Nikon Unveil New Coolpix Range

Posted on February 12, 2009 - Filed Under Digital, Ratings, Reviews, Tips | Leave a Comment

Nikon today have announced a range of 7 new digital cameras. They range from the budget through to more expensive and feature rich models.

  • Nikon Coolpix P90 – a super-zoom camera with a 24x optical zoom.
  • Nikon Coolpix L100 (another super-zoom camera).
  • Nikon Coolpix S630 – 12MP with a 7x optical zoom.
  • Nikon Coolpix S620 – 12MP, 4x optical zoom.
  • Nikon Coolpix S230 – 10MP with a 3x optical zoom lens.
  • Nikon Coolpix S220 – 10MP with 3x optical zoom.
  • Nikon Coolpix L19 and Nikon Coolpix L20 – 8 and 10MP respectively – both with 3.6x optical zoom – budget cameras.

All of these Nikon Coolpix cameras come with a range of scene modes and features including smile and blink detection and Motion detection.

Lens Test: Sony 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 DT AF

Posted on August 29, 2007 - Filed Under Cameras, Photo, Reviews | Leave a Comment

The widest lens available for Sony’s Alpha 100 DSLR, this digital-only (DT) zoom, the 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 AF ($580, street), isn’t recommended for use on older Konica Minolta Maxxum film cameras. But Alpha users may love its 16.5-27mm equivalent focal length, even if that is a narrow range by today’s standards.

HANDS ON: Compact and lightweight, with Sony’s now-familiar finely ribbed focus and zoom rings, the lens has well-marked subject distance scales (feet in orange, meters in white). The AF is moderately fast and rather loud. The zoom action is very well damped, and the manual-focus action is relatively loud, with a rough feel. As you might expect, when used with the Alpha’s built-in flash, this ultrawide zoom, even without its lens shade, casts a noticeable shadow at all focal lengths except 18mm.

IN THE LAB: Lens bench test data showed Excellent sharpness and contrast at the three tested focal lengths, in keeping with the majority of performances among today’s digital-only ultrawides. In DxO Analyzer 2.0 tests, barrel distortion was in the Visible range at 11mm (0.49%), and in the Slight range at 14mm and 18mm (0.27% and 0.13%, respectively). These are among the best distortion performances in the digital-only ultrawide category.