Photography

Fujifilm has announced the Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Zoom, a new member of the superslim Z-series, offering 5.1 megapixel resolution and sensitivity up to ISO 1600.

Declared a “sensitive supermodel that’s naturally slim” by some cheesy PR hack, the FinePix Z ramps up the feature set and improves on its well regarded predecessor, the Z1.

The camera is housed in an attractive wraparound, glossy shell-design body, measuring 90 x 55 x 19 mm (3.5 x 2.1 x 0.7 in) and weighing just 130 g (4.6 oz).

The FinePix Z2 Zoom comes with the same reinforced glass 2.5″ screen, but now boasts a higher resolution of 232,000 pixels, and the camera offers a wider aperture range up to F8.0, improved metering (256-zone, up from 64-zone) and a longer maximum shutter speed of four seconds.

Like several other recently released cameras, Fujifilm have improved low light performance by ramping sensitivity up to ISO 1600, letting users indulge in moody, dimly lit scenes.

Fujifilm claim that their Real Photo Processor will help users create more natural-looking images, without the harsh effects often caused by camera flash or the blurring caused by camera shake or subject movement.

Getting carried away with their self-professed ‘chic’ claims, Fujifilm suggests that the camera’s continuous shooting feature (max 2.2 fps, up to 3 frames) might be ideal for capturing “catwalk catastrophes”.

In the real world, the camera’s 3x optical zoom (36 – 108 mm, 35 mm equiv) means that anyone looking to snap a Kate Moss exclusive will have to be pretty close to the catwalk, with the camera’s slow f3.5 – 4.2 lens meaning that higher (and noisier) ISOs would be needed to capture any drug-fuelled stumblings.

The flash isn’t likely to help much either as it can only muster 0.6m – 2.3m coverage at the telephoto end – about par for the ultra compact market.

Naturally, there’s a movie function onboard, capable of capturing 30 frames per second VGA video with sound.

Adrian Clarke, Fujifilm’s Director of Photo Products, was on hand to talk about irony: “It’s ironic that most ultra-slim cameras struggle where they are most frequently used – in low-light social situations, such as parties. With four times the sensitivity, combined with iconic design, the FinePix Z2 Zoom is a camera that truly qualifies as an evening companion.”

The FinePix Z2 Zoom will be available from UK retailers in white or black finishes from November 2005, with pricing to be announced closer to the date.

Fujifilm

Olympus have unveiled the SP-700, a new addition to their new SP series of cameras with a special guide function for beginners explaining what button does what.

The 6.0 million pixel camera comes with a 3x zoom lens (equivalent to 38-114mm in 35mm format) with the company enthusiastically claiming that it’s “the latest gadget to be seen with.”

Churning out of the factories in time for Christmas, the SP-700 is aimed at the mainstream market, offering a barrow load of pre-set scene modes to make it easy for fumbling amateurs to take half decent photos.

Amongst the 24 scene modes on offer, punters can chose from presets like Portrait, Landscape, Landscape and Portrait, Night Scene, Sunset, Fireworks and curiously ‘Museum’.

We couldn’t find a preset for ‘pub’ or ‘all night rave in a dingy warehouse’, but there’s an underwater mode included too (just so long as punters remember that they’ve got to slap on the PT-013 underwater case before dunking their expensive camera into the sea).

The big selling point is the huge 3 inch, 230,000 pixel screen which all but fills up the back of the camera, echoing the trend for bigger camera screens for composing and viewing pictures.

The camera also boasts a movie mode capable of recording VGA clips at 30fps with sound, a movie digital image stabilisation system, 11 MB internal memory and a Super Macro mode able to focus down to a mere 1cm (not recommended if you’re zooming in on a Sydney Funnel-Web Spider.)

Olympus is making a big hoo-hah about its ‘Compare and Shoot’ function which lets users check and compare results before re-shooting or adjusting settings if needed.

There’s also some basic image editing functions onboard, including red-eye fix, brightness, saturation, trimming, B&W and sepia, letting users fiddle about with photos without the need to hook up to a PC.

The metal-housed camera measures up at a compact a 3.8 x 2.2 x 1-inches and weighs 4.9 ounces

The camera is pitched directly in competition with the Sony DSC-N1 which also offers a whopping great 3″ screen, but the Sony comes with photo ‘pocket viewer’ functionality which may just prove more attractive to its target audience.

Pricing may prove to be the decisive factor here, so we’ll have to wait to see what price tag Olympus slaps on the SP-700.

Olympus

Bibs were hastily donned to soak up the undignified rivers of drooling dribble that appeared in the office when Panasonic first announced the latest addition to their high quality Lumix digital camera range, the LX1, back in July.

It wasn’t just the stunning looks, manual control, image stabilisation and crisp wide-angle 4X Leica zoom lens that set our saliva organs into ungainly overdrive – we loved the fact that this was the first camera to feature a 16:9 aspect ratio, using the full 8.4-megapixel sensor.

The 16:9 aspect ratio closely approximates the natural wide field of view of the human eye meaning its dimensions will fill a widescreen TV perfectly.

The camera can also shoot in 3:2 and the more conventional 4:3 aspect ratio, with a switch on the lens barrel making it easy to switch to the format best suited for the composition on a shot-by-shot basis.

Boasting an impressively wide zoom range of 28 mm to 112 mm (35mm equiv), the LEICA DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens should prove ideal for indoor photography, architectural and landscape shots.

Recovering alcoholics and compulsive wobblers will love the optical stabilization system (OIS) that does a great job of steadying the camera at slow shutter speeds and producing sharp images where other cameras would fail.

It’s no mean feat to fit an effective stabilisation system into a 4.2 by 2.2 by 1.4 inches camera, and users should find it an invaluable feature for low light photography – small cameras can be notoriously hard to hold steady at slow shutter speeds.

As well as a comprehensive selection of 14 scene modes, there’s manual controls offering a choice of apertures between f/2.8 and f/8 (adjustable in 1/3-stop increments) at the wide-angle position and f/4.9 to f/8 at the telephoto end.

Shutter speeds can be selected from 8 seconds to 1/2,000 second (60 seconds to 1/2,000 second in manual mode).

Sensitivity can be set to ISO 80, 100, 200, or 400, with the built in pop-up flash offering coverage up to 13.1 feet in wide-angle mode and 7.5 feet at the telephoto position.

Photo enthusiasts will appreciate the manual focus feature which uses a joystick to fine-tune focus on an enlarged portion of the image, with the same joystick being used to change shutter speed and aperture in manual or shutter/aperture priority mode.

In line with its high end aspirations, images can be saved in JPEG (choice of two compression ratios), TIFF and raw file formats.

The Leica lens can focus down to two inches in macro modem with focus switchable from spot to single-point, three-point, or nine-point autofocus zones.

For manual and automatic shooting, there’s evaluative, centre-weighted and spot metering available.

Wannabe Spielberg’s will be tempted by the camera’s particularly impressive movie mode, offering an astonishing ultra-high-quality 16:19 Wide VGA film-clip capability, capturing 848×480 sound movies at a smooth 30fps.

Sadly, there’s no optical viewfinder on offer, so all framing and viewing of images – and camera fine tuning – is taken care of via the a sharp and bright 207k 2.5-inch LCD on the back panel.

In shooting mode, this presents a wealth of optional information including a handy alignment grid dividing the screen into vertical and horizontal thirds.

With its beautiful looks, enthusiast pleasing feature set, world’s first 16:9 aspect ratio and pin-sharp Leica lens, Panasonic look to be on to an absolute winner here – but where is the thing?

Apart from a few, quickly scooped-up, silver versions of the camera appearing online and in central London, most stores are reporting that they are “awaiting stock”, with no news of the drop-dead gorgeous black version that we’re keen to get our paws on.

A few reviews have cropped up on the web – usually in strange languages – with the excellent DPreview.com offering some pre-production samples that looked mighty fine to our eyes

Worryingly, a promised review on dcresource.com has been “delayed due to technical difficulties” – or, as the author explains elsewhere – because the camera “kicked the bucket.”

We hope that that these problems are just pre-production glitches because we’ve rarely seen such a tempting looking camera.

As soon as we get our hands on one, we’ll have a review for you. Soon, we hope!

Lumix LX1

Competition at the lower end of the dSLR market looks set to heat up as Olympus launch their new Four Thirds System digital SLR, the E-500 (called the ‘Olympus EVOLT E-500’ in North America).

Although housed in a more traditional-looking SLR body, the new camera shares many of the same features of last year’s well received E-300, and is based around the same Kodak eight megapixel 4/3 size CCD.

It’s a fully specified beast, with Olympus introducing a range of improvements and new features including a new 49 area metering sensor (a 7×7 matrix), new high ISO noise filter, a whopping 21 preset scenes and a better control system.

There’s numerous white balance controls onboard (including WB by colour temperature and WB fine tuning) and old school OM4 users will be pleased to see the return of the two spot metering modes for highlight and shadow detail.

Dominating the back of the camera is a large, 2.5″ HyperCrystal 215k LCD monitor offering a wide viewing angle.

Three colour modes are supported – Vivid, Natural and Muted – with users able to choose from two Colour Space Settings, sRGB or Adobe RGB.

Photographers fed up with speckly bits on their pictures will be glad to see Olympus including their unique Supersonic Wave Filter, a sensor cleaning widget which blasts out high frequency vibrations to dislodge internal dust or dirt.

We only wish our Nikon D70 came with one!

Storage is taken care of by CompactFlash Type II and xD Picture card memory card slots, with the camera capable of taking up to 4 RAW/TIFF/SHQ images in a row at 2.5 frames/second; with shooting continuing until the memory card is full at HQ quality.

There’s a choice of three image formats available: RAW, TIFF, and JPEG, with the option to simultaneously record images in RAW and JPEG .

The camera looks great, the features and flexibility are at least as good – if not better – than the competition and, best of all, it’s coming with a killer price tag of just US$799 (~e665~£452) for the E-500 plus 14-45mm f3.5/5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens, or $899 (~e748~£509) for a dual lens kit with an additional 40 – 150mm f3.5/4.5 lens.

Olympus

We like swiveling cameras.

With their crafty pivoting design, they’re great for taking sneaky street candids, stealthy snaps and images taken from err, “imaginative” angles, so we were excited to hear about Nikon’s new Coolpix S4 camera.

Decked out in an attractive silver finish, Nikon’s new swiveler builds on the success of their Coolpix SQ and E9xx series cameras, boasting six million-pixels and a hefty 10x optical Zoom-Nikkor lens, covering 38-380mm.

The swivel capability lets users shoot from the eye, the waist, overhead or upside down if they so desire, with the 180 degree rotate making it easy to take self portraits.

The shirt pocket snapper comes with the usual slew of scene modes covering every climatic and lighting condition imaginable on earth, with the addition of an innovative “Face Priority AF Mode”, which claims to automatically find faces in photos and focus on their gurning mugs.

Handling’s been improved with the Coolpix S4 featuring a new grip design with a large 2.5-inch 110,000 pixel TFT monitor making it easier to compose scenes and admire captured photos.

Powered by a pair of AA-size batteries, the S4 is designed to be highly portable, boasting slimline 112 x 69 x 37 mm (4.4 x 2.7 x 1.4 in) dimensions and a light weight of 205g.

For fine tuning images, the camera offers In-Camera Red-Eye Fix, AE-BSS to select the best relative exposure from a series of shots and a “D-Lighting” function for brightening under-exposed pictures in-camera, conveniently saving a copy of the edited image rather than overwriting the original.

For punters with Spielberg aspirations, Nikon has included three Movie Modes (up to 15 frames per second) with sound and a time-lapse movie function.

The Coolpix S4 will be available at the end of this month priced €399 (£218, €320).

Nikon
Nikon Coolpix S4 specs