2008 fall preview

Cameras and camcorders

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Digital cameras and camcorders

Just in time for the busy, busy point-and-shoot holiday season is a new crop of digital cameras in sizes and styles as varied as their feature sets. Panasonic is making the biggest splash with its new interchangeable-lens compact, the Lumix DMC-G1, which uses the company's Micro Four Thirds design. Nikon's loaded its Coolpix line with things like a touch screen, GPS, and advanced manual control technologies. Ricoh enters a camera that tells you when you're shooting crooked. And Canon, Olympus, and Fujifilm all want you to extend their new megazooms.

Product

Type of camera or camcorder

Price and availability

The outlook

Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1	Hybrid compact	price not announced	The G1 uses Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds design that effectively decreases the size and weight of an entry-level dSLR to megazoom proportions, but allowing you similar dSLR performance and changeable lenses. Plus it has lots of features for both newbies and experienced photogs.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T500	Ultracompact	$399; September	While it shares many of the hardware specs of the Sony's DSC-T700 (10.1 megapixels, 3.5-inch touch-screen LCD, optical image stabilization), it adds MPEG4 AVC/H.264 video capable of capturing frames at 30 per second at an HD resolution of 720p. By not using Motion JPEG--pretty much the standard for video capture on still cameras--the T500 can store high-quality clips at a low bitrate with a small file size.
Canon PowerShot SX110 IS	Megazoom	$279; September	The PowerShot SX110 IS is just a minor step up from the SX100 IS, going from 8 to 9 megapixels and bumping up the size of the LCD from 2.5 inches to 3 inches. Other than that, it's more of the same, topped off with a 10x optical zoom.
Olympus Stylus 1050 SW	Ultracompact	$299; October	Another entry into Olympus' shock-and-waterproof digital camera lineup, the 1050 SW has a 10-megapixel sensor, 2.7-inch LCD, and 3x optical zoom, but can also absorb drops up to 5 feet, is waterproof down to 10 feet, and is freezeproof down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. And instead of a touch-screen LCD, the camera has a touch-sensitive body letting you tap the sides to access features--especially useful for gloved hands.
Nikon CoolPix P6000	Compact	$499; September	The Coolpix P6000 is stuffed full of interesting features, like built-in GPS, an Ethernet connection, wireless flash, and a new Vista-compatible raw format. This is the first camera with built-in GPS that people actually might want to buy.
Canon PowerShot E1	Compact	$199; September	Targeted at teens and tweens, the E1 is a 10-megapixel compact with a 4x optical zoom and available in three colors (blue, pink, and white). It comes packed with shooting modes (17 in all) including--and probably most importantly--face detection, and it has a 2.5-inch LCD. The E1's shutter, start-up, and operation sounds can be customized as can the color of the menus and start-up screens.
Olympus SP-565 UZ	Megazoom	$399; October	It looks like 20x is the new 18x, as Olympus incorporates the f2.8-4.5 26-520mm-equivalent lens from its top-of-the-line SP-570 UZ into the SP-565 UZ, which replaces the popular SP-560 UZ. Otherwise, it's identical to its predecessor. The advantage of this model is that it doesn't have the irritating zoom ring that's on the SP-570, but it also lacks a hot shoe.
Ricoh R10	Compact	$379; available now	The 10-megapixel Ricoh R10 borrows a feature from 2007's GR DIGITALII and the GX200 launched this July--an electronic level indicator on the camera's 3.0-inch LCD. An acceleration sensor lets you know when you're tilting, so you can straighten out your shots before you click the shutter.
Nikon CoolPix S710	Compact	$379; September	The 14.5-megapixel S710 has all of Nikon's bells and whistles found across the Coolpix line, but adds Programmed Auto [P], Shutter-priority Auto [S], Aperture-priority Auto [A] and Manual [M] modes--previously only available on Coolpix P-series cameras and SLRs.

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