Samsung has released the details of their new digital camera range, Samsung NV – New Vision.
There are three cameras in the initial range, the NV3, NV7 OPS and NV10 – boiled down from 500 concept models explored over the two year of development cycle. Each camera is pitched at a different audience and has its own strength.
We’ve had our hands on all of them and can confirm that they’ve got a great feel.
They’re all pixel-loaded with the NV3 & NV7 having 7.2Mpx and the NV10 being the 10.1Mpx heavyweight.
Instantly notable is how thin each of the camera bodies are, with the skinniest being the NV3 a svelte 17.5mm.
In an attempt to address the frustration of digital camera needing increasingly complex and deep menuing, Samsung have developed the Smart Touch interface, fitted to the NV7 and NV10. With seven touch sensitive buttons along the bottom and six up the side of the 2.5″ back screens, menu choices are simply made by running your finger along the buttons until the required option is located. Think selection through cross-hairs.
Despite the NV10 being the pixel-brute, the NV7 is really the Daddy of the range carrying all of the nifty tricks including a 7x optical zoom, OPS (Optical Picture Stabilisation) and ASR (Advanced Share Reduction). OPS detects the movement of the camera and shifts the CCD to compensate for it, leading to a more-still photo. The NV7 also has a rather huge lens on it, ideal for taking picture in low light.
The NV3 is the one that we think will get you most excited dear reader. It’s not only a camera, but an mp3 player and PMP, so it can play films too. It’s equipped with stereo speakers, so you can share you tunes too.
Samsung have pretty ambition plans for the progression of their digital cameras. They currently have 9% of the market and if they stay on course, will have 10% by the end of this year.
Their plans are 13% market share (MS to those in the know) by 2007; 16% by 2008 and 20% by 2009. If they reach this, they will be the top leader in the market.
Given how they’ve come from more-or-less nowhere to such a strong position in mobile phones, it’s highly believable that they can achieve it.
The cameras should be available by September at the following suggested retail prices, NV7 OPS – £299, NV10 – £279 and NV3 – £229
Casio have added the new Exilim Zoom EX-Z70 digital camera to their EXILIM range, ramping up the pixel count to a hefty 7.2 megapixels.
In an attempt to stave off the wobbles, Casio’s Anti Shake DSP is built in, although the anti-shake stuff is achieved through ramping up the ISO and dropping the image size, so it’s nowhere as good as proper optical image stabilisation.
Available in “luxurious” black or high quality silver, the black EX-Z70 will be on the shelves from the beginning of July (you’ll have to wait a month for the silver version) for around £230 ($422, €335).
Contrast type AF (selectable between spot, multi)
With a flurry of clicking and whirring, Kodak have announced their new Easyshare P712 superzoom digital camera, offering a 12x image-stabilised Lens, a 7.1 MP sensor and enough manual modes to please compulsively tinkersome photographers.
We’ve never bothered to work out how fast we blink, but Kodak tell us that their 0.07 seconds capture rate is faster, and who are we to argue?
Flashing it about
Kodak EasyShare P712 specifications
Just how much resolution do you need? Ten million pixels is a lot of information by any conventional measure, especially since most consumers rarely print out images larger than traditional 10x15cm enprints. That requires no more than the three megapixel sensors found on today’s very cheapest cameras, and now even high-end cameraphones.
Around the back, a bright 2.8-inch widescreen LCD monopolises the available space. Only 2.5-inches is available for framing – the remainder is taken up by a fantastic vertical menu strip for instantly tweaking image size, quality, metering and more. Creative features are eclectic rather than comprehensive: a continuous flash mode shoots three flash shots in a second, and there are more pre-programmed scene modes than even the most bored teenager could wade through.
Verdict
We had our hands on the Sony Alpha A100 last week, Sony’s first step into the Digital SLR (dSLR) market.
What’s Hot
First impressions
Some details of Sony’s eagerly-awaited debut into the dSLR market have begun to emerge online.
This feature – inherited from Minolta -begins autofocus and auto-exposure as soon as it detects your peeper gazing through the viewfinder. Neat
The onboard high-speed autofocus is said to sport 4 focus modes – Single-shot AF; Direct Manual Focus; AF Automatic; AF Continuous – with centre-weighted, spot and 40-segment honeycomb pattern metering modes.
Thinner than a whippet with Montezuma’s Revenge, Fujifilm’s new FinePix Z3 sports a 5.1 million pixel sensor, ISO reaching down to the dim lights of 1600 and a 36-108mm (3x), F3.5 – 4.2 lens.
(*A quick straw poll around the office found this claim to be total bollocks, by the way).
Specifications:
Modes – Auto, Anti-Blur, Scene Position, Macro, Movie, Burst / Continuous
The HC3 has a tough act to follow – its own big brother, the HC1. Last year’s HC1 brought High Definition recording within the budget of almost any home movie-maker for the first time, and did it with assurance and style. Luckily, Sony hasn’t rested on its laurels, and the HC3 feels very much like a replacement for the HC1 rather than a mere upgrade.
Changes to the imaging pipeline have enabled Sony to offer a couple of new features in the HC3. The first is the ability to capture up to three 2MP still photos while filming (the images buffer until you stop recording). The second is Smooth Slow capture, where the capture rate increases from 50 to 200 fields per second for three seconds. Audio recording and the Super SteadyShot audio are disabled while you shoot. You can then play back this footage at a normal frame rate, giving 12 seconds of smooth slow motion footage.
Just when you thought Sony couldn’t add any more formats to its camcorder range (the electronics giant already carries MiniDV, MicroMV, Hi8, Digital 8 and DVD models), along comes a new hard disc camcorder (the DCR-SR90) and a re-vamped Hi Def pro-sumer shooter (HDR-HC3). We caught up with both at an exclusive hands- on presentation in London. Details of the Sony HDR-HC3 will follow tomorrow.
The interface is generally very good, with a 2.7-inch folding touchscreen ported straight from Sony’s MiniDV range, giving access to a good range of creative features, including true 16:9 recording.
Playback features include basic editing tools that let you move scenes around but not cut or join them. Ease of use is emphasized with a One Touch DVD burn button for Windows computers with a DVD writer – just plug in via USB, slip in a disc and away you go.
With the weather warming up and the great outdoors beckoning, here’s our selection of must-have gadgets for technology addicts heading off for a day strolling over heath and heather.
Smartphone: Treo 650
Where the chuffin’ ‘eck am I? GPS and Memory-Map