Ramsey, N.J. – Minolta added another model to its DiMAGE X series today with the announcement of the X20, touting it as the world’s smallest and lightest 2-megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom.
The camera will be available in September for a suggested retail price under $250.
The X20 incorporates a slide show playback on its LCD screen, a self-portrait mode, multi-frame drive mode, Image Pasting, extended movie recording, a five-point auto-focus system and Web-cam functionality when connected to a PC via USB.
A curved mirror on the front of the X20 allows users to correctly compose self-portraits, while a new multi-frame drive mode captures nine sequential frames of a single event in one picture. These images are laid out in a 3 by 3 grid in a single frame.
A portrait mode controls exposure, flash, and image processing to emphasize the subject’s natural skin tone. Images can also be captured in one of five monochrome modes: black and white, sepia, or red, green, and blue tones.
The X20 features Image Pasting, which allows one image to be placed within another. After choosing the background image, a user selects the frame shape and size and positions it over the chosen background image. The live image is displayed inside the selected frame. After composing the subject in the frame, the user presses the shutter button to embed and save the image.
Minolta also incorporated an extended recording mode (XR) in the X20, which lets users capture digital video with audio to the capacity of the memory card at 160 by 120 or 320 by 240 resolution.
