HP Photosmart R707 Review
At press briefings during PMA 2004 HP staff quietly admitted they had finally realized that the company's digital cameras suffered from something of an 'image problem'. Big, seemingly designed to resemble a house brick, and made from the kind of materials normally found only on the dashboard of a 1980's hatchback, the Photosmart range simply couldn't compete with the slick, shiny and keenly priced Far Eastern offerings. From now on, we were told, HP cameras would be designed for style, speed and ease of use, and would no longer be twice the size of their direct competitors. The 5 megapixel, 3x zoom, Photosmart R707 is the first of this new wave of slimmed-down, metal-bodied HP cameras, offering a tempting mix of thoughtful design and some genuinely innovative features. Most of these are aimed at ensuring less experienced users avoid common photographic pitfalls, something possible mainly due to the inclusion of a clever Texas Instruments Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The power of the DSP is obvious when you look at some of the features it has allowed HP to shoehorn into the R707:
- Adaptive lighting technology ('digital fill flash')
- In-camera red-eye removal
- MPEG movie mode
- Comprehensive on-screen camera instructions
- In-camera panorama stitching (preview)
- 'Image advice' - on-screen help system that analyses saved pictures, identifies problems and suggests how they could have been avoided.
Key specifications
| Street price |
• US: $321
• UK: £208 |
| Body Material |
Stainless steel and 'rubberized' plastic |
| Sensor |
• 1/1.8" CCD, 5.36 million
total pixels
• 5.14 million effective pixels |
| Image sizes |
• 2612 x 1968
• 2048x 1536
• 1280 x 960
• 640 x 480 |
| Movie clips |
320 x 240, 30 fps, duration limited only by card capacity, MPEG1 with sound |
| Lens |
• 39 - 117mm equiv. (3x
optical zoom)
• F2.8 - F4.9 |
| Focus |
• Single point TTL-AF
• Manual focus
• AF assist beam
• Minimum focus: 50 cm (Normal), 18 cm (Macro) |
| Shooting mode |
• Auto
• Aperture priority AE
• Portrait
• Action
• Landscape
• Beach and Snow
• Sunset
• Panorama
• Document
• Custom ('My Mode')
• Movie (with sound)
|
| Sensitivity |
• Auto
• ISO 100 - 400 |
| White Balance |
• Auto
• 4 presets
• Manual |
| Image parameters |
• Color (Full, Black and White, Sepia)
• Contrast (3 levels)
• Sharpness (3 levels)
• Saturation (3 levels)
|
| Continuous |
• 3.0 fps, up to 4 frames |
| Flash |
• Modes: Auto, Flash On, Flash
Off
• Slow Sync: On, Off ('Night Mode')
• Red-Eye Reduction: On, Off
• Range, Wide: 2.7m, Tele: 1.5 m (ISO 100) |
| Storage |
• SD and MMC
• Supports cards up to 2GB
• 32 MB internal memory (27MB available for image storage)
• No card supplied
|
| Viewfinder |
Optical |
| LCD monitor |
• 1.5" TFT LCD
• 119,548 pixels |
| Connectivity |
• USB 2.0 (inc PTP, but not High Speed)
• A/V out via optional dock |
| Power |
• Lithium-Ion L1812A rechargeable
battery (supplied & charger)
• Can also use Duracell CP1 disposable battery
• AC adapter/charger included
|
| Other features |
• Orientation sensor
• HP Adaptive Lighting
• HP Instant Share
• In-camera red-eye removal
• In-camera panorama stitching preview
• Sound memo
• Direct print (HP & PictBridge)
• Optional HP Photosmart camera dock
• Image advice
• AE Bracketing
• Date and time imprinting
• Spot Metering
|
| Weight (no
batt) |
180 g (0.4 lbs) |
| Dimensions |
98.5 x 35.3 x 60 mm (3.9 x 1.4 x 2.4
in) |
|
|
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2004
|
Feb 12, 2004
|
Aug 7, 2007
|
Jul 31, 2007
|
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