Canon U.S.A. Inc. has expanded its line of digital cameras with the announcement of the 2.1 Megapixel Digital ELPH camera and the CP-10 card photo printer.
The USB-ready PowerShot S300 Digital ELPH includes a 3x zoom lens, “making it the world’s smallest and lightest 2.1 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens,” the company said.
The S300 is Canon’s second ultra-compact digital camera and offers a number of new and improved features including direct print capabilities from the new Canon Card Photo Printer CP-10; 20 frame-per-second movie clips with audio at selectable resolutions up to 640×480 pixels; shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/1500 second; an adaptive primary color filter for improved color reproduction; a choice of nine image quality modes; automatic exposure sensitivity adjustment; a high-output light guide flash; and a new high-speed digital signal processing IC with low power consumption.
The PowerShot S300 can record movie clips with audio at 20 frames per second in 640×480, 320×240 or 160×120 resolution. PowerShot S300 movie clips are recorded as AVI files, with the image data saved in the Motion JPEG format and the sound in the WAVE format. The video portion of the PowerShot S300 movies can be replayed on the camera’s LCD monitor. Due to the new digital signal processing IC, the S300’s movie clip processing speed is approximately 2.7 times faster that other models in its class.
The S300 will be available by June at a suggested retail price of US$699.
S300 users can print directly to the new CP-10 dye-sublimation printer by sampling images on the camera viewfinder and printing them directly out to the laptop printer. The new, ultra-compact printer produces 300 x 300 dots per inch (dpi) credit card-sized color prints in less than 56 seconds. The CP-10 can also be used to print eight miniature copies of the same image on one sticker sheet. Each sticker measures approximately 0.9 x 0.7-inches.
The 18-ounce printer ships with a “translucent blue case with stainless steel accents,” and will be available by June for US$399.