Nuggets: Panasonic claims world's smallest DV camera
Weighing only 400g, Panasonic reckons its NV-EX3B is the world's smallest and lightest digital video camera.
This is the successor to Panasonic's NV-EX1B, and has an identical integrated 2.5" LCD colour monitor. The monitor has a souped up viewing angle, which can realise a horizontal angle of 110° and a vertical angle of 120°. This means that if a group of you is out filming, you can all gather round and be able to see the playback picture. The 200,000 pixel LCD also gives up to 400 lines of horizontal resolution.
Claiming yet more world firsts, Panasonic says the camera has the fastest available zoom speed of half a second across the entire optical range from 1X to 10X.
It's also pretty proud of the EX3's Multi-screen mode, which splits the screen into nine small fields, filled with still pictures captured one by one through the lens. Picture-in-picture mode lets you display a small still picture in the normal moving picture.
Other features include Progressive PhotoShot, which enhances the resolution of standard recorded still pictures by up to 1.5 times. There's an i.LINK terminal for digital editing and dubbing, a Digital Still Picture Terminal for connecting to a PC's serial port, and DV Studio software for importing images. You can also add eleven different digital effects, either during recording or playback, including digital wipe, mix, strobe and tracer.
Coming to the High Street now, Panasonic can't say how much it will set you back.
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