Digital Camera Reviews

Like competing superzoom cameras, the HX100V offers a combination of manual, semiannual, and automatic exposure controls. The camera distinguishes itself from the pack with a few extras: built-in GPS, 3D snapshot and panorama features, excellent video quality, and a blazingly fast 10 frames-per-second continuous shooting speed. A full, searchable user guide is built into the camera for quick reference.

In tests for image quality, the Cyber-shot DSC-HX100V was a solid performer on three measures: sharpness (Very Good), lack of distortion (Superior), and color accuracy (Very Good). The camera managed a score of just fair for exposure quality. Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from turning heads as a fashion statement of sorts, this handsome snapper boasts a large high-resolution LCD screen, 12.1 megapixels grab, an 8X zoom and Full HD movie capture. The camera’s high quality optics ensure that the image output is top notch for a shooter of its class, it has the ability to capture a good amount of detail in natural colour without a whit of oversaturation. Its low-light photography is surprisingly good, using the inbuilt flash. Bottom line: A pretty piece that makes pretty pictures and costs a pretty packet!

When you consider the price of Canon’s new Powershot SX40 HS, you wonder why you should be paying almost a DSLR’s price for a digital camera. Then you take the camera around and you realize that the SX40 is indeed worth every paisa you pay for it.

Canon’s SX cameras used the CCD image sensor. The new one in the series replaces it with a CMOS sensor and this ushers in an awful lot in terms of performance. Experts will tell you that the difference between CCD and CMOS image processing is akin to picture creation on a CRT and LCD monitors. This fact is perhaps crucial, for the SX40 is no compact digital. Its megapixel rating may just be 12.1, but it comes with an optical zoom of 35X. In 35 mm camera equivalent, this translates into an awesome 24-840 mm zoom. A lens of that capability would be virtual cannon on a DSLR, but on the SX40, it neatly fits into a body that is small and light, if a tad plastic. Read the rest of this entry »

Although professionals are unlikely to break ranks from the twin photographic pillars of Canon and Nikon, Leica is a brand much lusted over by the fashion-conscious. But, while its top-end model, the £5,000 M9, remains unobtainable to most enthusiasts, the V-Lux 30 gives those with shallower pockets something to aspire to.

Finished in metallic black, with perhaps the most prestigious badge in modern-day photography occupying the top left of the fascia, the V-Lux 30 is a study in understated design. The 3in display on the hack is bright and cleat, and a touchscreen to hoot, allowing yon to select focus zones, zoom the lens and fire the shutter. The top dial scrolls through the usual options, including a fully manual mode, plus a custom mode mat has three nested sub- modes, allowing yon to quickly access groups of frequently used settings.

It look camera manufacturers a long time to respond to customers’’ demands for SLR-quality in a compact body. In the end, it was Sigma that led the charge with the DP1 in 2008.

It was an expensive and fairly eccentric camera, but it put the pressure on more established competitors to raise their game. Unfortunately, this is exactly what’s happened and Sigma is struggling to keep it. The DP2x is the third-generation model, but it still uses the same sensor as the original. Its screen remains 2.5in in size with a resolution of 230 kilopixels and video recording is stuck at 320×240 pixels.

The most recommendable camera we’ve ever used, the HX9V improves on the HX7V with a 16x zoom, GPS, compass, camcorder-baiting 1080p at 50fps video access to manual controls. Otherwise it’s much the same as its little brother: brilliant at shooting in all conditions, keen to use its internal power to compile multiple shots for faster, sharper results in challenging lighting conditions, and brimming with tricks including 2D and 3D sweep panoramas, lenticular – style 3D capture and background defocus mode.

Pocket video cameras were all the rage a year ago, hut smart phones able to record HP footage have seriously eroded their appeal, Panasonic is hoping to reinvigorate interest with a touchscreen and a rugged design.

Panasonic certainly has the track record to pull it off. Its Toughbook laptops have long been favorites of workers who need computing power in the field, and the HM-TA20 looks to have benefited from this experience.

Available in a bright, anodized blue or orange finish, it feels solidly made. In typical rugged fashion, i here are exposed screw heads, dramatically chamfered edges and. around the sides, a scattering of lock able, sealed laps that allow the camera to be submerged in up to 3m of water. Even the pop-out USB arm is sealed, and it’s shockproof too. The camera shoots 1080p video at 30fps, and there’s an LED video light next to the lens.

Turn it on, however, and the positive first impressions quickly dissipate. The interface is cluttered and poorly designed, with large, clip-art-style graphics. The software, stored on hoard, offers plenty of power, but it’s ugly and isn’t easy to use.