 |
January 6, 2009 |
  |
Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
|
|
Articles |
|
The first mass-market digital camera required credentials in weightlifting when it was introduced more than a decade ago. And rightly so: It was a monster that worked only when attached to a portable 11-pound battery pack. Believe it or not, photojournalists used the camera, made by Eastman Kodak, to cover the Persian Gulf War.
 "Having a small camera means you always have it with you, and you can take casual, disposable images" - Paul Worthington, Managing Editor of The Future Image Report By making the cameras so small that James Bond would be jealous, manufacturers are hoping that consumers will take pictures everywhere -- on the beach, in the office, on a fishing trip or anyplace your imagination or creativity allows.Digital cameras, through their portability, can even become a substitute for pen and paper. Steve Rosenbaum, owner of SIR Communications in New York, was recently shopping for a car for a relative. Rather than writing down the vehicle identification numbers, he instead took digital pictures. He later used the numbers to investigate the car’s history. Paul Worthington got a sense of the possibilities recently. For fun, he and some friends went to one of those mazes made out of a cornfield. There was a map of the escape route at the entrance; Worthington took out his digital camera and snapped a picture before he headed in. It didn’t help -- Worthington still got lost -- but it’s an example of one of the things you can do with a portable digital camera you can’t do with film. "Having a small camera means you always have it with you, and you can take casual, disposable images", says Worthington, managing editor of The Future Image Report, a newsletter that follows the digital imaging industry. It also means that we’ll be communicating with each other in a different, more visual way. Here’s an example: Alexis Gerard, who publishes The Future Image Report, was at a clay and glass art show recently. He took a few digital snapshots of some of the pieces he liked, and then went home to show them to his family. Before, he would have had to rely on his ability to describe the art verbally. "We think that using a digital camera to communicate will become as natural as picking up the telephone and calling someone,’’ Gerard said. He thinks the trend will accelerate when consumers start buying more cell phones with built-in cameras and imaging capabilities. Minolta As small as the cameras are, they’ll probably get smaller, industry insiders say. "The days of high quality tie-pin or wristwatch cameras are only a matter of time, if the market should dictate," said Jon Sienkiewicz, vice president of marketing for Minolta Corp.’s U.S. subsidiary.
Digital cameras are small enough now that people can wear them on their belt alongside their pagers, personal digital assistants or cell phones. That’s how Sienkiewicz himself carries his camera, the Minolta DiMage X, a camera with a resolution of 2 million picture elements, or pixels The Dimage X is thinner than a deck of cards and weighs less than five ounces, but depending on settings resolution can takes as many as 117 images before needing to be refreshed. You can also use the camera to take 19 seconds of video. Minolta is just one of many companies on the market with incredibly shrinking cameras. Here are a few worth a look:  Minolta Dimage X Kodak
Eastman Kodak Co. has the LS420, part of its increasingly popular EasyShare line of cameras. The 420 captured images at a resolution of 2.3 million pixels, large enough to capture quality 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 images. It has digital zoom and can record up to 30 seconds of video. The rectangular camera is 4.3 inches long, 1.8 inches tall and 1.1 inches wide and weighs 5.6 ounces with the battery inserted. The camera comes with a docking station. Put the camera in the dock and press the button to launch image editing software and upload images to your computer.
 Kodak LS420 Fujifilm Fujifilm has the FinePix F401, which captures images at a resolution of 2.1 million pixels. That leads to high-quality 4x6, 5x7 and in some instances 8x10 images. The camera is 3.3 inches wide by 2.8 inches deep and 1.1 inches thick -- also about the size of a deck of cards. It weighs 7.6 ounces without the battery. Like the DiMage X, the FinePix F401 has a square design. Fuji gives its customers a choice in small. It also sells the FinePix 30i, which is a combination digital camera/mp3 player. It is about the same size as the FinePix F401, but 2 ounces lighter.
 Fujifilm FinePix 401 Nikon
Nikon has a unique twist on the tiny trend. It sells the CoolPix 2500, which has a lens/flash assembly that can pivot 360 degrees so users can take pictures from virtually any angle. The camera weighs all of 6 ounces and, like the LS420, has more of a rectangular design. It is 4.5 inches by 2.3 inches by 1.2 inches. Resolution is 2 million pixels.
 CoolPix 2500 Olympus Olympus’s Brio D-230 is a 2 million pixel digital camera that’s bigger -- but only slightly -- than others in this category. The camera is 4.3 inches by 2.4 inches by 1.4 inches and weighs 6.2 ounces without batteries. The company has two other models in the Brio line that are similarly diminutive.
 Olympus Brio D-230 Pentax Pentax counters with a line of three pint sized cameras that run between 3 million and 4 million pixels. The weights in the company’s Optio line range from 7.1 and 8.3 ounces; the cameras each are about 3.6 inches wide. Check out the Optio 330
 Pentax Optio 330 Canon
Canon has continued in digital what it started in film cameras with the ultra popular Elph. The newest addition to the Digital Elph line, the Elph S330, is all of 3.7 inches wide, 2.5 inches tall and 1.2 inches thick. It weighs about 8.6 ounces.
 Canon Elph S330
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
© 2002 - 2009 Take Great Pictures |
|||||||||||||||||||
