If PMA’08 has any base , it is ‘ point - and - shoot . ’ In the past month — climax with this week ’s show — we’ve had a unquestionable onslaught of summary camera announcements . According to IDC , there were nearly34 million camerassold last year . free-base on the gauze-like number of fresh cameras here at the show , that ’s plain not enough .
I stopped counting today after I hit my thirtieth new point - and - shoot photographic camera , and I had n’t yet gotten to the Nikon booth , where six new Coolpix cameras awaited my inspection . Everyone ’s in the act , including Canon , which innovate four new compact television camera , including a 7.1 - megapixel model priced at $ 129 .
Prices are coming down , megapixels are increase , screens are growing large , and they ’re all getting more fashionable ( at least in the eyes of the seller ) . Most of the Modern models have some sort of “ intelligence ” built - in , designed to provide features like typeface recognition and to prevent badly exposed picture show . But many offer up right smart too many picture modes , and none of them have an optic finder , which intend that you pass a lot of time squint and hold the camera out off from your face .
Take for representative , Panasonic , which introduce seven poser at the show , ranging in price from $ 150 to $ 350 . I spent fourth dimension this workweek playing with theLumix DMC - TZ5 , and it ’s a decent photographic camera : 9.1 megapixels , 10x ocular zoom , and a crowd of feature that seemed more like merchandising points than actual user benefits . The images it takes are quite right , but the camera suffers from the pestilence of the small camera : shutter lag . And , running around the show floor today , it was difficult to find a modest camera that did n’t have some like drawback .
More than one someone I spoke with sentiment that the camera trafficker should focalise more on usability and less on megapixels , glitz and having ten different models , but it does n’t seem like that ’s run to materialize . The call of Costco and Best Buy is too great , and everyone wants a chunk of that 34 million . One friend , who was at Macworld Expo and is here in Las Vegas put it quite just : point - and - shoots are the iPod pillowcase of PMA . They ’re everywhere , and it ’s backbreaking to distinguish them from one another .
