Canon PowerShot SD870 IS Digital ELPH Review at Imaging Resource
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Imaging Resource reviews the Canon PowerShot SD870 IS Digital ELPH and writes – “The Canon SD870 continues with the features that made the PowerShot SD800 a great camera: an excellent 28mm wide-angle lens, Face-detection autofocus, optical image stabilization, plenty of scene modes, and a few important tweaks to the overall operation of the camera. Even movie mode benefits from the wide-angle view, making personal up-close family videos quite easy and fun. The SD870’s 8-megapixel sensor delivers resolution capable of delivering good quality 11×14-inch prints up to ISO 400, an impressive feat indeed. Canon has increased the size of the LCD but removed the optical viewfinder; optical viewfinders being something of a joke on most digital cameras with extraordinary optics, most users won’t miss it. The 3-inch LCD more than makes up for the lack of a viewfinder, and works well in bright sunlight. At 195 grams (6.9 oz), the Canon SD870 IS can fit in almost any pocket, and uses a battery that can take a pretty decent number of photos. It’s a lot of camera fit into a small package, and I think it’s a great fit for the experienced digital camera user who needs a reliable, take-anywhere shooter that shows off its photos well. And I can’t emphasize enough how great it is to have a 28mm wide angle lens in such a small package.”
Source: www.livingroom.org.au
Zeiss has introduced a new line of lenses aimed at the industrial and scientific sectors but certain to appeal to a certain section of the photographic community with their high performance and retro styling. Zeiss has chosen to release these new optics with Nikon’s F-mount as this is "the most commonly used standard camera adapter in the technical area". The first available designs will be the 25mm f/2.8, 28mm f/2 and 35mm f/2 with more to follow. Aside from the rather fetching satin chrome finish and locking screws for focus and aperture, this premium line is also sealed against dust ingress and water spray. Prices and availability have not yet been announced but don’t expect them to be cheap. Click through for a peek at the Distagon T* 2.8/25 ZF-I.
DP Review has reviewed the Panasonic DMC-FZ18 and gives it a rating of ‘recommended’. They conclude – ‘If you can live with the compromises that such a camera inevitably comes with (and you mainly shoot in daylight), you will get a lot out of using it, even if it’s your first ’serious’ camera. On this basis we think it’s safe to say that the FZ18 – which is certainly the best of the ‘really big’ zoom cameras we’ve tried so far – easily offers enough to earn a Recommended rating, even if overall the IQ doesn’t rate our highest honor.’ 
Announced just yesterday we have our review of a production Eye-Fi card. The Eye-Fi card is a two gigabyte SD card with built-in WiFi capability. The provided Eye-Fi Manager software allows you to associate the card with wireless access points and choose to have images automatically uploaded to your computer and also any one of seventeen online photo sharing sites including Facebook, Flickr, Fotki and Picasa. Once setup you can put the card into (virtually) any camera supporting SD and have your images automatically upload. We’ve had an Eye-Fi card for a few days now and have had a good opportunity to test it. So dive in to our review to see how the Eye-Fi card shapes up. 
Imaging Resource reviews the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S700 and writes – ‘Sony’s S700 doesn’t share many of the whiz-bang features of its W-Series, T-Series, and H-Series cousins like Face Detection or a Bionz processor. But its above average performance powered by AA batteries in an ultra-compact body make it an intriguing alternative. Unfortunately that above average performance doesn’t extend to image quality. Although I found the color natural, chromatic aberration was disturbingly noticeable in rather ordinary snapshots, and noise suppression too often changed the character of simple objects, even at the lowest ISO settings.’ 
CNET reviews the Fujifilm FinePix Z5fd and writes – ‘Though its photos can be pretty good, the Z5fd performs inconsistently. On one hand, I see no lens distortion or focus problems, nary a compression artifact and only the occasional case of purple fringing. Photos look relatively sharp and white balance reasonably neutral. If you want that typical vivid snapshot appearance, you’ll have to switch into Chrome (as in slide film) color mode, because the standard mode looks a little flat relative to most point-and-shoot models.’