New Kyocera Camera Puts Some Speed Into Digital Shoots
For all of their convenience, digital cameras have one big problem: They are slow, compared to film cameras.
Most consumer-level digital cameras take so long to start up that you often miss the shot that caused you to turn on the camera in the first place. Even more maddening, it seems to take forever after you've squeezed off a picture for the camera to be ready to take another one.
The biggest time-eater in digital cameras, other than the need to recharge the flash, is the process of saving your image to the camera's memory card. It's like waiting for a PC to save a file to its hard disk.
To compensate for this problem, many digital cameras offer a "continuous" mode, where a number of shots can be fired off rapidly. But this method typically allows shooting only a handful of shots in any sequence before the camera is forced to stop and save them.
Now, however, there is a sleek new point-and-shoot digital camera that aims to break the speed barrier. It's the $399 Kyocera Finecam SL300R, and it's billed as the fastest on the market. I've been testing the SL300R to see if those claims hold up. For comparison, I used the very nice Minolta Dimage Xi.
My tests showed that the SL300R is wicked fast, faster than any other digital camera I've tested. However, to get this speed out of the camera you have to accept certain trade-offs. Also, it's expensive, about $100 more than the Minolta, which has the same basic specs.
The new Kyocera is gorgeous. It has a handsome brushed-aluminum case. The lens and flash are on a portion of the body that swivels, for shooting in almost any direction.
The SL300R has a resolution of 3.2 megapixels, plenty for most amateurs, and a 3X optical zoom lens hidden in the body so it never protrudes. It has a wide range of modes and features, and can even shoot short video clips. I found the picture quality to be quite good, comparable to the Minolta's.
Kyocera calls the SL300R the thinnest 3.2 megapixel, 3X optical zoom camera on the market. It's thinner than even the svelte Minolta, and easily fits in a shirt pocket.
Another plus: The LCD screen on the rear can be seen in daylight, unlike many such screens. That's a necessity, because unlike the Minolta, the new Kyocera lacks an optical viewfinder.
The SL's speed is impressive. Bootup time was under a second. In normal shooting outdoors without flash, the Kyocera was ready to take another shot in under a second, while the Minolta took four to five seconds. Indoors, with flash, the Kyocera was ready in a couple of seconds, still much faster than the Minolta.
But the Kyocera really shines in continuous mode. You can just hold down the shutter button and the SL300R fires off shot after shot in an almost seamless procession. Even at the highest resolution setting, it just keeps firing at 3.5 frames per second until the memory card is full. You can take scores of consecutive shots. They are saved almost instantly.
I took continuous pictures of cars on a busy street, and even of a video playing on a large display screen. When I viewed the pictures later in "slide show" mode on my PC, they looked like a stop-action movie.
By contrast, the Minolta Xi manages only 1.6 frames per second, and at the same high-quality settings, it can take just six continuous shots before it has to stop and save the images.
There are trade-offs, however. The high-speed continuous mode works only with the flash turned off. And the camera won't refocus between shots. Also, for maximum speed in even regular shooting mode, you have to turn off the feature that lets you immediately review your shots.
Most important, these speeds can be achieved only if you use a special type of SD memory card that saves data at high speed. And you have to pay extra for these cards, because Kyocera doesn't supply one with the camera.
These high-speed cards, made by SanDisk, Panasonic and Lexar, come only in 256-megabyte and 512-megabyte capacities. They cost about $5 to $10 more than regular SD cards. The SanDisk models are called Ultra II or Extreme. The Lexar models are called High Speed. All Panasonic SD cards qualify.
You might wonder whether you could just slip one of these high-speed cards into another camera and achieve the same speed as the Kyocera. You can't. The Kyocera's speed also depends on proprietary internal technology the company calls RTune.
I put a high-speed card in my Minolta, and while it did improve the speed, the Minolta was still slower than the Kyocera and still could take only seven shots in continuous mode.
There are other downsides to the Kyocera. I found it annoying to have to swivel the lens every time I wanted to shoot, and swiveling takes some time, thus cutting the bootup speed advantage. Pictures from the Kyocera also displayed much more red-eye than those from the Minolta. And the metallic case surface scratches easily.
Still, if the slowness of digital cameras has been driving you crazy, the new Kyocera SL300R may be just the ticket.
京瓷给数码相机提速
数码相机易于使用，但它还存在一个大问题：与普通相机相比，它的摄速度很慢。
大多数面向普通消费者的数码相机需要很长时间才能启动，因此常常错过了拍摄时机。更糟糕的是，拍完一张照片后，你似乎要等待无尽的时间才能接下去拍第二张。
除了给闪光灯充电之外，最消耗时间的莫过于把影像储存到数码相机的记忆卡中去了。这个过程就像等待个人电脑把文档存储到硬盘里那么慢。
为了解决这个问题，许多数码相机提供了一种"连续"模式，用户可以连续快速地拍摄几张照片。但这种方法常常意味著在连续拍完一些相片后，你必须停下来，把影像储存起来。
不过，现在市场上推出了一种旨在打破速度障碍的新型"傻瓜"数码相机。这就是售价为399美元的Kyocera Finecam SL300R，据称是它是目前拍摄速度最快的相机。我对这款相机进行了测试，看看事实是否如此。我用性能很不错的Minolta Dimage Xi作为参照。
相关测试表明，SL300R的拍摄速度非常快，比我以往测试过的任何一款相机都要快。但是，为了达到这种速度，你也得做一些让步。此外，它的价格也很昂贵，比Minolta的售价高出了一百多美元，但两者的基本配置是一样的。
新上市的SL300R的确很棒。它那打磨铝制的外壳很漂亮；镜头和闪光灯位于机身上一个可旋转的部位，几乎可以进行任何角度的拍摄。 SL300R的分辨率为3.2兆象素，这对于业余摄影爱好者来说是绰绰有余了。它的3X光学变焦透镜隐藏在机身里，根本不会凸出来。这款相机拥有许多模式和功能，甚至还能拍摄录像短片。我认为影像的质量相当高，可以与Minolta的相媲美。
京瓷公司(Kyocera)声称，SL300R是市场上最薄的拥有3.2兆象素和3X光学变焦透镜的数码相机了，甚至比小巧的Minolta还要薄，可以轻易地放进衬衣的口袋里。
SL300R的另一个优点是：与许多相机不同的是，你白天可以看见相机后部的液晶滤光器。这样设计是必要的，原因是这款相机与Minolta不同，它没有光学反光镜。
SL300R的拍摄速度显然是惊人的，一瞬间就开机了。一般，在无须闪光灯的户外拍摄情况下，它可以很快拍摄第二张照片，而Minolta需要四到五秒终才行。在需要闪光灯的户内拍摄情况下，SL300R在几秒钟就能准备好了，仍比Minolta快。
不过，SL300R真正显身手的是在连续模式下。你只要按动快门，它就连续拍摄，几乎是天衣无缝。即使把分辨率打到最高档，它仍能在每秒钟拍摄3.5个镜头，直到记忆卡存满。你可以连续拍摄几十张照片。它们几乎立刻就被储存起来了。
我对准一条熙熙攘攘的大街上的汽车进行连续拍摄，甚至还拍摄一个大型电子荧幕上放映的录像。当我在电脑上以幻灯形式播放拍下的照片时，它们看上去就像静态电影。
相比之下，Minolta Xi每秒只能拍摄1.6个镜头。在同等的高分辨率下，它只能连续拍摄6张照片，然后就得停下来存储影像。
当然，要达到上述效果是有条件的。高速连续拍摄模式只能在闪光灯关闭时启用。该相机还不能在拍摄中间重新调焦距。此外，对于最高速度下的拍摄，即使在正常拍摄模式下，你也得关闭"立即审视"功能。
最重要的是，只有采用了一种特定的快速存储数据的SD记忆卡，你才能进行上面的高速拍摄。你还得额外掏钱购买这种卡，因为京瓷在出售SL300R时不提供卡。
这些高速记忆卡是由SanDisk、松下(Panasonic)和Lexar生产的，只有256兆字节和512兆字节两种规格。它们的售价比普通的SD记忆卡高5至10美元。SanDisk生产的型号被称为Ultra I和Extreme；Lexar生产的型号被称为High Speed；而松下生产的SD卡都合格。
你也许在想，能否把上述一款高速记忆卡放在别的数码相机里，以达到与SL300R一样的拍摄效果。答案是否定的。SL300R是依靠被称为RTune的专利技术实现高速拍摄的。
我把一张高速记忆卡放入Minolta里，虽然拍摄速度提高了，但是仍比SL300R慢，而且在连续拍摄模式里也只能拍7张照片。
京瓷的这款相机也有一些不足之处。我发现，每次拍照都要旋转镜头，这就要花时间，因此抵消了相机启动速度快的优势。与Minolta相比，SL300R拍出的照片有明显的"红眼现象"。此外，金属外壳很容易留下刮痕。
尽管如此，鉴于普通数码相机慢得让人发疯，新推出的SL300R也许是个正确的选择。
