Olympus Super-Zoom Shoots Movies and Stills Simultaneously
The Olympus SZ-30MR can capture two images or videos at once
Olympus’ new SZ-30MR is pitched as a “super-zoom” camera, and with its 24x optical zoom (25-600mm equivalent) it certainly qualifies. But despite fitting such a big lens into a small body, the zoom is not the most interesting part of the camera. That award goes to the “Multi-Recording” function.
With the SZ-30MR, you can capture two things at once. Thanks to some computer wizardry inside the TruePic III+ image processor, the camera can spit out two simultaneous streams from the same sensor. Thus you can shoot a full-resolution still whilst recording an HD movie, or shoot two movies together — the example posits shooting a wide-shot and a close-up at the same time. This of course relies on a digital zoom, but as you are only taking a 1080p stream from a 16MP sensor (1080p = 1920 x 1080 = just over 2MP) then you don’t lose much.
There are some more goodies, too. You can shoot 3-D stills by just panning the camera, and the computer brain grabs the second shot automatically and combines it with the first to make a 3-D image. You can also shoot at up to ISO 6400, and the dual-mode (sensor and lens shifting) image stabilization takes some of the shake out of that 600mm zoom.
The only thing missing is a decent maximum aperture (it’s just ƒ3 at the wide end) and RAW capture. Otherwise this isn’t a bad bet for $400. Available April.
Olympus SZ-30MR product page [Olympus]
See Also:
Olympus 600mm Zoom-Lens is World's Tiniest
Olympus XZ1, a Pro-Level Compact Camera with Knobs On
Olympus Pen EP-2, Now in Retro-Tastic Silver
Fuente: Gadget Lab
