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After pulling out the big guns last year, camera makers have slowed down on the digital SLR front—for the moment. At the recent PMA trade show in Orlando, Florida, Canon showed off its Digital Rebel XT (see “Hands On,” p. 50), but the only other new DSLR in sight was from Nikon. There were plenty of compact cameras, though, as well as a cornucopia of lenses and accessories. Here’s a sampling of what we found.
NEW CAMERAS
 D2h redux
Just as Nikonians everywhere began to get their hands on the 12.4MP D2x, Nikon announced the 4.1MP D2hs ($3,499.95 list), an update of the D2h. In addition to features pulled directly from the D2x—such as 3D Color Matrix metering, compatibility with the new WT-2 802.11b/g wireless transmitter, and GPS connectivity—there’s also a higher-res 232,000-pixel, 2.5-inch LCD, updated auto white balance and auto tone-control functions, and a new 11-area AF system that Nikon says is faster than the one in the D2h. But the feature likely to make most D2h owners drool is the larger buffer, which lets the D2hs shoot 8 frames per second for up to 50 consecutive JPEGs or 40 RAW images (up from the D2h’s 40 JPEG and 25 RAW files). Memory card manufacturers are gonna love this camera.
One juiced ELPH
 Canon’s PowerShot SD500 Digital ELPH ($500 est. street) has pixielike proportions, but packs 7.1 megapixels, a 2-inch LCD screen, and 3X optical zoom (37–111mm equivalent) lens in its metal case. Also on board: a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connection, and an upgraded movie mode with a fast frame rate (60 fps) at 320x240 for moving subjects, plus conventional 30 fps at VGA. But the most offbeat features are a set of in-camera color tweaks: skin tone adjustments (lighter or darker), controls to punch up a single color or isolate one color against monochrome, even a color-swap function that will do just that—flip the colors of, say, Yankees’ and Red Sox’ jackets.
Lifestyle pro
 Casio has its “lifestyle” models and its “prosumer” models. The Exilim EX-Z750 ($450 est. street) is two concepts in one, combining the slim, pocketable form and 2.5-inch LCD of the lifestyle models with prosumer punch: 7.2MP capture, full manual-exposure control, an ID-photo function for formatting a portrait shot into common official sizes, and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 transfer. For those who keep missing the shot, the Past Movie function keeps the buffer live so that the camera will capture the five seconds of footage before you press the shutter release; another mode does the same for a sequence of still shots. Fun features include artistic modes for making in-camera pastel or posterized pictures. Lens is a 3X (38–114mm equivalent) zoom.
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