You rarely find a compact camera that gives stellar performance in low light conditions. DSC-WX1 is trying to be the first one in this class and it has put high-end lens, fast image processor and new sensor design to do this and we must say that photos under dim light now look better. The faster processor also gives you a speedy camera. This camera has Sony G f2.4 wide-angle lens (which is quite fast) and back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensor to give you the same set of capabilities that was the bigger HX1 achieved. The controls are all located at the back, next to the LCD but this doesn’t make it looked crowded. On the top of the DSC-WX1 there are a couple of buttons like shutter release, a button for high speed shooting and power button. The shutter release and power key are located quite close to each other and we had problems with this. Often we ended up switching off the camera when we were trying to access the shutter button. For all the  [...]

HG21 is another simple to use HD camcorder from Canon. It is just like HF11 from the same manufacturer however the HG21 records to internal memory and the earlier model records on hard drive. If you don’t mind the weight and a shorter battery life then get a hard drive based camcorder or else go for flash drive based ones. Flash drives are now preferred all over but they come at a higher price. So apart from the storage medium is there anything else different in this product? Will this make a good buy? The answer is yes. HG21 has a 120 GB hard drive and HF11 model had a 32 GB internal flash memory. We were glad with the 11 hours rated battery life for the camcorder. HG21 also has a view finder which is now becoming rare. The controls are all located on bezel of the LCD which can be a bit difficult to use, especially the five way joystick button. The screen is 2.7 inch big which is neither smaller nor bigger as compared to most camcorders in this range. The

DCR-SX41 is a camcorder from Sony which has 60x megazoom lens, 8 GB of internal memory and there is also an expansion slot to put more memory. This device is made for people who don’t need too many features or are confused with such convoluted options. What you get in the end is a simple to use camcorder without any advanced features and mediocre performance. The inferior quality will show when you view the videos on a big HDTV. The battery peeps out from the back of the camcorder and below there is power input and the card slot for putting Memory Stick Pro Duo cards. Apart from this, there are five buttons for turning the display information on and off, a key for directly recording on to the DVD, Backlight option, easy button that relieves you all the advanced features and gives you a simple ‘point and shoot’ interface. Rest all of the  [...]

S570 is another compact camera from the stables of Nikon for people who don’t like much advanced features and want a point and shoot camera for light photography. The camera is stylish and simple, has a 5x zoom with wide angle lens and the photo quality is good provided you stay under ISO 400. The camera is best for still pictures, landscape and portrait mode but won’t give you good results when the subject is moving. Even if you are a newbie to the camera world, it won’t take too long to adjust to this camera because it doesn’t have those confusing features and is extremely simple to use. Above the camera there are buttons of shutter release and power key. Rest all the buttons are housed on the right side of the LCD display behind the camera. There are buttons for editing and playing images, changing shooting modes, accessing video, photo and menu for system settings. There is also the four way navigational pad with settings like macro, timer,  [...]

SD980 IS is a revamped version of the previous SD960 IS from the same manufacturer. The SD960 IS has serious drawbacks on its end and they have been resolved on this product which includes a touch screen and bigger LCD and longer zoom range for the wider lens. The physical controls have been improved and so is the video & photo quality but we feel it could have been better considering the competition that other players are offering in the market. If you are fan of touch screen cameras you will certainly love the SD980 IS. This is the first outing for Canon in touch screen camera business and we must say they have done the job well. The screen is responsive and quite quick in registering our touches. The camera is not all touch screen and there are a few physical buttons on the device. In fact the touch screen is used only for shooting features and for the rest; you will  [...]

The ContourHD is designed in such a way that it can be strapped on to your helmet, to record while doing activities on the move. The camcorder doesn’t have a still photo capturer which might be a deal breaker when it comes to competition. It doesn’t have a viewfinder either, digital or optical. On the positive note, the ContourHD is one of the few helmet camcorders which can record in high definition of 720p. The lens of the ContourHD can be rotated at 192 degrees which gives you a variety of orientations for mounting. The camcorder doesn’t have an optical viewfinder or LCD but there are red laser pointers near the lens which will help you to aim and will also serve as lens orientation’s secondary indicators. The lens is not that big and gives a viewing angle for 135 degree for HD recording and 90 degrees for standard definition. The reduction is due to the cropped aspect ratio. Operating the camera is very simple; there are not a lot of  [...]

X-Driven DRS-1100 Drive Recorder is not a camera for taking photographs or shooting videos of your favorite memories but it is used for taking videos of the car to provide evidence in case of accidents. It records data all the time but doesn’t save unless there is an accident or shocks or unless you manually press the record button which is saves a lot of memory. Recording time is increased if the car is driven at high speeds. There are two LED indicators on the device, the red is for power and the blue is for GPS signal. There is also a button that lets you record videos even if there is no accident. On the side of the camera there is a slot for SD card and power cable port on the other side. There will be problems from the power cable when it comes to mounting the camera in your car because the power cable goes up from the device to the 12 volt power point. But the company bundles in a long cable and cable ties to tie up the loose cable. There is  [...]