Friday, February 9, 2007

Minox DCC Leica M3 (5MP) Review

Impress Watch (Japanese) has put up a review of the new Minox DCC Leica M3 mini digital camera. Announced in September 2006, it's an major update from the previous 4.0 megapixel version, with 5 megapixels, a new 1.5" LCD display and support of SD card up to 4GB. The lens is a 42mm (35mm equivalent), 4-element glass lens with aperture fixed at f3.0. There are three focus ranges: 0.5m, 1m and infinity. ISO is fixed at 100.

Impress Watch reports that image quality is not much better than toy camera from several years ago (ouch!). "Color noise is high, dynamic range is low, lens resolution low, color is boring and white balance is off." But they reported on an very interesting "feature." This Minox camera has no shutter, and the sensor records the image in a scanner-like manner; if the camera is moved during capture, a wobble effect is created, similar to looking underwater. The effect is very interesting, especially if used on people. Definitely go to Impress Watch to look at the samples on the bottom of the page.

This tiny but very detailed camera will certainly turn many heads. If you want to stand out amoung your Leica M8 wielding friends, this is the camera to get.

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