Photo Review Reviews section

Pentax Q

8.5 Rating

The most pocketable interchangeable-lens camera available provides a wealth of creative shooting effects.With the new Pentax Q, this innovative camera manufacturer has once again challenged convention by producing the smallest, lightest interchangeable-lens camera system currently available. Although the Pentax Q isn’t a retread of the company’s 1979 Auto 110 SLR camera, its designers have applied many of the same principles to give users a similar set of controls and functions to the company’s larger DSLRs.

Vivitar DVR-390H Digital Multimedia Recorder/Player

Vivitar’s DVR-390H combines a digital still camera, MPEG4 camcorder, TV/Video recorder, digital photo frame, MP3 player and voice recorder. However, the only way to store data on the 20GB hard drive is by capturing it with the device or downloading it from a connected PC. If you insert an SD card, the DVR-390H uses it instead of the internal memory and you then can’t access the device’s internal memory. All functions are driven from the main menu on the LCD display, which is called up by holding the menu button down for two seconds. Ten ‘buttons’ call up the various recording and playback functions. The menu system is logical and easy to view and use. The display doubles as a framing device, since the camera lacks a viewfinder and is only usable when attached to the player.

Sony HDPS-M1 Hard Disk Photo Storage

Sony’s HDPS-M1 40G Hard Disk Drive is fitted with a Shock Protection System and drop-down covers protect the card slots and USB and power connections from dust and damage. The internal battery is charged in roughly four hours when the power is connected, and the USB slot enables PC connection. The only controls provided are an on/off button on the side panel and copy and cancel/HDD capacity buttons on the top. No delete button is provided so you can’t delete files either singly or collectively.

SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash Card

Our first memory card review looks at SanDisk’s Extreme III CompactFlash card, which is designed for professional photographers who work in extreme conditions and claims to offer high-speed viewing and downloading of shots plus the ability to recover accidentally deleted pictures. For our tests, we used two totally different DSLR cameras – the Nikon D2X, which claims to be one of the fastest cameras on the market and the comparatively sluggish Canon EOS 300D.

Nikon Coolwalker MSV-01

Nikon’s Coolwalker is an attractive looking, thoughtfully engineered, portable storage device with plenty of features to please photographers. Designed to work with CompactFlash cards and Microdrives, it can accept other card types via a CF adapter and the card slot has a slide-up cover to prevent ingress of detritus. Its 30GB hard disk can store approximately 10,000 high-resolution JPEG images from a 6-megapixel camera and the 2.5-inch, 117,600 pixel colour TFT LCD screen allows images to be viewed anywhere.

Iomega Super DVD Writer

Iomega’s external Super DVD Writer offers fast burning speeds for CD and DVD disks and is compatible with high-capacity Double-Layer DVD technology, making it useful for photographers with digital images to archive. Solidly built, with a smart grey and black exterior it comes with a generous software bundle containing applications for burning disks containing photos, videos, music and data. A wizard-based interface helps beginners to perform key tasks and launches the right application for each job.

Imagetank G2

The Imagetank G2 is solidly-built, with reinforced corners and a recessed on/off switch. CompactFlash cards fit into a slot on the left side panel. The rectangular LCD data panel has a monochrome display that doesn’t support image viewing, and the instructions it provides are basic, but adequate. Only six control buttons are provided, along with a central ‘Exe’ key that activates selected functions. The operating system automatically copies the files and folders as they are in the camera so, if your camera creates a new folder for each shooting session, that’s what’s transferred. You can track the progress of a download via a message that shows the percentage of data and number of files copied.

Epson Stylus Photo R800

Epson’s Stylus Photo R800 is the first and only printer to combine a long-lasting pigment ink set with high gloss paper printing. It also has a higher colour gamut than most other Epson printers, regardless of their output size. The R800’s body design is functional and it’s very well built. The ink set consists of the standard CMY inks plus red and blue, two black inks (Matte and Photo Black) and a Gloss Optimiser, containing the same high density clear resin used to encapsulate the pigment particles in the coloured ink.