Digital Home Thoughts: The New Ricoh CX1 Digital Camera: HDR Built In!

"Ricoh has launched the CX1, a CMOS-based zoom compact camera. The CX1 puts a 9 megapixel CMOS sensor in a R10-like body offering a 28-200mm equivalent zoom range but increasing the screen resolution to 920,000 dots (unusually good for a compact camera). The new sensor allows high-speed continuous shooting (up to 120 frames per second at 640x480 pixel resolution), and has a series of additional technologies to boost dynamic range. The first is a multiple exposure mode that effectively produces in-camera HDR images, the second is a system that uses red and blue data to calculate a green value when the green channel over-exposes."

This new camera has some interesting features that set it apart from other compact cameras. The first is that high dynamic range (HDR) photography is built in. The camera automatically combines two images into one HDR image. The second new feature is that the VGA movie mode takes 120 frames per second! I remember when 15 was the norm and 30 was the high end. Other new features are: a CMOS chip instead of a CCD, a 920,000 pixel screen and a 7X zoom. I can't wait for the sample images.