Sony Cybershot DSC-WX1 Review

The Sony Cybershot DSC-WX1 offers so much on the feature list. You get a very compact camera, with a 10.2 megapixel sensor. Excellent lens with a 5x optical zoom. Plus features like high definition movie capture and smile detection. However, problems with 16GB memory sticks and noise whilst zooming will not do it any favours. Check out the two videos below, followed by some gallery photos taken with the camera.

Images showing photo taken at widest angle 24mm, then zoomed right in at 5x. Final panoramic photo was taken using the Sweep Panorama feature.

 

 

Technoline BL-700 Intelligent Battery Charger Review

If you (like most of the population) get fed up with having to throw away alkaline batteries, then you need to get some NiMH ones instead. If you are a heavy user, then a good charger is also an essential piece of kit. Check out the review below of the Technoline BL-700.

Product: Technoline BL-700 Battery Charger
Price: £39.99 (for current BL-900 model)
Supplied by: Battery Logic
Contact: 0800 066 4668

Nikon D90 Digital Camera Review

With the aim of trying something a little different... the Nikon D90 digital camera review is brought to you by two new hosts. Bobby and Stevie from PuppetNation are a little nervous on their first outing, but hang in there, give them a chance.

Nissin Speedlite Di622 - Camera Flash Review

As an alternative to paying Nikon and Canon prices, this professional camera flash from Nissin certainly looks the business. It performs almost identically to the more expensive offerings from Nikon and certainly in the value for money arena it wins hands down. I was particularly impressed by its accuracy, four second recycle time and build quality. For outstanding performance and budget beating price it wins our Gold Award. We don't hand these out very often, so it should go without saying that the Nissin Speedlite Di622 comes highly recommended. Check out the video review below.

Product: Nissin Speedlite Di622
Price: £156.58 RRP : £89.99 Best UK Price
Supplied by: Kenro Limited
Contact: +44 (0)1793 615836

Olympus SP-565UZ Digital Camera Review

Impressed? well, to say the least, yes. The SP-565UZ just feels so right in my hand. It is one of the first products that I have had to review that will DEFINITELY become part of my day-to-day kit. Just below you can see my video review and at the end of this article some sample photos for your perusal. This camera rocks!

Product: Olympus SP-565UZ Digital Camera
Price: £245 (average UK)
Supplied by: Olympus UK
Contact: +44 (0)1923 831100

 

Ricoh GX200 Digital Camera Review

I gave up my digital SLR (Canon 400D) for this Ricoh GX200, it was a difficult decision, but it was done for many reasons. The first was size. I found myself out and about a lot, forever wishing I had my 400D with me, but it was too cumbersome to carry everywhere. The second was concerts, try getting into a concert with a big SLR, not a chance.

So, with both those problems solved, the GX200 was always in my pocket and even in the month I have had it, the opportune photos have made me smile. The camera is very compact, think of a small Sony or Canon Powershot, but with a VERY professional feel to it. The only things that makes this a little bigger is the lens protrudes a little from the front. This didn't bother me though, because I had gained a really useful, compact, 12 megapixel shooter.

Around the back is a nice sized screen, very crisp and clear. When you rotate the camera, the image rotates too. It has an electronic level in it too, so you can sure of take square-on and level horizon shots. The menu system is really easy to navigate and the controls (although there are quite a few buttons) are superbly laid out. The top dial allows you to take photos in Auto, Manual, Program and Scene modes. You also get three sections on this top dial where you can store your favourite settings, which is really useful. The flash is on a separate slider switch, so can easily be activated or turned off.

What I really like;
The 1:1 square mode is superb. I use this to take photos for my website and they come out square. So I do not need to crop them after putting them on my Mac. I also love the three presets for storing my settings. They are so easily accessible on that top dial by selecting MY1, MY2, or MY3. Plus, the manual controls make this feel very creative. It sets itself apart from the cheaper run-of-the-mill models though, with rich, detailed images, that seem to pop, rather than be very flat in their appearance. I must admit, that I am not missing my digital SLR at all.
I used this little wonder at two of my recent exhibition outings. Taking photos all day at MacLiveExpo and the Stuff Live events, without any problems at all. I think you will agree that the photos I took look pretty darn good.

Also, in with this kit I got the VF-1 electronic viewfinder. This add-on attaches just behind where the flash pops up. It gives you a tiny little screen, that replicates the image and all of the information that you get on the main display. A tiny button just above the main screen, allows you to switch between the EVF and the 2.7-inch screen. Now, I love the large screen, it is so clear and bright, making it a joy to use. However, since using the GX200 at the exhibitions, I have found a couple of outdoor situations, where the sun was so bright. So, I popped the VF-1 on and the problem was solved. So, if I am ever planning photos outside, I pop the tiny EVF in my pocket (in the supplied case).

What I don't like;
The lens cap is really bad. It is not integrated, so you have to put it in your pocket when you are using the camera, or leave it dangling on the string. I spent an extra £12 on a pop open lens cover, that remains on the GX200 all the time.

This is a professional piece of kit. Produces superb photos and the battery lasts ages (about 400 photos). It was well worth spending the extra on this brand for the build quality alone. Add into the equation that you get fantastic quality images too, on par with up to £500 digital SLR's and you have a real winner.

Product: Ricoh GX200 VF-1 Kit
Price: £359.00
Supplied by: Clifton Cameras
Contact: +44 (0)1435 548128

This review is sponsored by Clifton Cameras.

Fuji Finepix Z100fd Digital Camera Review

Finding a good digital camera nowadays is pretty easy. If you do your homework, good photos on a budget can be achieved. If you need to find a really compact camera, then sometimes things like lens quality and features are compromised. The Fuji Finepix Z100fd reviewed here really feels well made and most certainly delivers excellent images. Check out the video review below.

Product: Fuji Finepix Z100fd
Price: £134.99 (Amazon UK)
Supplied by: Fujifilm UK
Contact: +44 (0)870 084 1310

Epson P-5000 Photo Viewer Review

If you are a keen photographer, then you will know how important it is not to lose your data, or to run out of space whilst out and about. The Epson P-5000 Photo Viewer allows you to free up some space on your compact flash and secure digital memory cards. It also plays movies and MP3 files, so you really should check out the review below.

Product: Epson P-5000 Photo Viewer
Price: £390 (Amazon)
Supplied by: Epson UK
Contact: 08702 416900

Epson DX7400 Review - Multifunction on a budget

There is a massive choice of multifunction (MF) printers on the market. Some try to do all things great (and fail) and charge a high price tag, others try to do too much and end up just a big disappointment. Epson have been making MF printers for a long time now, and their Stylus DX7400 offers a really good specification on paper, without a high price tag. A little shopping around can bag you the DX7400 for just £48, which gets you an inkjet printer, a scanner, a copier, and the ability to print direct from Pictbridge digital cameras. The only thing it lacks that more (much more) expensive offerings have is a fax machine, but in the age of the email, who uses a fax machine nowadays anyway?!

The DX7400 uses a four colour print system, with separate ink cartridges for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is great, as you only need to replace one empty cartridge at a time, with no wasted ink. This is only going to cost you around £6 per cartridge, so it is very cheap to keep this printer running. Many photo dedicated printers use six or more ink colours, to give you better tonal range, but to my surprise the photos from the DX7400 printed out very quickly and were great quality. When printing on normal inkjet paper (rather than glossy), large areas of flat colour did show some banding, but with careful use this could be avoided. For general full colour prints, like office documents, diagrams etc, not only were all the colours bright and vivid, with nice crisp text, but pages shot out at a great speed. Epson quote up to 32 pages per minute (ppm), in my experience I was getting an average of around 22ppm.

The fact that you also have a scanner bed on the DX7400 is a real boon. It might not sound much, but you will be surprised at how much you use the 'Copy' facility. Just pop your original on the glass, and push either the black copy of colour copy button. I tried some pages of text, which gave me nice crisp copies, with a white background, at around 22ppm. A full colour magazine page was slightly slower and did put quite a lot of ink of the page, things ended up a bit soggy. I changed over to some higher quality matte inkjet paper (100gsm) and then tried the magazine copy again. This time around things were hunky dory. A really nice copy, with good accurate colour reproduction.

Scanning is very simple. You can use Epson's own Scan Assistant software, which offers three different levels of scanning, from an auto-mode, through to a home mode, or a professional mode where you can control more or less every aspect of the scan. The DX7400 is also fully twain compliant, so you can scan from within your fave application (eg. PhotoShop). The scans were great, very fast to preview, and a pretty resectable speed for the final scan. Text was great, photos were very accurate, the only caveat was black and white photos which had a slight green tinge. This was easily corrected, so not really worth worrying about.

To say I was impressed with the Epson Stylus DX7400 is an understatement. The software included is easy to install, it even includes a version ABBYY FineReader for optical character recognition. The rest of the Epson suite of software really allows you to use all of the features easily and effectively. The printout quality is really good, for this price bracket it is hard to fault. Add to this the invaluable copy feature, then on top of that a really good scanner and you are onto a winner. If I had been told that the DX7400 was £99, I would still have to recommend it, but for half this price, it is a real bargain.

Product: Epson Stylus DX7400
Price: £44 (Amazon)
Supplied by: Epson UK
Contact: +44 (0)8702 416900

Moixa USB Cell Review

Have you ever wanted to go on holiday and carry one less USB charger. Well, check out the Moixa USB Cells. These neat batteries come in a variety of sizes and I take a look at the AA variety here. They are NiMH batteries that charge from a USB port, how cool is that!?!

Product: Moixa AA USB Cell
Price: from £10.99
Supplied by: Moixa Energy Ltd

Fuji Finepix Z5fd Review

The Fuji Finepix Z5fd is a compact 6.3 megapixel digital camera. This baby is really compact, small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. The 2.5-inch LCD screen is pin sharp too, which is a good thing, as you use this for framing up your shots as well and viewing playback of your photos.

A quick rundown of the specification of the Z5fd will help you to see just how featured packed this camera is. As previously mentioned you get a 6.3 megapixel resolution, a 2.5-inch LCD screen, picture stabilization and natural light modes, face detection, up to ISO 1600, 3x optical and 6.2x digital zoom. The camera has 26MB of internal memory, but no xD memory card supplied. It also has 14 quick scene modes, for things like portrait, night, and sports shots.

The Good
The z5fd has a lot going for it. The size is a massive selling point of this camera, it is not the thinnest on the market, but easily fits into a shirt pocket. The design is pretty much spot on too. The front cover slides to turn the camera on, and at the same time reveals the lens and flash. The 2.5-inch LCD is gorgeous, and make framing up an viewing photos a real pleasure. The focus is very quick and the pictures right up to ISO 800 are more than usable.
There are also some nice features for getting images ready for a website built right into the camera. When viewing photos, pressing the 'F' button presents you with a menu for 'Trimming for Blog' and it does just that. You can crop your image and then transfer it to your communication device or laptop over infrared. This is a nice feature that some users may find invaluable.
Picture quality was very good, with nice colour saturation and detail. The face detection is also a nice feature which ensures that faces are correctly exposed when taking group shots. I tested this out on more than one occasion and it actually does work, it is not a gimmick.

The Bad
There really wasn't anything to put in this category, other than something that effects most cameras of this type. The lack of optical viewfinder is a shame, I am sure with the technology available these days Fuji could have squeezed one in. It is not essential, but something that I personally like on ALL my cameras.

The Ugly
On first use, I put the battery in the camera and connected to the main power to charge. A few hours later, when I went to switch on, the unit would not turn on. After a quick bit of investigation I found that the battery was in the wrong way. Now, I should emphasise that I put it in the way the arrows printed on the battery indicated, but this battery fits and clicks into place both ways. Turning the battery round corrected the problem, so no big deal, but most manufacturers make their batteries so they are fool-proof and only fit in one way around.

Overall I was very impressed with the Z5fd. It fits into the compact sector of the market and is a very good quality digital camera that you can carry everywhere you go. You will have no excuse of missing that chance photo again.

Product: Finepix Z5fd
Price: £149.95 (Amazon)
Supplied by: Fujifilm UK
Contact: +44 (0)870 084 1310