Daily Tech and Gadget

Olympus has two new cams in the pipeline according to Let’s Go Digital . The waterproof Olympus X560 WP boasts a 10 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom, face detection, a high ISO sensitivity, 18 shooting modes and digital image stabilization. The T100, meanwhile, is a starter camera that’s apparently aimed at teens, and it’s got a 12 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom, and face detection. It also shoots VGA video.

Liked the lop-eared design and low-light sensitivity of Canon’s latest point and shoot , but wanted to be sure you’d get $350 worth of camera for the asking price? You’re in luck: the PowerShot SD4000 IS, aka IXUS 300 HS, has just received its first painstakingly detailed review. Photography Blog found the back-illuminated 10 megapixel CMOS sensor snapped excellent low-noise shots in a variety of tests, though the camera’s highly-touted HS System features — a 240fps movie mode and 8.4fps burst speed — took pictures too low-res to impress. The publication also took issue with the lack of dedicated physical controls, as it apparently took six clicks to delete a single picture, but overall thought the SD4000 a good choice for casual and experienced photographers alike albeit at a somewhat inflated price.

It’s half retro, half compact, and chock full of adventure. It’s Olympus’ PEN E-PL1 , and it’s the first Micro Four Thirds camera from the company to boast an MSRP that you aren’t terrified to tell your friends about. We’ve spent some quality time with one here over the past month or so, and aside from a few minor quirks, we were fairly pleased with the overall package. But let’s be frank — that’s absolutely not why you’re here.

Panasonic ’s recently unleashed Lumix DMC-FX550 has just been pretty extensively reviewed over at Trusted Reviews . Up first, the Lumix DMC-FX550 — a 12.1 megapixel affair with a 5x zoom lens. The reviewer found the touchscreen to be mostly useful and functional in conjunction with the hardware controls. The 1280 x 720 pixel resolution video recording is found to be nice quality, though the cam loses points for its mono audio, which is deemed “not too good,” while the startup time for the camera — about 3 seconds — is also a bit slow. Ultimately, however the DMC-FX550 is not very much of an upgrade over the previous DMC-500 model, though the reviewer gives it points for build quality.

Nikon just fired off its first pre-PMA camera announcement with the new Coolpix P100 superzoom, which packs a five-way stabilized 26x optical zoom lens in front of a 10.3 megapixel CMOS sensor with ISO 3200 sensitivity, Backside Illumination and Active D-Lighting. Yeah, it’s not quite the 30x zoom from the new Olympus SP-800UX , but the lens can also do macro shots at 0.4 inches, and there are in-camera HDR features, a 40-shot pre-shooting cache, and a 3-inch 460,000-dot tilting LCD. We’re also told the P100 shoots 1080p video, but we don’t know anything about frame rates or formats yet — we’re looking for more, we’ll let you know. Should be out in March for $400; peep the full PR after the break. Gallery: Nikon Coolpix P100 26x superzoom shoots 1080p video Continue reading Nikon Coolpix P100 joins the superzoom party at 26x Nikon Coolpix P100 joins the superzoom party at 26x originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST.

It’s not impossible to find a camera with integrated WiFi out there, but your choices are unquestionably limited. Thankfully for those in the market for such a device, it seems as if Samsung is gearing up to release quite the formidable opponent. Without so much as an official press release, the CL80 has emerged on the outfit’s website packing a 14 megapixel sensor, optical image stabilization, a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen (capacitive with haptic feedback), a 720p movie mode (H.264), microSD expansion slot (groan…), USB 2.0 connectivity and an above-average 7x optical zoom. The Instant Upload feature enables users to upload their shots to Facebook, Flickr, Photobox or Picasa, and for those who prefer to capture motion clips, it’ll also shoot your videos to YouTube when a hotspot is found. Nary a word has been spoken regarding price or release, but we’re going out on a limb here and surmising that much more information will be revealed at CES.