Camera Makers Roll Out Spring, Summer Models

By Greg Tarr On May 3 2010 - 4:01am

NEW YORK — Heading into the important spring/summer selling season for digital cameras, major brands have started shipping key new camera introductions to address what some manufacturers have reported as stronger- than-expected early season market demand.

Eastman Kodak has said it has started shipping the Kodak Slice ($350 suggested retail), which made its debut at the International CES in January.

The camera features touchscreen LCD control, a sleek, thin body design, the ability to store up to 5,000 pictures in HD resolution, and the ability to use face recognition to sort through thousands of pictures by person, place, date, or occasion in order to more easily locate and share images.

Also shipping is the Kodak Easyshare M580 digital camera ($200) featuring a Share button to tag pictures directly on the camera for easy emailing and uploading to photo and social networking sites, including the Kodak Gallery, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Tagged images can also be sent to Kodak’s Pulse digital frames.

For videos on the go, Kodak is shipping the Playsport weather-resistant pocket video camera ($150), featuring a rugged body design that is water resistant to 10 feet and features built-in software and USB cable output for fast uploading to a PC or Web sites including YouTube and Facebook.

Fujifilm recently started shipping its FinePix HS10 big-zoom bridge camera ($500 suggested retail). It has a 10- megapixel CMOS sensor, a 30x zoom range (24-720mm equivalent) and an advanced digital image-stabilization system. The camera will also shoot video in up to 1080p HD resolution.

Also shipping now is the FinePix F80EXR ($300) compact digital camera with Fuji ’s EXR technology, a Fujinon 10x wide-angle optical zoom lens, a 12-megapixel Super CCD EXR sensor, a 3-inch LCD, face recognition, pet detection and HD movie capture at 720p resolution.

The FinePix Z700EXR ($280) is also available now offering EXR technology, a touchscreen LCD, 3.5-inch widescreen LCD, 12-megapixel Super CCD EXR sensor, a Fujinon 5x periscopic optical zoom lens (36-180mm equivalent) and ISO levels of up to 1,600 at full resolution. It will shoot video in up to 720p HD resolution.

Nikon’s Coolpix S6000 ($250 suggested retail) compact point-and-shoot digicam recently started shipping to dealers offering 14.2-megapixel resolution, 2.7- inch 230,000-dot LCD screen, 7x zoom lens, optical VR, ISO 3200 sensitivity and video capture at up to HD 720p/30 fps resolution in the MOV format with H.264 compression. A dedicated movie button is included. The startup time is 0.75 seconds and shutter lag is 0.3 seconds. The S6000 is available in black, silver, red and bronze.

Olympus’ third-generation Micro Four Thirds Pen camera, the E-PL1 ($600 suggested retail), is now available at retail. The camera includes a 12.3-megapixel Live MOS image sensor, M.Zuiko ED 14-42mm lens, a direct-record button for HD movies and new Live Guide functionality to simplify the camera’s usage by new photographers.

The camera also includes 19 sceneselect modes, from portraits to sunset shots. Automatic features include Intelligent Auto (iAuto), face detection, incamera panorama, iEnhance and Share (uses HDMI connection to a TV for playback using a remote).

The E-PL1 is available in three new body colors: black, champagne gold and slate blue.

Panasonic said it has started shipping its new Lumix G2 and G10 Micro Four Thirds digital cameras, with hybrid functionality ranging between a compact point-and-shoot and D-SLR with interchangeable lenses.

The latest additions to the company’s G-series digital single lens (DSL) Micro Four Thirds cameras will ship in late May in a choice of red, blue and black colors. The Lumix DMC-G10 will carry a $600 suggested retail and the DMCG2 will be priced at $800.

The G2, which replaces the G1, includes a moveable touchscreen LCD that lets users adjust the autofocus (AF) location by touching the subject on the large 3-inch 460,000-dot high-resolution display.

The Lumix G2 shoots 720p HD video in the AVCHD Lite compression format.

The G10 is presented as an affordable, high-performance compact digital interchangeable- lens camera. It records 720p HD video and offers the option of using the JPEG, QVGA, VGA and WVGA video formats.

Both models come equipped with the Lumix G Vario 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA OIS lenses that are a 35mm camera equivalent range of 28- 84mm.