PC Watch summarise CeBIT 2000

The excellent Impress PC Watch magazine summarise the digital photography offerings at CeBIT 2000, these include the cut down Olympus C-3000Z, Casio had the QV-3000EX/Ir a model which supports IrDA data transfer and a Bluetooth prototype based on the QV-3000EX which would allow transfer of images wirelessly over short distances. Fuji also cooperated with Nokia to demonstrate an S1 Pro with a Nokia Bluetooth wireless CF card.

Here's a basic translation of the report by Yamada:

Olympus

Olympus show a low cost version of the 3.34 megapixel C-3030Z named the C-3000Z. A reduced functionality and buffer capacity (down to 32MB) bring it in line to compete with the lower price 3.34 megapixel offerings from Canon and Casio.

Phil: I agree with Yamada's later comment that this product is only likely to produce confusion in the market with its indistinctive look.

Casio

Casio showed their recently announced XV-3 plus a new model named the QV-3000EX/Ir a European specification digital camera which features IrDA data transfer (first seen on Kodak's DC26x's). They also showed a prototype digicam based on the QV-3000EX which features built-in Bluetooth wireless communication.

Phil: For those not familiar with Bluetooth read up here. This would allow fast transfer of images directly from the camera to other devices within range (10m) without having to connect any wires or remove the storage card (imagine that with a 340MB MicroDrive inside...)

FujiFilm

FujiFilm demonstrated a S1 Pro with a Nokia Bluetooth wireless communication CF Type2 card transferring images to a Nokia mobile phone (PDA phone). Noteably the demonstration of the S1 Pro and FinePix 4700Z was very popular.

Agfa

Agfa showed a new low priced model CL-18, this camera features only VGA (640x480) resolution no LCD monitor (viewfinder only) is fixed focus and fixed lens, priced at around US$200.

The Rest

Sharp exhibited the MPEG-4 1.3 megapixel Internet "ViewCam". Kodak and Palm showed The PalmPix unit (reported in a previous article) which connects to the based of a Palm and takes 640x480 colour images which are stored in the Palm's RAM. Ericsson also showed a "clip-on" digital camera for their mobile phones which would allow 640x480 images, interestingly this time images are stored on a MMC card, the image can be reviewed on the black & white LCD of the phone.

Phil: Interesting to see Europe, influenced by the strong presence of Ericsson and Nokia are pushing hard to embed Bluetooth (and similar) wireless technology into digital cameras. Imagine being able to bring your digital camera home, place it on a desk and transfer images from it immediately without having to hook the camera up or remove memory card, or even better browse the list of images taken on your mobile phone and transmit them immediately back to the office...

All images courtesy PC Watch, original text courtesy PC Watch