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Megapixels have been
ricocheting for the last few weeks as digital camera
manufacturers ramp up their resolution.
First came the actual shipping of the 5mp
Minolta Dimage 7 (a column next week, I promise).
Then Olympus dropped a bomb with the 5mp
E-20 which should give the Dimage a run for its money with a
focus screen SLR configuration.
Add to the bombardment Canon's
announcement of its upgrade of the Powershot G2, already an
excellent camera but now with a 4mp CCD. And Sony's Cybershot
S85 with 4mp and a Zeiss f:2.0 34mm-102mm zoom lens.
Finally, Nikon announced the Coolpix 5000,
a 5mp machine that represents a 2 million pixel jump and a
radical departure from the CP995.
Nikon has abandoned the swivel head
concept of its previous Coolpix cameras for a more Canon-like
approach with a swiveling LCD. Indeed, the CP5000 has a very
strong resemblance to the Canon Powershot G2 except for the
Nikon matte black finish.
I like the new LCD arrangement and would
even better if Nikon would supply an infrared remote controller
as Canon does… ideal for self portraits.
On paper, the addition of a hot shoe is a
big improvement while the extensible zoom lens seems a step
back. I can just hope it's as sharp a lens as the CP990 and its
ilk possess. The move to a wider lens (now 28mm equiv) is one I
favor, even at the expense of a shorter tele focal length.
While I'm very enthusiastic about the
CP5000, especially since I didn't invest in a CP995 at 3.31mp,
lessons learned from testing the Dimage 7 leave several
questions to be answered.
First, what kind of battery life will the
CP5000 have? Nikon will ship it with the rechargeable EN-EL1
lithium ion battery (and charger) which provides up to two hours
of shooting with the CP995. However, the 5.1mp Minolta asked for
a recharge about every 50 minutes.
Interestingly, Nikon's news release on the
5000 mentions an optional power pack that uses six AA batteries
(NiMHs of course).
Second, how fast will the camera's
processor download images to CF cards. A single uncompressed
TIFF took about 35 seconds on the Dimage, a JPG (high) took
about 15. I'm hoping for a faster processor with the Nikon.
Nikon claims "very little shutter lag" and
up to three frames per second at full resolution so continuous
shooting should eliminate any single image download delays.
These are problems not caused by the
cameras themselves (in the case of the Dimage 7) but by the
sheer size of the image file and processing power required. As
camera resolutions go higher, the prosumer digital camera makers
are going to have to come up with bigger storage devices and
faster in-camera processors. After all, lots of resolution
doesn't matter if the camera is reduced to the speed of a view
camera. |