enthusiast compact

Between Canon and Nikon's inexpensive full-frame bodies and Sony's full-frame press of a compact, pro body and camcorder, there are going to be a lot of photographers and videographers lining up to sit on Santa's lap this holiday season.

But if you prefer something smaller, there's plenty of that for you, too, in the form of new enthusiast compact cameras from almost every manufacturer and updates to interchangeable-lens models. Plus Panasonic gave its video-friendly GH2 a complete overhaul for the GH3.

Here's a guide to our complete Photokina coverage. Just because.… Read more

Headlining Canon's barrage of cameras at the show: the EOS 6D. While the company has had the cheapest full-frame camera available since the 5D Mark III shipped and it dropped the price of the 5D Mark II, the latter (while still an excellent camera) has an old autofocus system and needed some performance updating. Especially if it were going to stand up to Nikon's recently announced D600. But Canon took away some of the features of the 5DM2 for the 6D, such as the 100 percent coverage viewfinder, substituting Wi-Fi and GPS. It's got a new sensor, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Slipping in at the top of Canon's enthusiast G line of PowerShots, the G1 X introduces the largest sensor yet for enthusiast compacts with fixed lenses.

I'm really excited by what's happening in the enthusiast compact market; interchangeable-lens cameras seem to have spurred development in the fixed-lens models, presumably as people learn as a side effect of ILC marketing that you don't need a camera the size of a dSLR to get dSLR quality. A lot of people think that Canon's missing out by lagging in its ILC development--and it is. But the G1 addresses a growing part of the market, composed of people who don't really care about changing lenses and just want better photo quality.

That presupposes that the G1 X will deliver better photos than the G12, but it sounds at least like all the pieces for better photo quality are in place. The 1.5-inch sensor isn't quite as large as it sounds, but it's still larger than all but the significantly more expensive, APS-C-size Fujifilm X100. Coupled with the support for 14-bit image data, claimed better noise reduction and white-balance algorithms in the Digic 5 processor, the only wild card is the lens.

First, here's how its specs stack up against the competition (except for the Nikon Coolpix P7100--no room in the chart):… Read more

The Canon PowerShot S95 is a very good, popular camera with some commonly complained about flaws: among those are the poor flash design, lack of a grip, narrow maximum aperture at the telephoto end of the zoom range, short battery life, slow performance and relatively expensive price. With the S100, Canon seemingly addresses a few of these--the addition of a small grip looks like the exception--plus it adds some desirable new features: a wider-angle 24mm start to the zoom range, manual controls and zooming during video, and a built-in GPS.

Here's the product landscape into which Canon's releasing the S100:… Read more

There are two ways to look at the Fujifilm FinePix X10. You can view it as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the fanboy frenzy of the X100 with a camera that looks a lot like it, but that lacks everything that made it desirable to the fans. Or you can look at it as Fujifilm's first serious entry into the enthusiast compact market, going up against stalwarts from Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic (and newcomers like Olympus), with a design and specs that don't look too shabby in that crowd. I'm taking the latter view.

Keep in mind, however, that Fujifilm hasn't released the price, which makes it close to impossible to say anything meaningful about the camera. So I'll frame it this way: unless it can deliver absolutely stellar, X100-class photo quality, which I doubt, then anything more than $599 is too much.

With that in mind, here's how I picture its competition:… Read more

With the Web abuzz with hopes that Nikon would announce its rumored mirrorless interchangeable-lens model today, the actual announcement of the Coolpix P7100--a camera ostensibly targeted at the same shooter--must have come as a big letdown.

And based on the specs, I suspect it would have been a letdown regardless. It has the same sensor and lens as its predecessor. Nikon does claim to have improved overall performance--the P7000's raw shooting was quite slow--so that would be welcome. Plus it finally has an articulated LCD. And as usual there are tweaks to the shooting features, including a couple more … Read more

There's not much to say about Canon's update to its G series of enthusiast compact cameras: the PowerShot G12 is almost identical to its predecessor, the G11, but with similar enhancements to those rolled out in the S95. Most notably, the G12 includes 720/24p video capture--a much-needed boost over the outdated VGA movies--now with stereo audio and a Mini-HDMI connector.

Like the S95, the G12 also adds an HDR scene mode which combines 3 shots. Unlike some other implementations, however, it requires the steadiness of a tripod.

Here's a recap of its specs and competitors:

Given its roots, Nikon's lag in the increasingly crowded enthusiast compact market strikes me as odd. Not only does the company lack a competitor for the popular Canon PowerShot S90 (and its presumably potentially-as-popular replacement, the S95)--even Samsung has a competitor for that in the TL500--but its G11/LX5 competitor the P6000 has been languishing, unloved for 2 years. Nikon seems to be attempting to rectify that with the Coolpix P7000, in part by following the same path Canon took from the G10 to the G11. And really, the P7000 seems like a complete reworking of the P6000 rather than just an update.

The most notable step on that path is a welcome return to a lower-resolution sensor. Consumers will eat up those marketing-driven resolution boosts but the hobbyists always push back, in this case to the same 10 megapixels as the rest of its class. Like the G11, the P7000 goes a little retro-dial happy, with an exposure-compensation dial as well as a "Quick Access" dial behind the pop-up flash for calling up ISO, quality, histogram, bracketing and MyMenu settings; I'm not sold yet on a dedicated dial for the latter compared to the speed of using the four-way navigation switch on the back of the camera. Another recanted feature includes the GPS, though I'd've thought they would have replaced it with integrated Eye-Fi support. And I hope it wasn't dropped because Nikon attributes the failures of the P6000 to GPS' inability to carry it out of relative obscurity.

Other changes include a new sloping-top design with a completely new control layout, a longer zoom lens, larger LCD and HD movie capture. Here are the basic specs:… Read more

Leaked by Panasonic on its own Web site a week earlier than planned--man, is that getting old--the Lumix DMC-LX5 provides a long-awaited update to its relatively old enthusiast compact camera, the LX3. Because the LX5's specs are so similar to the LX3, a justifiable first response would be "meh."

But Panasonic's made some important changes to the camera that I think will make it a lot stronger and more competitive than its predecessor. These include a new sensor, larger zoom range, improved noise reduction and a better video codec.

Here's a rundown of those specs and how they compare with a few competitors.… Read more