1.7
The digital camera market today is a place of razor-thin profit margins and competition more reminiscent of a street brawl than the gentlemanly rivalry we used to see. As such, we don’t see newcomers very often since most companies look at the entrenched hold that the big companies have on the camera market and decide to move into new markets where they are less likely to get a bloody nose. But newcomers do try their luck sometimes, and General Electric is giving it a go.
Actually, General Electric is only sort of giving it a go; the electrical and broadcasting conglomerate is licensing their brand to a new venture called General Imaging. The new company announced a range of 8 cameras at PMA. You can find out more details on their web site or by watching our video tour of the whole range here. Their launches are broken down into four product lines: the budget A series, the intermediate E series, the compact G series and the high-end X series. We decided to take a closer look at the G1, the first of their new compact range. The G1 has a 7-megapixel image sensor and a 3x optical zoom lens. Pricing and availability has not yet been finalized so keep an eye on our news pages for details. We looked at a preproduction model of this new camera at the PMA show in Las Vegas.
Three options are available for image quality: Fine, Medium and Economy. For image size, a large number of choices are offered: 7 megapixels (3072 x 2304 pixels), 6 megapixels at a 3:2 aspect ratio (3072 x 2048 pixels), 5 megapixels at a 16:9 aspect ratio(3072 x 1728), 3 megapixels (2048 x1536), 2 megapixels (1600 x 1200), 1 megapixel (1024 x 768) and 0.3 megpixels (640 x 480). That’s a good selection of choices that provides plenty of flexibility for different sizes of prints.
Picture Effects Mode
The G1 doesn’t include any gimmicky picture effects modes, but it does include a small number of color modes. Images can be captured with vivid, sepia or black and white color modes. These should be used with caution, though since once the image is captured, you can’t undo the color effect.
