What's New in Digital Cameras

What's New - November 2000

November 16
Announcing....PHOTOBOT, our very own search engine now in public Beta!
Ever wonder where to find that interesting article you saw a few months back on the D30? Looking for a directory to *all* the camera reviews on the Web? Is your bookmark list over-full and under-organized? We have what you're looking for! Our new "Photobot" search engine is a hierarchical directory that YOU can contribute to and help grow. Our goal is for it to be the most comprehensive, authoritative directory to imaging information on the Web. It works a lot like Yahoo(tm) and other "portal" directories, in that entries are arranged in categories and subcategories. You can search on keywords, or just burrow down the categories to find what you want. What's more, this is a resource that everyone can contribute to: Get all your favorite sites listed by submitting them for inclusion. Navigate to the location where you think the site should be linked, click on the SUBMIT A LINK heading at the top of the page, and fill out the form. Entries go into a queue where we check them regularly and approve those that seem appropriate. Pretty much everything and anything in imaging is fair game (as long as it's rated PG or better). Have sample pages from a digicam? Navigate down to that digicam's category and submit your album or pages. See a cool FAQ on some obscure technical topic? Navigate to the "Gadget Hacker" category and post a link. (A category we're particularly hoping to see filled-in, given the wealth of delightfully obscure technical details that are scattered all over the Web.) We've populated a little over a thousand links ourselves (yup, there are over a thousand links already in there), but the real power will come as all of you post your own favorites! Check it out, tell your friends!

November 15
Full review posted for Canon EOS D30!Back at the end of August, we put up one of the first (as well as one of the most comprehensive) almost-full reviews of the Canon D30 on the Web. At the time, we didn't publish many images from it, due to a problem with incompatibilities between the software we had from Canon and the firmware inside the camera. We've now had the chance to get our hands on a full-production D30 and really put it through its paces. In the process, we also ran a much more extensive than normal set of tests on the lenses we received with the unit, and came to some surprising conclusions about the relatively inexpensive 24-85mm zoom lens Canon seems to be promoting for use with the D30.

This new round of testing really cemented our first impression that the D30 is an exceptionally high-quality piece of picture-taking gear. The images are color-accurate, with both low noise and an unusually fine-grained noise pattern that gives its pictures what we described as a "buttery-smooth" character. (A little bit of a mixed metaphor there, but you get the idea.) The ability to use its RAW-formatted images with the standard software that ships with it is another great benefit: We found the color and contrast adjustments you can make with the ZoomBrowser software post-exposure covered a very useful range of variation. Overall, a true "category killer" product!

November 13
Full review posted for Fuji FinePix 40i camera/MP3 player!
Well, it won a Popular Science award for cool technology, and the Fuji FinePix 40i definitely qualifies in the "Cool" category. It combines a 2.4 megapixel SuperCCD (4.3 megapixel file size) digicam with a MP3 player for sights and sound on the go. Unlike some other dual-purpose camera/MP3 units on the market, the 40i is clearly aimed at a more "mature" set (or kids with plenty of money), who want to take pictures with enough resolution and image quality to make good prints. The F40i clearly delivers on that score, snapping pictures with plenty of resolution to make prints as large as 8x10. We did have some minor quibbles with its user interface, found the battery life rather short, and feel that you'll definitely need to purchase a hefty 64 MB memory card along with it if you really intend to take pictures and listen to sound at the same time, but it absolutely has the cachet of technology-as-fashion-accessory so in demand these days. For the photo/music-loving gadget hound, it's the ultimate bring-along. Check it out!

November 1
Full review of Canon Powershot G1!
Today we're happy to publish our full review of the Canon PowerShot G1 digicam. This rounds out Canon's 3 megapixel offerings with a "mid-sized" model, and what a beauty! (Previous Canon 3 megapixel models we've reviewed include the very compact PowerShot S20 and the superb EOS D30 Pro SLR.) The G1 looks to us like a near-ideal "enthusiast's" camera for the holiday buying season, combining just about all the desiderata of high-end prosumer cameras with a set of very easy-to-use programmed scene modes for the casual snapper. Notable features include excellent image quality, external flash capability, CF Type II (Microdrive) compatibility, a full range of exposure controls, a very compact uncompressed RAW file format, compatibility with a range of auxiliary lenses (macro, wide angle and telephoto), and a nifty swiveling LCD screen. Overall, a very impressive package, and one that we're sure will find its way onto many wish lists. Line up early, we'd bet money this one will be a Christmas sellout! Read the review for all the details!