Panasonic announced a new digital still camera that will likely have you wishing your birthday was coming up soon. The FX500 has a high definition movie mode, a 10.1 megapixel image sensor, a 25-milimeter wide angle lens and 5x optical zoom, plus a touchscreen LCD -- a feature that has us rubbing our hands together and getting our index fingers ready for some serious touching.
The HD movie mode is great for all you folks out there with HDTVs who want to play back full 720p clips.
The company's digital camera marketing manager calls it "a new flagship model" for their slim line, so Panasonic clearly has high hopes for this unit.
Some other interesting features: Auto Focus (AF) tracking lets you track a photo subject even if it moves after the AF is set (this is something new), which is good for getting shots of people who won't sit still, like kids, or pets, or your friend Eddy after too many beers. We're keen to see this feature in action.
Something old but useful is optical image stabilization, which means the lens itself moves ever so slightly to correct for when your hand shakes a little bit (how many beers have you had?) -- this cuts down on blurry pictures. The camera also features face detection, intelligent scene selector and intelligent exposure.
Now, for some reason it is the touchscreen that has us most excited about this new camera, but we know there are many of you out there who are not big on smudging up your LCD -- or maybe you just have a hard time using your fingers to press on-screen icons. The camera does come with a little "pen" (see picture) that lets you tap away with a little more accuracy. Also, it has a tiny joystick you can use to move around and make selections on screen.
The camera has 50 MB of built in memory and takes SD and SDHC memory cards. If you plan on using that HD video capture mode, we suggest getting a nice big SDHC card (the HC stands for high capacity).
And it has 5x optical zoom, which is pretty good considering how small the body of this camera is (it measures 3.74 inches by 2.25 inches by 0.90 inches).
Look for the FX500 in May for about $399. Comes in silver or black.
From Panasonic and
Engadget.
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Like other companies long successful and entrenched in the film-making business, Polaroid has had its ups and downs in the digital age. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001 as it tried to pursue a digital imaging future and was acquired by a private investment firm called the Petters Group in 2005. They stopped making instant film cameras for consumers a year ago.
