Nuggets: Ricoh zooms ahead with extra nifty features
Japanese camera specialist Ricoh has launched its latest 2.3 mega pixel digital camera, the RDC-5300.
Offering a 3x optical zoom, it can be set to automatic or manual adjustment depending on how confident you are getting round a camera's controls. It's got a host of nifty features including USB connectivity for speedier image download times and 8MB of on-board memory to help minimise image processing time and increase image storage capacity.
For some serious photo action you get continuous shooting, which lets you shoot photos in less than one second intervals, and interval shooting, which captures images automatically at 30 seconds up to three hour intervals. There's a built-in flash, with auto flash, slow-synchro, red-eye reduction or off flash modes. If that's not enough options for you there's also the ability to attach an external flash.
A protective LCD monitor cover simultaneously turns the camera on and extends the zoom lens, and the LCD can be closed with the power on to save on battery life. The auto exposure bracketing feature allows you to take the same shot at three different exposure settings to try and make sure the lighting is right each time.
The software bundle includes PhotoBase for organising and categorising images, PhotoStudio 3.0 for photo fiddling, PhotoMontage for obvious purposes, and PhotoIsland.com to help you put your pics up onto an online photo album.
In all the usual outlets now for £549.99.