camcorders

This week's news includes some camera announcements, new digital imaging technology, and even more on the future of photography.

In the market for a digital camcorder? You could spend $179.99 on one of those Flip Video Ultras, which let you record a whopping 60 minutes of YouTube-quality video. Or you could pay $119 for the Aiptek A-HD, which records hours' worth of high-definition (720p) video on inexpensive memory cards. Hmmm...

Yeah, talk about a no-brainer. The A-HD is a slim, pocketable camcorder (and 5-megapixel camera) with a swiveling 2.4-inch LCD and an SD slot that accommodates cards up to 8GB (good for about 4 hours of HD video--get one here for a measly $28). It captures … Read more

This week includes Ricoh's continuing return, new professional Panasonic camcorders, and insights on 3D cameras.

At an intimate press conference yesterday, Panasonic Broadcast revealed a few of the forthcoming products that it plans to debut at the NAB show this April. The high point--at least for us--is the introduction of the AG-HMC150, an AVCHD SD card-based addition to its affordable pro HD options, which includes the DVCProHD-based AG-HVX200.

Leveraging the design of the older, standard def AG-DVX100, the HMC150 will incorporate a trio of new 1/3-inch CCDs with native 16:9 aspect ratios, and support all the various 1080 and 720 progressive and interlaced options. It will use a broader 28mm Leica lens, also … Read more

New baby in the house? Old camcorder on its last legs? Here's your chance to score some MiniDV goodness for a song: eCost has the Canon ZR830 camcorder for $134.99. It's a Canon-recertified model with a 90-day warranty, and you'll pay a few bucks for shipping, but at least there's no rebate.

An entry-level camcorder, the ZR830 combines a 1/6-inch CCD (bigger is better, and that's on the small side) with an unusually long optical zoom (35x!) and a widescreen LCD. It includes a handful of program modes for various shooting conditions (snow, … Read more

JVC rolls out a pair of smaller, more progressive high-definition Everio hard drive-based camcorders to replace its GZ-HD7 and GZ-HD3.

The new models can produce a progressive 60 frames per second 1920x1080 output (in JVC's MPEG-2 format), even though they use the same 10x zoom lenses, and same tiny low-resolution sensors as their predecessors. The HD6 has a 120GB hard drive (rated to hold 10 hours of best-quality video), and a microphone input. It comes in black, while the HD5 comes in silver and has a 60GB drive.

Both models support x.v.Color, Sony's name for xvYCC--the … Read more

This week's news includes a CES wrap-up, some unique photography tech, and new gear for geotagging your pictures.

CES 2008 is over and now it's up to us to figure out which gizmos are next on our list of Must Have items. Even though I've been a life-long Canon customer, I was sorely tempted by the Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1 that the company says can shoot 60 still images per second with 6MP resolution. Wow! But what if the action lasts more than a single second? And what if you want 2x the resolution so that you can show off the full capabilities of your new 150" Panasonic TH46PXZ850, with it's 4K by 2K resolution? You need a 4K camera, and that's been hard to find in a consumer-sized format. Until now.… Read more

Though not nearly as big as CES, the PMA trade show is coming to Las Vegas in three weeks. Yes, less than a month after covering CES, our editors will bravely return to Sin City to report on some of the biggest names in digital photography. That didn't stop camera and camcorder makers from revealing plenty of new products last week, though; major companies from Samsung to Sony revealed their newest digital imaging products at the show.

Sony made one of the biggest camera announcements at the show, unveiling the Alpha A200 digital SLR. This new 10-megapixel model stands … Read more