New Ricoh camera continues company's slow re-entry into U.S.

After a several-year hiatus, Ricoh re-entered the U.S. digital camera market last year with the GR Digital II. That camera should feel a bit less lonely on the shelves now that Ricoh has announced another U.S.-bound model: the R8.

The compact R8 uses a 1/2.3-inch 10-megapixel CCD and features a relatively slow but relatively wide f/3.3-5.2 28mm-200mm-equivalent 7.5x zoom lens. It also incorporates CCD-shift image stabilization and a somewhat high-resolution 460,000-pixel 2.7-inch LCD display. Although it offers the ability to select your autofocus/autoexposure target point, it lacks aperture- and shutter-priority exposure modes.

Ricoh expects to ship the R8 in early March for $399. Ricoh simultaneously announced the 10-megapixel, 5x zoom R50, but that's just for our buddies across the oceans.