Equipment->Reviews: February 2006 Archives

As usual, DPReview.com is the first to break the story on the new Canon EOS 30D being released at PMA. It's basically an updated 20D with the exact same CMOS sensor -- the only changes are a slightly larger LCD, slight modification of the body (to make it feel closer to the 5D), and ... (drum roll please) .... spot metering.

Price looks like it'll be around $1300. I'm only slightly excited about this -- the mods are so small that they should have just called it the 20D Mark II and not get us all confused with the much older EOS D30.

David Pogue reviews the Sanyo Xacti HD1 for the NYTimes. Registration required and it will not stay up for very long, so read it quickly!

The HD1 is a solid-state (flash memory card) 720p camcorder that will retail around $800. Battery life is only an hour, a 2-giga SD card only holds 28 minutes at max quality, and Pogue makes it seem that there are considerable tradeoffs in terms of image quality as well. Well, it's a version 1.0. We can all hope that the Xacti HD2 will fix all the bugs of its predecessor.

VideoSystems.com has a review of the newly announced Panasonic HVX-200 high-definition camcorder. It uses the P2 solid-state memory cards in lieu of HDV tapes. The specs: 1080p @ 60p with RGB4:4:4... All for only $6000 (albeit the P2 cards are going to bankrupt you).