August 2002 news and reviews

Nikon has today announced the new four megapixel Coopix 4300. This new digital camera is based on the popular Coolpix 885 but has been upgraded with a four megapixel sensor. A quick glance down the features and specifications and this camera appears to be operationally identical to the 885. Just like the Coolpix 885 the 4300 will appear in both black and silver bodies (silver for the US market this time around).

Total Digital Photography is a new magazine from the makers of Photography Monthly, Professional Photographer and Which Camera. The magazine is written by an established editorial team based here in London. Total Digital Photography's style is fresh and modern with a wide range of articles from news to reviews as well as lots of detail technique tutorials. To complement the magazine there's also a new website which contains image downloads, a kit guide and various other features. Congratulations and best wishes to the entire totaldp team from everyone at dpreview.com! (Magazine will be on the shelves in the UK tomorrow and in the US a few days later).

Thanks to an anonymous contributor who noted that Sony's own memorystick.org website has a road map showing images of new Memory Stick (Magic Gate) in capacities of 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB and 4GB. According to this road map capacities up to 1 GB this year with 2 and 4 GB coming in 2004 and 2005. Also interesting is that the half-sized Duo should also be available in 256 MB, 512 MB and 1 GB capacities.

State Street Direct Online, our online retail affiliate has opened their new Sony Store. The Sony Digital Imaging Center includes products from Sony's digital camera and camcorder lines. As an opening promotion State Street Direct are offering free overnight shipping on all Sony Digital Cameras and Camcorders. All those users who have been waiting to order their Sony products through dpreview can now do so. All orders help to support this site.

Just posted! Our full in-depth review of Nikon's Coolpix 5700. The 5700 builds and improves on the Coolpix 5000, a new big eight times optical zoom lens, a smaller but brighter flip-out and twist LCD and an excellent EVF (Electronic View Finder - the same we first saw on the Fujifilm FinePix S602 Zoom). See how the Coolpix 5700 performed in our tests...

Kyocera Germany has today announced the five megapixel Finecam S5. This camera will be introduced at Photokina (25th September). The camera is an ultra-compact which is clearly based on the S4 design. This camera appears to be another new five megapixel based on the new five megapixel 1/1.8" CCD. Also mentioned in this news release is a new digital Contax TVS which is described as a "5 Megapixel for the semiprofessional use", sounds interesting.

Moshe Alima, webmaster the Hebrew website digital-camera.co.il yesterday published a press release from Olympus of a new camera called the C-5050 Zoom. According to his information this new camera will have a five megapixel sensor, a bright F1.8 - F2.6 three times optical zoom lens, a flash hot shoe and a tiltiing LCD display. According to Moshe's information the new camera will support xD-Picture Card, SmartMedia and Compact Flash (Type I/II). The press release is dated 19th August so we're likely to find out much more tomorrow.

Just posted! Our full in-depth review of a production Nikon Coolpix 4500. The Coolpix 4500 is the latest in a line of split-bodied Coolpix digital cameras which first started back in 1998 with the Coolpix 900. The 4500 has a smaller and cleaner body design which utilizes all of the best bits of the split-bodied design but removes some of the design mistakes made along the way. The 4500 has a four megapixel CCD sensor and four times optical zoom lens. See how the Coolpix 4500 performed in our tests...

Taiwanese manufacturer Apacer Technology in conjunction with SST of Sunnyvale, California have announced a CompactFlash card designed specifically to improve write performance. The new card is claimed to have a write speed of up to 4 MB/sec, it achieves this by multi-tasking the write process to four commands at a time. The card will be priced higher than normal cards and we have yet to see if its performance lives up to its billing. Remember that Compact Flash write performance is heavily dependent on the throughput of the digital camera's CPU and CF interface, this new card would probably only be useful for high-end D-SLR users.

Nikon has today announced a recall of some Nikon Coolpix 2000 digital cameras. Nikon UK: "A possible mechanical fault has been discovered in a small number of Coolpix 2000 digital cameras. This potential fault can result in overheating within the battery compartment. Whilst it is highly unlikely that this will cause injury to users of this product, the problem is sufficient to result in the melting of the outside casing, causing irreversible damage to the camera." A range of serial numbers is available in the body of this news article to help you to identify if your camera is affected.

Seasoned professional photographer and author Thom Hogan has today announced that his 265 page eBook on the Nikon D100 is shipping. "byThom Press today announced that it had begun shipping Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the Nikon D100. The 265-page eBook is completely searchable, cross-referenced, indexed, and bookmarked, making it easy to hunt down specific information about the camera."

Just posted! Our full review of Fujifilm's FinePix S2 Pro digital SLR. The S2 Pro is the much awaited successor to the acclaimed if slightly understated S1 Pro. The S2 Pro is based around Nikon's F80 (N80) film SLR body and so looks very much like Nikon's D100. The S2 Pro utilizes Fujifilm's latest generation of SuperCCD sensor, with an effective resolution of 6.2 megapixels. So just how well does this camera perform in our tests? You'll have to read the review...

We don't normally cover camcorders here but this one does seem fairly significant for its still image resolution. The new Sony Network Handycam IP220K (DCR-IP220K) is the first camcorder (that we know of) which has a 2.1 megapixel CCD and can capture 1600 x 1200 still images (although we will reserve judgement on image quality until we see some samples). The IP220K records video the MicroMV, still images onto Memory Stick, has a 10x optical zoom lens, a 180,000 pixel EVF,a 2.5" LCD and is equipped with Bluetooth. More specifications inside.

Fujifilm has today announced five new digital cameras, all of these cameras use the recently announced xD Picture Card storage. Just to add more confusion to matters three of the cameras will have different names in the US than in Europe or Japan (nice move). US names: FinePix A200 (AKA. A202), FinePix 2650 (AKA. A204), FinePix A203, FinePix A303, FinePix 3800 (AKA. S304). As if consumers weren't confused enough by the announcement of so many new models...