The latest digital camera news

Following the recent magnitude 9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that have struck Japan both Nikon and Canon have stopped production at their plants. This is both in response to the interruption to power supplies, the impact of the human tragedy and damage done to their plants and the plants of their suppliers, preventing the delivery of components. There have also been reports of injuries to staff and those of their suppliers. Canon and Nikon have both donated money to help with the earthquake relief efforts with over 400 million Yen donated between them. It remains to be seen how soon production will resume and what impact this will have on the camera market as stocks begin to run out.

Pentax has just released its new Pentax Optio RS1500 which is available in a wide range of customised exteriors. As a camera it is very much in line with the field with a 14 megapixel sensor and three inch display but the camera’s exterior is interchangeable and comes in a wide range of colours and styles with customised styles for individuals and businesses also available. The body covers are matched by lens rings to give the whole camera a unique look. The camera offers nothing unusual with four times optical zoom and being capable of shooting up to 720p video. It is rather surprising how much digital cameras are beginning to lag behind smart phones as the top smartphones and tablets now offer 1080p recording as a standard feature, the processing power requirement and cost of including that feature may mean the days of dedicated low end digital cameras are numbered as the more highly subsidised and higher volume smartphones move in to the market place, especially when some of them sport dedicated lenses and sensors that match the hardware in the current generation of digital cameras. Other RS1500 features include face and blink detection along with improved automatic shooting modes to make taking photographs easier. Oddly it lacks an HDMI port and has a very limited 21 MB of internal storage, far too little to shoot any length of video and rather disappointing given the low price of flash memory. This can be improved on with SD and SDHC cards up to 32 GB.

Lumix have recently released their FP5 and FP7 models, two elegantly shaped cameras that have single colour, shiny finishes. Both cameras can record 720p film with their stabilised four times optical lenses. The LCD screens on both cameras have grown since the previous models with 3 and 3.5 inch displays now for the FP5 and FP7 respectively, making navigating easier and viewing pictures and film on the camera far higher quality. The newest feature that both share is built in image processing options to allow pictures to be touched up as soon as they have been taken. Lumix’s FP7 has an impressive 16.1 megapixel sensor while the smaller FP5 features a more standard 14.1 megapixels with both sharing the same 35mm four times optical zoom lens. Both cameras will be available in a range of colours with prices yet to be announced. If they continue where their predecessors left off both should be fun low and mid range digital cameras available at competitive prices, price announcements are expected soon from Lumix for both models.