The folks at Polaroid have announced a new line of action cameras designed to capture point-of-view footage of your favorite outdoor activities – the stuff you wouldn’t want to risk filming with a normal camera. Whether its surfing, skiing, snowboarding or skydiving, Polaroid’s new cams are designed to come along for the ride.The Polaroid XS7 and XS20 are simpler cameras, capable of photographing at 5MP and recording video at 720p. The XS20 steps it up a bit by offering motion sensed recording and eight LEDs for recording in darker conditions.The XS100, which comes in at $199, gives you 1080p video, an auto-rotation sensor that ensures that the camera is always focused on what it needs to be, adjustable frame rates for time-lapse and slow-motion shooting and even dual-recording in HD and a smaller format for uploading to Facebook and YouTube.Polaroid’s new cameras will start showing up on retailer’s shelves sometime in October, 2012.
Just Posted: our group test of travel zoom compact cameras. The travel zoom/compact super zoom category is one of the great success stories of recent years, with all the major manufacturers offering at least one small camera with at least a 10x zoom. And that success is understandable – few other camera types offer such a balance between size, price and flexibility. We’ve looked at fourteen of the latest models and narrowed these down to a shortlist of six for the full review treatment. Our 18-page grouptest shows how these six perform in a variety of situations, but all fourteen have both real-world samples and studio comparisons.
Three New Olympus PEN cameras announced : Olympus USA introduced three brand new PEN cameras designed to help digital photographers capture their unique visions and share their stories in brilliant pictures and high-definition video. The new Olympus PEN cameras combines the portability of a point-and-shoot camera with features found on bulkier cameras or camcorders to deliver amazing photo quality. The new Olympus Pen cameras features the new 12.3-megapixel Live Sensor, TruePic VI Image Processor and a new auto-focus system. The Olympus PEN cameras features full HD video recording with Dolby Digital sound. The new designed user interface and a variety of Olympus Art Filters and built-in creative features. Find more…
As we sign off for this 4th of July weekend, we leave you with this neat experiment by videographer Jeremiah Warren. He recently purchased some small keychain cameras off eBay and mounted them to various fireworks, giving us a glimpse into what it’s like to be a 4th of July firework.
Just what should we call mirrorless cameras? Ever since the launch of the Micro Four Thirds system, the photographic world has struggled to find a satisfactory generic term to describe similar systems. The current front-runners appear to be ‘mirrorless’ or ‘compact system camera’ but there’s nothing like consensus yet. We’ve put some of the more common options and some alternatives we’ve had suggested to us, in a poll to see how you think of these cameras. It’s a chance to have your voice heard, since we’ve had more than one camera maker ask us which name is most widely recognized. Find more…