Click to Enlarge

Gallery Preview

Click to view (149 Total)

It's no substitute for an underwater housing, but this tiny camcorder takes the worry out of shooting in the rain. Snorkeling video (at 16:9 HDTV proportions if you like) should be fine too, because the Xacti E1 can handle depths of up to five feet for as long as an hour. The new model shoots in MPEG-4 format, allowing you to squeeze about five hours of VGA-quality video on a stamp-sized 4GB SD memory card, which can now be had for as little as $50. And though it's a little more than four inches high and weighs a mere half pound, it has a 2.5-inch flip-out color LCD and a 5X optical zoom -- just as useful for stills, which it can shoot at a resolution of six megapixels in JPEG. About $500.

Duracell PowerPix batteries

If you must use conventional AA batteries in your photo gear, you really should be using rechargeables -- a topic covered in American Photo's September/October conservation issue. But this battery may be the next best thing in a disposable, because like a lithium AA cell (available from Energizer) it lasts much longer than a conventional alkaline battery. It owes that performance to its newly-developed, mercury-free NiOH (Nickel Oxy Hydroxide) formulation. About $9 (pack of four).

• Print
• Stumble It