Casio Inc. on Monday announced the release of the Exilim Pro EX-P505, a new 5.0-megapixel digital camera with 5x optical zoom. It can shoot both still images and 30 frame per second VGA-quality video (640 x 480 pixels), incorporating MPEG-4 support.
The EX-P505 features a 2.0-inch TFT color rotating screen and auto pop-up flash. It’s equipped with USB 2.0 to connect to a PC or Mac and is compatible with PictBridge-compatible printers, for direct printer output. It’s also compatible with Exif 2.2 and PRINT Image Matching II standards. The camera writes to 7.5MB of internal flash memory and can also write to SD and MMC flash memory cards.
The optical zoom lens has macro capability down to 1 cm, and features aperture priority and shutter priority automatic settings as well as a manual exposure mode. A “Movie Best Shot” selection can activate different scene optimizations, like “Portrait,” “Scenery,” “Night Scene,” “Fireworks” and “Silent.” Users can also convert frames to a still photo, create short movies based on a single shutter, and record up to five seconds of video before the shutter is pressed.
Casio estimates that the camera can record up to two hours of VGA-quality video, depending on battery life and card storage capacity (a 256MB card will yield about 15 minutes of video in VGA mode). Casio also claims the EX-P505 can handle about 220 still shots per lithium-ion battery charge (with the flash off). Look for the new camera to hit store shelves by the end of Feburary with a suggested retail price of US$499.99. Casio’s Web site had not been updated with info on the new model as MacCentral posted this article.