Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Fujifilm Announces Five Cameras
Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 01:30 PM
"What you just heard was the sound of five new FinePix cameras popping out of Fujifilm's doors. Yippie! If all goes well, we'll be seeing these SDHC-loving / xD-hating babies from late August. Let's start working through the list: the 12 megapixel, 720p-video (24fps) F300EXR boasts auto-focus speeds that are "as good as" DSLRs, all thanks to the camera's hybrid auto-focus system -- a combination of Contrast AF (as used on most compacts) and Phase Detection AF (as found on most DSLRs)"
Fujifilm has launched a number of cameras, and the two most interesting are the F300EXR (pictured above) and the Z800EXR. Both use Fujifilm's 12 megapixel EXR sensor, and both pack a hybird AF system that somehow manages to pack a phase detect AF sensor (usually a separate module in DSLRs) onto the imaging sensor. I'm not sure how that is done, but it could be the imaging sensor being used to read specific peaks and valleys of incoming light.
While both the F300EXR and Z800EXR share similar electronics, both have differing form factors; the F300EXR is a bigger camera that falls in the "travel zoom" category, packing a 24-360mm equivalent lens, compared to the folded optics 35-175mm equivalent lens in the much slimmer Z800EXR. The Z800EXR also packs a 3.5" touchscreen. Both cameras do 720p video at 24FPS. I'm looking forward to see how both cameras turn out, especially with the EXR sensor and the hybrid AF system.