Reviews

With its dedicated Auto setting, AF framing guides and 16 scene modes, the DX7440 is easy enough for a child to use, while its P, A, S, M and custom modes provide enough manual controls to encourage greater photographic involvement. The 4x optical zoom lens covers an appropriate range for family snapshots. The 4x digital zoom control, which is an extension of the optical zoom, also delivers good picture quality. A further extension of the zoom range is available through the 2x telephoto extender lens (RRP $129). Another big plus is its responsiveness. Capture lag was consistent at 0.7 seconds, while shutter lag averaged just over 0.1 seconds.

A high-resolution digicam that is small enough to slip into a shirt pocket and offers Full HD video recording.The Cyber-shot DSC-WX7 is one of five 16.2-megapixel cameras announced by Sony at the CES Show in January. Designed primarily for snapshooters, it’s the first to be available for review and also claims status as the first compact digicam with a 3D Still Image mode that can record stereo pairs with only one lens and sensor.

Casio’s EX-Z55 sports a lightweight aluminium body with a large 2.5-inch colour LCD and small optical viewfinder. It comes with 9.3MB of internal memory (enough for four high-resolution images) and an SD/MMC card slot. The retracting smc Pentax 3x zoom lens is reasonably fast and the camera is supplied with a docking cradle for downloading pictures and recharging the battery.

More adjustable controls than any other slimline digicam plus above average imaging performance.Casio has packed a surprising number of controls and functions into its Exilim EX-Z850 camera, which has an 8.1-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom lens. The sensor is larger than average, promising a wide dynamic range and low image noise. The camera’s well-designed, all-metal body sports a bright, 2.5-inch LCD, a very small optical viewfinder and a mode dial with eight positions.

An attractive, well-designed, slimline camera for novice photographers.Available in silver, blue, brown, black and red, Casio’s Exilim EX-Z600 is easily pocketable digicams and offers some handy features for snapshooters. Supplied with a USB cradle/battery charger, it boasts a 2.7-inch Super Bright LCD screen (but no viewfinder) and a fully-retracting, 3x optical zoom lens. Users can call up a rule-of-thirds grid on the LCD along with an intensity/RGB histogram. Multi-point and spot AF modes are provided, the former indicating areas used for focusing.

With its compact metal body and retracting Canon lens, Casio’s Exilim EX-P600 is an excellent travellers’ camera. Six resolution sizes are supported, with three JPEG compression levels plus an uncompressed TIFF format at all resolutions. The menu system is outstanding and the large 2-inch LCD screen is easy to view, even in bright conditions. The mode dial accesses full auto, Best Shot, aperture (A) and shutter (S) priority auto and manual (M) modes, along with movie and voice recording. In the A, S and M modes, pressing the OK button calls up a Manual Assist On-screen Guidance display that shows samples of the extremes of the selected control. Movies are recorded at QVGA resolution and you can add up to 30 seconds of audio to snapshots in the WAVE/ADPCM recording format.