Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 Review
Sony is getting some rave reviews on their new Alpha DSLR-A100 camera, and Digital Photography Review is not one to be left out on commenting on the camera. They took a detailed look at the A100, and not only talk about the camera, but its history.
In July 2005 Konica Minolta and Sony made an announcement that they were to jointly develop digital SLR cameras. This agreement hinted at shared technology between the two companies such as auto focus, metering and Anti-Shake coming from Konica Minolta and sensors, electronics and batteries from Sony. Some six months later Konica Minolta dropped a bomb on the camera market by announcing that they were withdrawing from the camera business and had transferred certain camera assets including the Maxxum/Dynax lens mount and related SLR technologies to Sony.
Almost a year on since that first announcement we have the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, a compact, ten megapixel (CCD) digital SLR with a (Konica) Minolta lens mount, Anti-Shake (now Super SteadyShot) and a definite cross-breed appearance.
Overall it gets a highly recommended rating, as its lowest mark in their rating system is an eight out of ten for a few things.
Olympus E330 Review from LetsGoDigital
Finding a good digital SLR can be rather difficult. LetsGoDigital has a review up on the E330 from Olympus which is a good candidate to put on your short list.
The Olympus E300 digital SLR camera, which was introduced in 2004, strongly deviated from the traditional SLR camera design. When Olympus introduced the Olympus E500 one year later, people generally assumed Olympus had taken the path of least resistance by designing a “regular” SLR camera. However, nothing could be further from the truth; the Olympus E330 is the successor of the E300 and looks every bit as sassy, if not more. It wasn’t until later that we found out the Olympus E-300 was meant to feature the specifications of the E330, had it not been for the fact that the technology was not yet ready. Now, however, the Olympus E330 shows us exactly what the engineers at Olympus have in store; the model boasts several cheeky features.
Getting a rating of 79%, the Olympus E330 is a DSLR to take a strong look at. Its weakest point is its considerable price, which is not as bad as some SLR’s on the market. The E330 is recommended by LetsGoDigital
Pentax Optio T10 Review from LetsGoDigital
LetsGoDigital has posted a review up on the Pentax Optio T10, a 6 megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom. I think it is interesting since many of the Pentax cameras I have seen try to outperform on the optical zoom.
The Pentax Optio T10 is a typical example of a stylish design camera. The compact size, neat finish and surprising back side prove to be features that instantly draw your eye to the camera. The Pentax Optio T10 will be a true godsend to all those that are suffering from “button-fear”; the camera features only four buttons, an absolute record! The Pentax T10 became available several months ago, and will have to go head-to-head with camera heavyweights such as Canon, Sony and Nikon.
The Pentax Optio T10 was introduced in the month of the PMA 2006, and proved an instant eye-catcher. The impressively large 3 inch screen takes up a sizeable part of the camera’s back side, which distinguishes itself by the absence of the, for instance, well-known multi controller. The type of monitor that we find on the Pentax Optio T10 is in fact rather surprising; a touch-screen with a resolution of 230,000 pixels.
Getting a rating of 77% the Pentax Optio T10, is not a bad camera, but for what you get, the price is a little too high. You have to love how they added a touchscreen LCD though. That is really cool.
Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z700
A new 7.2 megapixel digital camera from Casio in the Exilim Zoom EX-Z700. It comes with a 3x optical zoom, and a super bright 2.7 inch LCD display which is said to be very easy to see, even on a sunny day. It uses a battery pack, whcih needs to be recharged, but is rated at around 460 pictures on a single charge. The camera also comes with Casio’s Anti Shake DSP, to reduce blur effects due to a less than steady hand or moving subjects.
It looks like it could be a nice pocket camera to have, though I am not thrilled with its very average optical zoom and lack of optical viewfinder. I look forward to reading reviews on it.
Kodak EasyShare V610 Review
The smallest camera with 10x optical zoom is getting attention again, this time from Imaging Resource where they have written up a nice review of the Kodak camera.
It’s not just compact, it’s sleek. It’s not just a big zoom, it’s the world’s smallest 10x zoom. It’s not just wireless, it’s the new speedy Bluetooth. As Mom said when I showed the Kodak V610 to her, it’s “nifty.”
That applies to almost any digicam in Kodak’s Pocket series. But the Kodak V610 has a much shorter list of compromises than its siblings. It does make compromises, but they seemed smart tradeoffs to me. That isn’t always the case.
On the other hand, the Kodak V610 does some things brilliantly. I very much enjoyed its many conveniences: using the 10x zoom over two lenses, wireless printing, sophisticated in-camera panoramas, Kodak’s Perfect Touch technology, macro shooting, sports shooting, docking it to make prints and recharge, and even selecting Scene modes (something I’m not found of generally).
In the end it earns itself an easy spot in the Dave’s pick category for its 10x optical zoom, size, bluetooth wireless transfers, good shutter response, exposure accuracy, movie mode, styling, accurate LCD, and the list goes on and on.
Adobe LightRoom Beta for Windows
Considered one of the best RAW photo editing applications, Adobe LightRoom has been a Mac only application up until recently. Now Windows users have their own beta of LightRoom online for people to download for free to test.
“A significant number of professional photographers operate on the Windows platform, and Adobe Lightroom beta is designed to support their workflow needs,” said Kevin Connor, senior director of product management for Digital Imaging at Adobe. “We have over 3,000 beta testers actively participating in our Lightroom beta for Macintosh forums and we’re looking forward to extending this invaluable dialogue to the Windows community. Cross-platform support gives us the unique opportunity to incorporate feedback from the entire photographic community, ensuring that everyone can participate in the beta process.”
Check out the Windows Beta.
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 Review
The Alpha DSLR-A100 is Sony’s first attempt at entering the digital SLR marketplace, and it is the launching item for their new Alpha brand. Camera Labs recently reviewed the A100, and had a lot to say on their first attempt.
Any new arrival in the highly competitive budget digital SLR market needs to be an impressive proposition, and on paper at least, the Sony Alpha DSLR A100 certainly delivers the goods. Sony’s sensibly taken the best aspects of Konica Minolta’s technology including the built-in Anti-Shake mechanism, lens mount, exposure system, and user interface, and added it’s own expertise in CCD sensors, image processing and LCD screens.
The result is a 10.2 Megapixel compact digital SLR with built-in anti shake capabilities which work with every lens you attach, an anti-dust system, long life battery, advanced image processing and a nice large LCD monitor. That’s a pretty impressive spec, considering the kit with 18-70mm lens has an RRP of UK £699 or US $999. Lets put it this way, it’s much more than a Konica Minolta 5D with a new CCD sensor, and already a serious challenge to Canon’s market-leading EOS-350D.
In the end they give the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 an overall rating of 85%. Its highest mark being value at 19 out of 20. What they did not like about the A100, is that it is relatively noise at 800 ISO and above, and that it really just feels like an enhancement on previous cameras, and not a new digital SLR.
Kodak EasyShare z612 Review
For those not ready to leap all the way to a digital SLR, Kodak has you covered with their EasyShare z612, a 6.1 megapixel digital camera with 12x optical zoom, and image stabilization. ThinkCamera recently reviewed the Kodak EasyShare z612.
As with other Kodaks, the info button lets you choose 4 different display modes. These range from a minimalist focus area only up to focus area, shooting information, alignment grid and live histogram. All of these work just the same if you are using the display screen or the viewfinder so you can get feedback on any aspect of the camera. Battery life is fine at 2 - 300 shots per charge though the default setting of continuous auto focus eats through that. If you want to get closer to 300 shots than 200 you will need to turn the camera into single focussing mode.
In the end, the reviewer remarks that he thought he was going to hate this camera, but found himself pleased for the most part, and gave the Kodak EasyShare z612 a seven out of ten. Its lowest mark was ease of use at six out of ten.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W70 Review
A 7.2 megapixel compact digital camera, the W70 from Sony was recently reviewed by Imaging Resource. This new Sony Cyber-shot camera has some pretty interesting features, like 58 megabytes of internal memory, and a nice 2.5 inch LCD among other things.
The DSC-W70’s performance ranges from quite fast to just average [speed], depending on the task at hand. It starts up fairly quickly, and has a very fast shutter response when the lens is set to wide angle, dropping to merely fast at telephoto. If you “prefocus” the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure, it’s blazingly fast, with a shutter delay of only 0.011 second, currently among the fastest on the market. Shot to shot cycle times are good, at about 1.27 seconds for large/fine JPEGs, and it can capture 20 shots or more this quickly without having to slow down and wait for the memory card to catch up.
In its category, it manages to earn itself into the Dave’s pick category, meaning it’s worth considering to buy, as they liked its shutter response, and shot to shot speed, as well as the W70’s color accuracy, movie mode, usable in bright light LCD, and battery life.
Ricoh Caplio R4 Review
A six megapixel digital camera with a 7.1x optical zoom sounds pretty good on its own, but the Ricoh Caplio R4 has a whole whack of other features that Pocket-lint covers in their review of the compact digital camera.
The lens is capable of providing a superb level of detail; the compromises usually associated with such long zoom lenses having been well handled by the R4’s lens designers. Supporting the lens performance further is image stabilisation, interestingly using the CCD-shift method, similar to the type employed previously by Konica Minolta and now Sony on its Alpha 100 D-SLR. The CCD moves in the opposite direction to any vibration caused by the user, countering the worst vagaries of camera shake at longer zoom focal lengths or in lower lighting conditions when slow shutter speeds make it problematic to hand hold a shot.
A large 2.5-inch colour screen is nice to use, performing well in very bright conditions thanks to its single-touch brightness adjustment that can help when direct sunlight can make it hard to compose a shot. In fact most of the camera’s controls are great to use (even menu icons can be magnified to improve viewing) with the shutter release, on/off and anti shake buttons placed on the top plate with the remainder of the controls arrayed on the back, next to the aforementioned screen.
They were really impressed with the styling of the camera, as well as its lens, white balance and colour capturing abilities. In the negatives column, they mention the lack of an optical viewfinder, odd position of flash, and excessive noise at higher ISO settings. All in all, the camera earns itself a 9 out of 10, and a “Hot Product” badge.
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