dpreview.com Canon SX1IS review

Digital Photography Reviews (dpreview.com – a very good site) posted a review of the Canon SX1IS. While they didn’t pan it, some of the issues they spotted have certainly given me pause in my intent to purchase one from Amazon as soon as it’s released. I’m not a big fan of Nikon offering in this space (the P90). The Pentax Optio X70 looks promising, but there’s very little published on it yet, and while it’s sure to be less expensive ($400 instead of $600), I’m not sure the lack of full HD video and no swivel on the LCD display makes it a better choice. The Olympus SP-590UZ, the Kodak Z980, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28K look about the same as the Pentax (while differing in some areas, like optical zoom, etc.), and I think I’d choose the Pentax over those, all things being equal.

The only camera that has really stuck out to me in my research is the Casio Exilim EX-FH20. The 40 fps option look pretty intriguing. The 1000 fps “movie” mode looks gimicky. It doesn’t have the flip-out and rotatable LCD, and HD-mode is limited to 720p, but the very forgiving “capture images before you even press the button” feature does look pretty cool.

All-told, I still think I’m going to get the Canon, but am mulling our other options, too.

Windows 7 update

Windows 7 Build 7068 is available as a torrent – both 32bit and 64bit versions are available. I’m downloading them both as I type. It doesn’t look like any radically new stuff has been added, but we’ll see. I’m hopeful that they’ve fixed some driver issues and added some tweaks for the taskbar.