Toshiba PDR-M81 Digital Camera

>The days of disposable cameras and throwing photos on a scanner appear to be drawing to a close. Digital cameras are now available with just about every fancy feature you'd find in a traditional camera - along with a few new goodies like AVI movie capabilities. All it takes to jump into digital photography is an interest and, unfortunately, fairly deep pockets. Toshiba announced yesterday that it is now putting a 4.2 Megapixel CCD sensor in its new PDR-M81. The camera will be shown publicly for the first time at the PC EXPO trade show in New York, New York, on June 24, 2001 and should be on store shelves in July for under $1,000. The PDR-M81 includes a newly redesigned lens (f=7.25-20.3mm) equipped with a 2.8X optical zoom and a 2.2 X digital zoom. The lens has a macro mode for photographing subjects as close as four-inches away. The camera's automatic modes includes auto white balance, an auto exposure control that automatically selects the aperture and shutter speed for a specific setting, an auto-focusing system, and auto-sensing flash. Manual features let you select white balance settings, shutter speed (1/2 second to 1/1000 second) and f-stop in 1/2-stop increments up to +/- 2 stops. The PDR-M81's flash lets you choose between slow-sync for moving or low light subjects, automatic, red-eye reduction, and fill-in flash. It weighs less than 8.5 ounces and has an AVI movie mode that lets you film up to three minutes of video at 160 x 120 resolution (15 fps), or 60 seconds at 320 x 240 (15 fps). Sound can be recorded during the video filming by using the camera's built-in microphone. When the video is finished it can be viewed o n a computer monitor, a television (NTSC/PAL), or on the camera's 1.5" polysilicon color LCD. Still, $1,000 bucks is a pretty good sized chunk of change.