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Canon has introduced a new 8-megapixel point-and-shoot. The PowerShot SX100 IS combines a pocket-size body with a 10x optical zoom range and advanced controls. While many cameras featuring large zoom ranges include an electronic viewfinder, this model achieves its compact design by providing only a 172,000-pixel, 2.5-inch LCD. With an f/2.8-f/4.3, 36mm-360mm (35mm equivalent) lens and a panning optical image stabilization mode, it’s designed to appeal to amateur photographers who shoot a lot of sports and action with a pocket camera. In addition to its Little League-oriented features, the SX100 IS offers advanced face detection technology that allows the photographer to select a single face to track in a group of faces that are detected at, for example, a child’s birthday party.
The SX100 IS provides manual, priority, and automatic exposure controls, with ISO settings up to 1600. Shutter speeds range from 1/2500 to 15 seconds. The camera’s advanced exposure tools include a new Face Detect AE metering mode, spot metering, autobracketing, a live histogram, and flash exposure compensation. There’s also a Face Detect FE mode for optimizing flash exposures of people. Unfortunately for photographers of night sports, the pop-up flash doesn’t offer a second-curtain slow-sync mode, although first-curtain slow sync is available. Several color modes are available on the SX100 IS, in addition to contrast, saturation, and sharpness adjustments.
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According to Canon, the SX100 IS’s drive mode can shoot at 1.3 frames per second with the autofocus locked, which is not especially impressive for a sports-oriented camera. However, it can also shoot at 0.8fps with continuous autofocus, which should be more useful for capturing subjects such as a player running down a field. The camera also offers a custom self-timer and advanced video features. It can capture smooth VGA-resolution video with sound in a standard mode or a new long-play mode that increases the compression level (and reduces the quality level) to fit more footage on a memory card. The SX100 IS can adjust exposure and white balance continuously during video capture. Voice annotation of photos is also available.
The SX100 IS will be available in October 2007 with silver and black finishes for a $299.99 retail price.
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