What's New in Digital Cameras

What's New - December 2005

December 29
Review posted for Olympus Stylus 600 Digital!
Olympus continues to refine their very popular Stylus line of digital cameras and the six megapixel, 3x-zoom Olympus Stylus 600 is once again one of the best Stylus models to date. Its body design is trim and compact, with a button-based interface simpler than that found on earlier models. It offers the "splash proof" water resistance that makes the Stylus line so practical for go-anywhere photography, and sports a big, beautiful 2.5-inch LCD monitor to view your photos on. We usually find cameras with only LCD viewfinders difficult to use in low light conditions, but the viewfinder in the Stylus 600 "gains up" very nicely, and is quite usable even under very dim lighting. Lens quality is better than average for a compact, shutter response and cycle time are both good, and the Stylus 600 manages to deliver nice bright-looking color without the unnatural oversaturation seen in so many consumer cameras these days. Bottom line, the Olympus Stylus 600 is a very portable, highly capable point & shoot camera, with good image quality, a better than average lens, all at a very attractive price point. Its point & shoot simplicity and 24 preset Scene modes will help even novice users bring home great-looking photos. Another Dave's Pick for Olympus. Read our review of the Olympus Stylus 600 for all the details!

December 21
Review posted for Nikon Coolpix L1!
The Coolpix L1 is a good choice for anyone who wants an easy to use camera that delivers good-looking pictures with pleasing color and plenty of resolution. With its 6.2-megapixel CCD and firmware goodies like Face Priority AF, D-Lighting, and BSS, Nikon still managed to simplify the user interface. For those willing to delve just slightly deeper than "just pushing the button," its extensive scene modes and unique framing-assist options extend the camera's capabilities, making it easy to bring back good-looking shots of what might otherwise be difficult subjects. And if you forget what an option does, help is only a button press away with the Guide feature. While we liked The Coolpix L1's rich and very practically-oriented feature set, we would have liked the camera much more if it had done better under dim lighting, and if its shutter response had been a bit faster. This isn't a camera for capturing fast action, or for extensive use after dark, but it has a lot to offer under the shooting conditions most consumers will be most interested in. Read our review of the Nikon Coolpix L1 to find out more!

Printer Review: Kodak EasyShare 500
How about an EasyShare 4x6 printer for everyone who doesn't own a Kodak digicam? The 500 is the most accommodating 4x6 dye sub we've seen, with an 8-in-1 card reader, PictBridge compatibility, USB-to-computer cabling and WiFi connections. The large 3.5-inch LCD is a big help, too. You don't need a Kodak digicam to enjoy EasyShare printing with the 500. Read our review on the Kodak EasyShare 500 for the whole story.

December 20
Review posted for Aperture Diary!
Apple makes no bones about it. Its new photo application redefines the professional workflow. What better way to describe this new approach than by tracking our experience with it. After all, learning how to use a new approach is half the battle. So we invite you to look over our shoulder as we come to terms with it, day by day. There will be plenty of time to draw conclusions later. And while you do, please join our public discussion of this revolutionary application. Let's turn this diary into a blog!

December 19
Review posted for Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock Plus Series 3!
What's in a name, anyway? You'd expect reviewers who get paid by the word to love the Kodak EasyShare printer dock plus series 3 Review. But it really is sweet. Pop a WiFi SD card in it and everybody on your network can print to it. Plus, it's small enough to tag along with your digicam. Read our review of the Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock Plus Series 3 for the whole story!

December 16
Review posted for Canon PowerShot A610!
Canon's PowerShot line of digital cameras have always been big favorites of IR readers, valued for their user-friendly design, excellent photo characteristics, and good build quality. We just finished testing the 5-megapixel, 4x-zoom Canon A610, a near-twin to the Canon PowerShot A620 that we reviewed a little while ago. What we found really impressed us. It offers everything from fully automatic to fully manual exposure control, with a healthy set of scene modes thrown in to make it easy to bring back great-looking photos from what might otherwise be challenging situations. In the past, we've often found that 5-megapixel cameras suffer a little in the image noise department, but were quite pleasantly surprised by the Canon A610's high-ISO image quality. ISO 400 shots from it showed a little noise when printed as large as 8x10 inches, but would certainly be acceptable to most consumers for typical wall or tabletop display. Bottom line, this is just an excellent "all around" digital camera, and an excellent bargain, at street prices a good $80 or more less than its 7-megapixel sibling, the A620. Another easy choice for a Dave's Pick. Read our full Canon PowerShot A610 review for all the details!

December 15
Review posted for Kodak EasyShare P850!
Kodak's EasyShare line of digital cameras has long been a favorite among a wide range of consumers, as they pretty universally live up to the "Easy" part of their name. While somewhat more advanced than the typical EasyShare model, the new Kodak P850 offers a wide range of exposure and creative control without compromising usability. The P850 offers partial and full manual exposure modes for the more advanced consumers, but also maintains a healthy selection of automatic and preset shooting modes for novices. Plus, the P850 continues with Kodak's popular EasyShare features, including printer and camera dock compatibility, the Share menu for tagging images for printing, downloading, and emailing, as well as the Favorites mode for viewing a digital photo album. The camera's 5.0-megapixel (effective) CCD captures high resolution images, and its image-stabilized 12x optical zoom is a nice bonus as well. We did find its tendency to blur the viewfinder display for as long as a couple of seconds after even minor zoom adjustments rather annoying though, and its autofocus system had more difficulty with dim lighting than we like to see. The Kodak P850 does indeed combine ease of use with a long zoom and advanced features, but we found its focusing foibles too much to get past. Overall, an excellent choice for stable long-telephoto shots in daylight, but not a good solution if you frequently need to shoot under dimmer interior lighting. Read our Kodak EasyShare P850 review for all the details!

December 14
In-depth review posted for Fujifilm FinePix S9000!
As time goes on, the falling prices of digital SLRs make it harder and harder for high-end all-in-one cameras to find a place in the market. That said though, the Fujifilm FinePix S9000 makes a pretty compelling case for itself, offering an excellent 10.7x zoom lens (that extends to a very useful wide angle equivalent focal length of 28mm) and loads of resolution at a price a hundred dollars or more less than the least expensive d-SLR equipped with only a modest 3x zoom. It doesn't quite approach the quickness or low light/high ISO prowess of most d-SLRs, but certainly does well enough in these areas to suit the needs of most amateur photographers. A flash hot-shoe permits the use of powerful external strobes, and it even offers a threaded cable-release socket on its shutter button. (Why more digital camera makers don't offer this is beyond us, it can't cost more than a few pennies to add to a camera, and is very useful for all sorts of situations where you don't want to jostle the camera by pressing the shutter button.) Control-wise, the Fuji S9000 offers a full range of exposure modes from fully automatic to fully manual, with program, aperture-priority and shutter-priority in between, as well as a good handful of useful scene modes. This is a camera that a pure novice can start with and grow into as their skills mature. No camera is perfect, and the Fuji S9000 has its own set of foibles, but on balance, it's a great choice for enthusiast photographers on a budget. A Dave's Pick for its good build, smooth operation, rich feature set, and affordable price. (Oh yeah -- it takes great pictures too!) Read our in-depth Fuji S9000 review for all the details!