metal oxide semiconductor

Tech Trend

CES 2008: Freeze Frame

The fastest digicam doesn't miss a detail

A few years ago, most digital cameras took a second or more to snap a single picture. In the same amount of time, Casio's new Exilim EX-F1 takes 60 six-megapixel photos or up to 1,200 frames of video-stretching that single tick into a 40-second movie. At that rate, you could pick out the feathers on a hummingbird's wings. It wallops even the fastest professional still camera, which takes 11 photos per second, and rivals industrial-grade, high-speed video rigs that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

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Shots in the Dark

A trio of new DSLRs kill static to take crisper photos in low light

by Nicholas Eveleigh: THE DARK ARTS With megapixels in abundance, low-light performance is the new battle ground for digital cameras—especially SLRs. From left to right: the Nikon D3, the Canon EOS 40D and the Sony Alpha A700.  Nicholas Eveleigh
TREND

More digital cameras now use CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) sensors to capture sharper images in dim lighting, with less "pixel noise"--colored flecks that occur at high light-sensitivity settings when the camera's processor tries to boost the brightness in a dark image.

REASON

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Super Shooters

Forget what you know about photo technology: 2002 changes everything. The first 6-megapixel consumer digitals are here, as is the first Foveon-sensor camera. New printers offer double the resolution. Here's the skinny on the new photography gear.

1. Autofocus on PeopleInexperienced photographers need smart camerasparticularly when shooting groups of objects. The autofocus in Minolta's 3.7X zoom Freedom Zoom 140 ($179, shown) and 4.3X zoom Freedom Zoom 160 ($199) 35mm cameras is as intelligent as they get, singling out human forms and making them the focal pointeven if they move. www.minolta.com

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