Check out my GlobalTV Sunday Morning News vid on a showing of four very cool digital cameras and an iPhone knockoff I bought in Hong Kong:
In today’s GlobalTV Monday Morning News, I showed and talked
about Google’s new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus by Samsung, exclusively
available with Bell and Virgin Mobile December 8. But it will also be available
in January with the other cellcos. Frankly folks I hate these silly exclusivity
games with phones and carriers. A carrier pays more money to get “exclusive”
rights early. What they really do is alienate end users who have their own good
reason to stay with their own carrier. Hey, just wait several weeks if you
don’t like the “exclussive” carrier and make a point! Even if you
can’t have it till Ukrainian Christmas. BTW, we Canadians are getting it before our southern neighbours and it will run you at about $750 before a contract plan which is expected to be in the price range of the iPhone 4S.
This is the third flagship smart phone from Google, meaning
it has the newest OS, in this case the much awaited Android 4.0 Ice Cream
Sandwich platform. It features “Face Unlock”, letting you unlock your phone by
simply looking at it, “Android Beam” for fast and easy sharing of web pages,
apps, and YouTube videos with nearby phones and “People app”, which lets you browse friends,
family, and coworkers, see their photos in high-resolution, and check status
updates from Google＋ and other social networks.
Google and Samsung collaborated on the design of this phone
and what a job they did. The Galaxy Nexus has a stunning 4.65-inch HD SuperAMOLED
curved display that is unquestionably the sharpest Android screen. It’s an easy phone to hold despite its large
screen size due to the teardrop body design becoming thinner on the top, but
still comfortable to hold horizontally. Like the iPhone 4S, you can’t see the
screen dots with the naked eye. It’s also the most responsive Android phone I
have used, also macthing the iPhone. Its digital camera is the only the only
smart phone that can keep up with the iPhone 4S, shooting still photos faster
than one frame per second, although its disappointing to see only a five
megapixel camera, no matter how good it is. I’m sure the soon-to-be released
Ice Cream Sandwich phones from Samsung, LG and HTC will fix that, including the
missing external storage microSD memory slot.
Undoubtedly, the Galaxy Nexus is the best Android phone, the
fastest, sharpest and coolest looking. This new wave of Android smart phones
with the Ice Cream Sandwich platform will surely heat up the one-upmanship
between iPhones and Androids. Most industry observers still see Android phones
expanding their market dominance in the foreseeable future.
FOUR HOT DIGITAL CAMERAS
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I also showed four uniquely different cameras I took along
for a photo shoot in Hong Kong and Singapore. The Leica M9, Canon EOS 5D Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Pentax Q and
Leica V-LUX 30 14.1 megapixel 16X zoom pocket camera $750.
To me these cameras represented a good cross section of the
best the industry has to offer for consumers who are willing to fork out the
bucks for great photography with a mix of style, automation, compactness and
great functionality.
Here is my short and sweet executive summary of these cool
cameras after having snapped more than 28 gigabytes of photos in Hong Kong and
Singapore last week:
LEICA M9 18 megapixel with
Summicron-M f 2.0 28mm aspherical lens $8,000/$4,500 – Not a pick up and shoot camera as it uses the
traditional range finder split image focusing, which means you have to pre
focus before every frame and be aware if your subject is moving toward or away
from you. But, once you get the knack, and it took me a few days, it really
brings on a photography experience like no other. You become intimate with the
camera and the subject you shoot as you take more time to compose and plan a
shot. Sure it has auto-advance, sequential and auto exposure settings, and the
key adjustments are fast to make. It just takes longer to frame your photo
through the optical finder. But the image quality… it beat out the larger
megapixel Canon EOS 5D when it came to the very “last mile” most
folks would not notice. Like no visible spherical aberration (a colour halo-like
band around contrast edges) and richer and more life-like colours, especially
reds, thanks to the Kodak full frame sensor. It was the best camera capturing
the best colour balance throughout a day’s of shooting. To be fair, comparing a
descent zoom selling for several hundred bucks versus a $4,500 fixed f 2.0 28
mm Leica Summicron lens are like apples to oranges, but you do get what you pay
for. The downside of the M9 is the lack of zoom lenses, small screen, expensive
optics, fancy effects (silly for purist photographers) and the need for a tripod
for slow shutters more frequently than do-it-all digitals like the Canon 5D. Since
the M9 uses its sibling film body’s lenses, there a lot of “good deal”
optics for you to shop around. http://www.leica.com
Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.1 megapixel with EF 24-105mm f/4L IS
USM zoom lens 21 megapixel DSLR $2799 (kit) – This is the most popular camera
for wedding photographers, with good reason. It is relatively small, fast, easy
to get to numerous controls and simply does it all, consistently. A great travel
full frame DSLR that will meet all your professional aspirations, save extreme
ISO performance and faster sequential frames its pricier EOS siblings have. Its DIGIC 4 Image Processor brings images up
instantly, an ISO Range of 100-6400 (expandable to ISO L: 50, H1: 12800 and H2:
25600) with better than average results. It has Live View shooting, Live View
HD videos, shoots 3.9 fps, has 9 AF points plus 6 AF assist points, enough for
99.9 per cent of photographers needs and an accurate 98% coverage 3.0-inch brilliant
Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) viewfinder. Nice. It features a Self Cleaning
Sensor Unit and Dust Delete Data Detection. The 5D came through as expected in
all my shoots with varying lighting, but what impressed me the most was the
ability to quickly react to changing lights between sequential frames. Its
ability to shoot slow exposures without a tripod made shooting quality travel
shots without flash, a breeze. http://www.canon.ca
POCKET MODELS
Pentax Q 12.4 megapixel with fixed f 1.9 8.5mm $750 kit, along
with 5-10 mm f2.8-4.5 zoom $1050 (two lens combo) – This tiny mirrorless interchangeable lens
camera sports the same size sensor as most pocket consumer cameras. But you
have to see it to believe how much better the Q performs. It uses back wired
sensor technology like the new iPhone 4S for clearly better quality noise-free photos,
especially when pushed to higher ISO settings. It was unquestionably the best
camera in this group for capturing images in dark places, especially handheld
photography. It wasn’t the fastest responding camera but its ability to
“get the photo” and tiny tiny size and weight make it a contender for
folks who want better than cellphone or consumer pocket camera photos. It also
shoots raw format and excellent shake-free full HD video and features a smart
quick button multiple settings selector. I would definitely choose the 3X zoom
over the cheaper fixed 8.5 mm lens which although sharp and small, cuts your
shooting range and views. http://www.pentax.ca
LEICA V-LUX 30 14.1 megapixel 16X zoom pocket camera $750 –
This is one of Leica’s several point-and-shoots best suited to folks who want a
lot of features and wide zoom range. The V-LUX 30 is built solid and is very
compact for what it does. Like the Pentax Q it simply works and gets the impossible
pictures. It has an extended Scene mode with two quick dial memory settings for
frequently used scene modes. Amusingly, there’s even a stern safety reminder to
turn the camera off during landings and takeoffs when you select the aerial
scene mode. The 3-inch touch screen is not the sharpest, but its bright and
viewable from extreme angles for creative photography. The GPS is very
responsive and acts as a great reminder of where each photo was taken as the
years go by. Although not the top full HD, the V-LUX 30’s 720p HD is more than
adequate for capturing descent video snaps of your travels with excellent
sound.
iPhone4 clone in China I bought for $26 complete with TV antenna. Wow! Not!I am sure you had a chuckle in my Global Sunday Morning News
show yesterday when I showed a peek view of an iPhone5 prototype, complete with
extendable antenna for unquestionably better reception, two sim card slots,
external microSD memory expansion, replaceable battery and live TV tuner…all
for only $26, available in Hong Kong. Don’t be fooled if you see a cheap iPhone4 online!
OK, I was kidding, but setting international copyright
illegalities aside, you have to hand it to how far our friends in China will go
to copy the world’s most popular smart phone. BTW, it’s not very well made, it
has a lousy VGA screen, terrible camera and video, yet from a few feet away it
looks like an iPhone.
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