I haven’t had the opportunity to play with either of these cameras, so let’s not call this a review, but more a glimpse at what direction camera manufacturers are going.
We’ve surpassed the necessary megapixel range a while ago, if you ask me - there is little reason to have a camera with more than a 5MP sensor. To briefly explain, the significance of megapixels is for printing purposes…. a 2MP camera is capable of 4×6″ and a 5MP is more than sufficient to produce 8×10″ prints. I’ve never printed larger, no matter how many times I’ve said to people that I was going to “posterize” them.
So, it’s about better quality parts these days, and more functionality…. Here are two cameras with functions that I really like and look forward to reading more reviews about over time.
The Fujifilm F50fd (with an overkill 12MP sensor) has a really cool feature of detecting faces. Most cameras that can do so these days need to see both of the person’s eyes… while this one will capture the person’s face no matter if they are looking up, down, or off to the side…
The biggest problem that people have with point and shoot cameras is blurriness…. this camera also has dual image stabilization, meaning — not only can the subject be moving, but if the camera is in a shaky hand (double whammy!) it claims to be able to provide a very clear, and focused shot.
On the more pro side, is the Canon EOS-1D Mark III - the first digital SLR with dual image processors, which allows it to shoot a record 10 frames per second.
My first reaction was to ask when that could possibly be needed, but when it comes to sports photography it will absolutely come in handy. When testing the camera, Mr. Carnett a Popular Science staff photographer said “That sounded like overkill, until I unleashed it on a two-year-old child running down a corridor. In the plethora of photos, I found that perfect shot with her feet off the ground and the afternoon sunlight hitting her just right.”
I bet some old school photographers would consider that cheating… but the point of this post was to just touch upon some of the newer features that will become more available to us.
gotta love technology….