 either, instead the X1 relies on an LCD screen and an optional clip on optical viewfinder. There’s no facility for interchangeable lenses, with just a fixed 24mm f/2.8 lens (equivalent to 36mm on a 35mm Camera) in front of a 12.2MP, APS-C CMOS sensor with an ISO range between 100 and 3200 and a maximum shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second.
Switch to manual? Leica’s X1 has it all to hand
Although the X1 has been out for a while, it seemed timely to put it through its paces as Leica has updated the firmware for this model to addresses some of the issues affecting the original release. Among the listed tweaks are improvements to the Camera’s focusing performance and JPEG quality. At £1425 the X1 is the most expensive compact currently on the market, but is the premium price tag justified? Read the rest of this entry »
Product Round-up When it comes to quick pics, the expedience of a phonecam can’t be overestimated, yet the image quality expectations frequently are. With this in mind Reg Hardware has rounded up the smallest and cheapest compacts produced by all the usual suspects from the photography world.
Here are ten cameras that will not only take decent snaps but are pocket-friendly too, in more ways than one. They are easy to carry around and at a price that won’t cause too much pain if lost in a bar in Cupertino.
All the cameras in this round-up have optical zooms lenses, yet none of them have optical viewfinders. Reliant on LCD screens, the sizes of which vary from 2.4in on Samsung’s ST30 up to 3in on the Canon, Olympus and Sony, with only the Fujifilm having a touchscreen.
Being real cameras, rather than phone add-ons, you get all the niceties of a decent flash, tripod mount, swappable batteries and SD cards, with Samsung’s ST30 being an odd one out here as it uses Micro SD cards. All of the models take video too, but you get a real mixed bag starting with standard def-ish VGA (640 x 480) all the way up to 1080p HD. Sensors also range from 10.1Mp to 16Mp, and while some might not have pixel counts to match the top end phone cams, the optics and physical sensor size on these compact cameras will surely win the day. Read the rest of this entry »
Hands on Last week, Sony announced to the world that it had produced the smallest APS-C interchangeable lens Camera, the NEX-C3. The timing suggests the company might have got wind of something, as a couple of days earlier Panasonic had been busy showing off its latest micro four thirds (MFT) models in an exclusive press preview in Rome.
Big idea: Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-GF3
Here, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 made its debut, which has been hush-hush until now. This diminutive 12.1Mp model has fewer physical controls and lacks the viewfinder of the 16.1Mp Lumix DMC-G3 announced last month. With the catch-all phrase, ‘compact system Camera’ (CSC) now describing these lens swapping, mirrorless marvels – from the likes of Samsung, Sony and Olympus – Panasonic now lays claim to having the world’s smallest of this particular breed, albeit sporting the smaller MFT sensor to match. Read the rest of this entry »
