Articles tagged with: digital cameras

Why is it that nearly all cameras designed for photography enthusiasts are bulky and expensive? There are surprisingly few compact cameras that include full manual controls and even fewer still that cost under £150. The A590 IS is one those few.

While Canon’s Ixus range gets all the groupies, the PowerShots are designed to appeal to people who care more about the look of their photos than of their camera. The PowerShot A590 IS sits towards the entry-level end of the range and is a strong candidate for enthusiasts on a strict budget, and also for digital SLR owners who want something lighter for more casual snapping.

Accidentally reformatting or deleting photos from a memory card full of digital snaps is one way to end a holiday on a low note, but it doesn’t mean your memories are gone forever. Zero Assumption Recovery can recover a variety of digital camera file formats from a memory card and it may just be enough get you out of a hole.

The application, ZAR for short, costs $49.95, but there’s a trial version that’s limited to recovering to contents of four folders each time you run it – which should be more than enough, given that most digital cameras store their photos in one or two folders.

Hot on the heals of Nikon's S52c, Panasonic's launched its own Wi-Fi packed camera - the TZ50. If it looks familiar that's because it's essentially at TZ5 with a wireless chip bunged in, so you get a huge 10x wide-angle zoom (the equivalent of 28-280mm on an old 35mm cam), Panasonic's legendary Mega OIS anti-shake and a healthy 9.1 megapixels.

Taking a short rest from knocking out DSLRs, Nikon's produced another of its Wi-Fi toting compacts. Taking its place in the Coolpix S series line-up, the 9mp S52c has a periscope-style, non-extending 3x zoom and VR optical image stabilisation for blur-free photography.

The quality of pretty much any photograph can be improved with a tripod – once a camera is held rock-steady, you can drop the ISO setting and use a longer exposure to capture a far crisper image. The problem is that tripods are big, heavy and don’t fit into a pocket – all key considerations if your camera of choice is a compact. A mini tripod, on the other hand, will and that’s just what the Manfrotto Modo Pocket is.

There are more new cameras from Canon today – its just announced the Digital IXUS 85 IS, IXUS 90 IS and IXUS 970 IS. The IXUS 85 IS and IXUS 90 are both 10-megapixel compact cameras with optical image stabilisation, face detection and a whole host of other clever features that constitute a digital camera in this modern age.

The IXUS 90 IS also has “exquisitely engineered angles”, though Canon doesn’t state what they are. We’re guessing the ever-popular ‘90 degrees’ features extensively, though.

Canon has dropped four new compact digital cameras today, including a new 7 megapixel compact that costs just £109.

The A470 is one of three new models in Canon’s new PowerShot line-up, and has a 7.1 megapixel sensor with 3.4x optical zoom and face-detection technology. It has a range of shooting modes, including Manual, and an ISO range of 80 to 1600. It’s remarkably well-specified for a budget compact, but Canon’s generosity doesn’t end there…

It looks like someone in Sony's Product Naming Division likes a laugh. Still, not a bad price, assuming the name isn't embossed on the back...

[Sony via Gizmodo]