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| Click photo to see larger views of the Canon PowerShot TX-1. |
Canon has introduced a new ultracompact PowerShot camera, the TX-1. Designed to be proficient at both photo and video capture, the 7.1-megapixel camera features an optically stabilized f/3.5-f.6, 39mm-390mm (35mm equivalent) 10x zoom lens that retracts into the camera body and is protected by a built-in cover. The TX-1's 115,000-pixel, 1.8-inch LCD flips out from the camera like a camcorder screen, and has a highly adjustable brightness level. The camera uses Canon's new DIGIC III image processor to enhance performance and image quality in both photo and video modes.
For capturing photos, the TX-1 offers 13 automatic shooting modes, a shutter-speed range of 1/2500 to 15 seconds, and spot and center-weighted metering modes. Its top light-sensitivity setting is ISO 1600. There's also a "High ISO" setting that we assume goes to ISO3200, although Canon has not yet provided details. The camera's drive mode shoots at 2.2fps when a high-speed SD card is installed, and the camera's optical stabilization can be set to a panning mode for capturing sharp subjects with background motion blur. Numerous color modes are available, including options for bringing out a particular color in a scene and for optimizing light or dark skin tones. Other notable features include selectable nine-point, face-detection, and center-spot autofocus; custom white balance; and in-camera redeye removal.
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The TX-1 captures 1280x720p widescreen high-definition video at a smooth 30fps; it can also record in a 640x480 format. The camera also records sound in 44KHz stereo, and has a component video terminal to improve the quality of video output to a TV. The TX-1 adjusts exposure and white balance continuously during video capture to compensate for changing conditions, which is not a given in cameras that are not made primarily for video capture. Expect to take advantage of the TX-1's compatibility with high-capacity SDHC memory cards: It records video in Motion JPEG format, which produces very large files. However, an advantage of Motion JPEG is that it does not use interframe compression, retaining a good level of quality in each video frame. Individual frames can be extracted as stills by the Zoom Browser software that Canon bundles with the camera.
The TX-1 will be available in March 2007 for a retail price of $499.99.
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