We could believe it, a 720p HD Camcorder for under £220??? This cant be right?
The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700 Camcorder is an enigma. A true 720p HD camcorder which doubles as a 7 Mega pixel stills camera has 60x zoom and a 2.7 inch widescreen display for under £220…how can this be?
At Elite Gadgets they are available in Red, Silver and Brown for a fantastic price.
Everyone knows, you get what you pay for in this world. So how can this be?
Lets look a little further at what you are getting for this money.
720p True HD Footage – The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700 Camcorder is a true 720p HD camcorder enabling you to record your favourite moments in High Definition glory.
HDMI output – The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700 Camcorder has a HDMI port built-in so you simply plug it into your Hi Def Television and view in full HD Straight away!
2.7 inch Widescreen LCD – the LCD screen pops out from the side of the camera at 285 degrees allowing you to easily take great footage and pictures from any angle.
7 Mega pixel stills camera – Sometimes video just doesn’t catch the moment how you want it to? Simply flip the camcorder into camera mode and take a picture in 7 Mega Pixel fine detail….perfect!
SDHC/SD Memory card recording – The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700 Camcorder records direct to memory card so no waiting for the hard drive to start up, switch it on and your ready to record. It is capable of filming over 2.5 hours of 720p HD footage onto a single 8GB SDHC Card (sold separately). Also recording direct to memory card has the advantage of instant random access. You can access and view your files without waiting for a tape to rewind or fast-forward.
Ergonomic Design - The Sanyo Xacti series is renowned for the compact size and ergonomic design. The HD700 is designed at a comfortable angle to fit snugly into the palm of your hand, without twisting your hand like “traditional” camcorders. The HD700’s new 105 degree angle design is proven to be less tiring to hold and shoot than “traditional” camcorders. Easy-to-hold and easy-to-shoot, the HD700 raises the bar in compact camcorder design.
So, where’s the catch? It seems there isn’t one…the HD Camcorder is now at the reach of anyone, with the smallest of budget’s…don’t you just love it?
Check out our blog over at http://elitegadgets.livejournal.com.
The new release from Nikon is now here at Elite Gadgets.
On unveiling the Nikon D700 from its wrappings, we were quite taken aback with what we found.
It is a small but professional twelve mega pixel, full frame (FX Format) Digital SLR. Its exterior is very similar to the D300 except for its larger viewfinder, and internally it is very similar to the D3 albeit for a slightly lower shutter speed.
If you compare it to the D3 then there have been some good improvements from Nikon on the D700. With Image Sensor Cleaning or Sensor shake, more flexible ‘hard button’ program virtual horizon in Live View and different DX mode indication on the focusing screen, it is a new cut above the rest. Finally, it is the first Pro DSLR from Nikon with built in flash.
The Nikon D700 has taken the superb image quality of the D3 by using the same technology such as the 12.1 mega pixel sensor with very large pixel pitch and gapless micro lens array providing bright clean files across the whole ISO range. It also utilizes the same Expeed high speed image processing system, a 14 bit A/D conversion and 16-bit processing pipeline to give the pixel perfect detail you require for perfect print enlargement and reproduction.
It is the perfect action camera for the photographer on the move. Incorporating Nikon’s image sensor cleaning system which uses high frequency vibrations to clean the sensor of dust accumulation.
Despite it reasonable price tag the Nikon D700 DSLR does not skimp on features. It also boasts a highly responsive shutter release time lag of just 40ms and the acclaimed pinpoint accuracy of the 51-point MultiCAM3500 AF System, DX Crop Mode and Live View with contrast-detect AF displayed on the TFT monitor. The new larger viewfinder is also a great bonus, featuring a solid glass pentaprism, 95% coverage and adjustable AF point LED illumination for a bright, uninterrupted view of your subject.
The new Nikon D700 Digital SLR camera, it is what the Nikon enthusiast has really been waiting for……
Labels: buy, camera, D-SLR, digital camera, DSLR, megapixel, Nikon 700, online, SLR
We recently unveiled and tested the New C902 from Sony Ericsson, there new and highly anticipated release.
It is the first Cybershot phone to feature face detection. A technology which automatically finds and focuses on the subjects face. A nifty little piece of technology which produces a great picture ever time.
It also features a full camera flash again giving great results in low light conditions.
Incorporate these technologies with a 5 Megapixel camera and its time to sell your compact camera, its simply not needed anymore, you have all you need in the Sony Ericsson C902.
And once you have taken the picture the C902 contains the software to share it with friend in a novel and exciting way. “Storyteller” is and application that brings your pictures to life like never seen before. Put you pics in a slideshow format or become an artist with “Paint” and then share the photo with friends through the photo feeds and blogging service which enable you to upload pictures directly to the web.
This mobile phone is packed with the latest technologies available such as HSDPA high speed internet and email.
The Sony Ericsson C902 is a mobile office, fully functional camera, and a great little phone (of course) all in a beautiful and sleek case.
It’s a tough act to follow from Sony Ericsson and its available in Red and Brown at Elite Gadgets.
Good news to all Gamers out there, Sony has finally announced the release of the Dualshock 3 Wireless controller for the Playstation 3.
The new wireless pads which were shipped with the PS3 are great but have something missing, the good old rumble you felt from the original PS2. It’s was a real shame, as you don’t get the same in-depth user participation you did from the good old rumble pack pads.
So Sony, have bowed to consumer request and released the new Playstation 3 Controller – the Dualshock 3.
Out of the box, it looks the same as the original SIXAXIS controller provided with the Playstation 3 at sale. But inside its somewhat different.
It gives a sense of immersion in gaming, to make that PS3 experience even more realistic. Now available at Elite Gadgets in three great colours Silver, White and Black.
Here at Elite Gadgets we have an extensive range of camera equipment to suit all tastes and requirements. For the new enthusiasts out there, we would like to explain the wonderful world of photography and its equipment in a little more detail.
So your about to start looking for equipment. Where do you start?
Ok…..
This should be the beginning and fundamental base of any equipment selection. You need to decide firstly on how much you would like to spend. Digital SLR cameras can cost anything from £300 upto £7000! And remember, this is only for the body, you will have to by a lens before starting to use your shiny new camera!! So begin by setting a budget. And think about what you are going to use it for. If you simply want to take some professional looking holiday snaps then you don’t need a Canon 1Ds Mark III at over £4000! And if you’re starting out a new venture as a paparazzi photographer, then a Nikon D40 at £300 isn’t going to cut the mustard. So begin by realistically deicing which camera body you require. Also bear in mind the cost and availability of certain brands of lenses. If you buying a Nikon DSLR Camera Body then you will need a Nikon Lenses or lenses with a Nikon mount so it fits your camera body. Ok, so you’ve picked your Camera, next you need….
The first thing to consider is Lens Speed. This may seem straight forward, it indicated how fast the lens or lens shutter opens and closes. This has a fundamental effect on your photography. It is indicated by the F number or F-Stop (such as F/2.8 or F/4). The smaller the number the faster the lens. You will need a faster lens for sports photography or for situations which need more light, a faster lens opens wider so lets in more light in a shorter space of time. Also faster lenses have a shallower depth of field. A shallow depth of field is where the subject is in focus but the background is not. If you want the background and subject to be in focus, then you need a lens with a deeper depth of field.
A good all-round lens would be an F/4, not too fast but not too slow either.
If you are going to shoot indoors without flash then you need a very fast lens such as an F/2.8 of even F/2, but be prepared to get your wallet out, they can be expensive.
The next thing to consider is the focal length. It is shown in millimeters such as 24-105mm or 70-200mm and the best way to explain is it is the distance from the focal point of the cameras sensor to the center of your lens. This will affect how much a subject will be magnified when you shoot it. It will also affect whether it is a wide angle shot (a large and spread scene) or more of a cropped focused shot.
The focusing distance is something slightly different. This is the distance from the end of the lens and the closest point where the shot will remain in focus. Something to consider if doing very close up photography where you will need a macro lens.
A newer implemented technology which we are seeing a lot of these days is image stabilization or IS. This one is pretty self explanatory. The lens implements a mechanism which steadies the shot and produces a sharper image which is less prone to camera shake or jolt.
So you have your new DSLR Camera Body and Lens, what now?
Now, this is pretty straight forward, if you shooting in dark conditions you need a flash. Some Cameras will have a built in flash, but sometimes this will not provide enough light. Most good DSLR will have a hot shoe on the top to enable you to add an extra flashgun. Also you have the option to add a remote flash for times when you would like the light to come from the side or back of the subject rather than the front.
Filters will screw onto the end of your lens to give certain effects to your shot or to eliminate unwanted effects such are flare and reflections.
Remember focusing distance? The distance between the end of the lens and closest point where the lens will focus to. Well, en extension tube shortens that distance. It is added between the lens and the camera and in effect provides 2 lenses for the price of one, enabling you to shot close-ups with a longer lens.
This does the opposite job of an Extension tube, it increases the focal length.
A Battery handgrip is basically an attached handgrip containing batteries. Some will be rechargeable and some will take standard AAA batteries to extend the battery life of your camera. Essential when you out shooting for long periods of time.
At present the best light meters on the market are Sekonic. A good Sekonic light meter will allow you to judge light levels and correct exposure before taking that all important shot.
They do what it says on the tin! Allows you to take pictures remotely. Most have controls for shutter control, but some of the more expensive version have controls for aperture and focus. Again make sure you buy the correct one for your particular camera.
The Tripod connects to the bottom of the camera and provides stability in your shot. Some will come with a Head, sometimes you will need to buy the head separately. Bear this in mind when deciding on price.
Well, there you go, hopefully that had shed some light on the wonderful world of Digital SLR photography, and will help you along the way on you first purchase of photography equipment.
We are entering a new era in sound and vision, the “High Definition era”. Everything these days is HD, 1080p, 1080i, High Contrast….etc, etc. But what does it all mean? And what does this mean for the future of the age old projector?
If you look back in history the Projector was here first, before the TV, the Games consoles, the HD this and that…it was first. It was how man first learnt to project moving images onto a viewing platform. And it is still here today. Albeit in it new improved, all singing and dancing versions.
So you’re ready to move into the HD era; you’ve got your Playstation 3, your Xbox 360 and/or your Blu-Ray player. You plug it into your TV, and “voila!”… or maybe not. The picture is fuzzy, unclear, or not what you had been expecting. Why? Because the TV set you are using is not HD Ready. What does this mean? Well, it’s a bit like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford Fiesta. The Playstation 3 is producing a powerful flow of information (images and moving picture) and passing them down the cable to your TV set. But your TV set doesn’t have the capability to handle this amount of information. So it discards 90% of it and does it’s best to produce a half decent image. This is why you need a HD Ready TV, or even better a HD Ready projector to produce a High Definition image in its full glory.
Gone are the days of closing all the curtains to be able to wince at a feint image on the living room wall. These days, HD projectors have power, clarity and precision. They are capable of producing images which are equivalent, if not better than the best HD Ready TV. The projected image is clearly viewable on any white surface. No need for closing the curtains or dimming the lights!
So your ready to take the HD plunge, you have cash in hand, and your ready to buy your HD projector…..hmm…which one?!! There are so many choices!!
Ok, we are going to try and make it as straightforward as possible.
The first and most important factor is the native projector resolution. The most common resolutions are 480p (WVGA), 720p (WXGA) and the latest 1080p (UWXGA). The “W” means widescreen. Basically the higher the resolution, the sharper and clearer the picture is. Also a higher resolution ensures future compatibility with the latest products, such as the Playstation 3 or HD TV broadcasts. This is an important issue when making such a large purchase.
It is recommended to purchase a HD projector with at least a 720p resolution or if you can afford it a full HD 1080p projector as this will last for years into the future. Having said this, if you only intend to watch a DVD player on the projector, then a 480p projector is perfectly adequate and is much cheaper!
The next thing to consider is Contrast Ratio. This is the difference between the White and Black parts of the images. So, if you have a contrast ratio of 20000:1 - then the black is 20000 times darker than the white part of the image. Again, this will make the image clearer and more life like. The best way to explain this is this….imagine you sit down to watch the latest All Blacks Game, but the All Blacks Kit is actually a slight grey rather than a sheer black. This would mean the TV or projector has a low contrast ratio, the black is not completely black, you get the idea?
Another very important factor is the life of the lamp. Typically the lamp life will be between 2000 and 4000 hours. And Lamps are expensive, around £100-£250 depending on the model of the projector. The stated lamp life is actually its half-life not its full life to the point of failure. The lamp is tested to the point where it starts to lose brightness (usually half way through its life) and this is stated on the specifications as the lamp life. Also, you can prolong the life of the lamp by good usage. Powering down the projector, rather than just removing the power, and cleaning the filters regularly all help in prolonging lamp life.
Another thing that most people don’t consider is screen size.
How much size do you have available? Bigger is not always better. There is nothing worse than proudly setting up your HD projector and then realizing that the picture engulfs the whole room! Check the screen size you have available and the throw distance (how far you have from the front of the projector to the wall) and you can then decide which projector is best for you.
Also, you will get the best from your investment with a projector screen. They are specifically made for the job and with return a clearly sharper and all round better picture than any wall will no matter how flat or white the wall may be. There are a full range of electric retractable screens available today, which, with one click of the remote, you can look like James Bond in the comfort of your own home!!
We hope that we have gone some way to explaining the complexities of the High Definition revolution. Prepare yourself. It’s going to be an enjoyable ride.
What is the difference I hear you say? Why are some phones Sim Free and some unlocked? And why does it matter at all?
Well, I’m about to explain.
When a mobile phone is sold by a particular network provider, such as T-Mobile, Orange or O2 they will lock the phone so it can only be used on their network and nobody else’s. This means, if you bought the new Samsung Soul from T-Mobile the chances are that it would have some form of network branding or logos on it such as a big T-Mobile logo on the front of the phone. As if this wasn’t enough, the network provider will usually add there own software to the phone. So there will be T-Mobile logos all over the menus. And finally they will lock the phone to only be used on T-Mobile. If you want to use this phone with your Vodapone sim card it will not work, however, it can be unlocked. This will allow you to use the Vodapone sim card (or any other sim) but it doesn’t get rid of the network branding logos or software from the phone. So you will have a phone with a Vodaphone sim card but T-Mobile logos and branding all over it!
One more important point, to unlock the phone the software has to be tampered with. This then voids the warranty so if you have problems with the phone at a later date, the manufacturer will know it has been tampered with and will not fix the problem under the warranty.
So what is best? The best way is to buy a Sim Free Mobile Phone. This is a phone which has never been locked to a network and has no network branding. These phones come straight from the manufacturers. They have full warranty and will work with any sim card you wish to use, regardless of which network provider it is from.
Another advantage of having a sim free phone is when you come to sell the phone, they tend to be more valuable than an unlocked phone. This is because the warranty is still valid and the phone can be sold to anyone on any network to use with any sim card
At Elite Gadgets we stock the full range of sim free phones available in the marketplace today. All our phones are fully sim free with no network branding and full warranty.
Today at Elite Gadgets we unwrapped the Canon HF100 Camcorder with a little hesitance. The first flash-based camcorder from Canon. Now, this isn’t a new technology but it is Canon’s first stab at a flash memory camcorder. And from what we have seen, they have hit the nail on the head.
Unlike it partner, the HF10, it doesn’t have any built-in memory, all footage is recorded straight to a removable SD Card.
Apart from this and the colour (the HF10 is Black and the HF100 is silver) it is exactly the same camcorder.
It is tiny for a horizontal based camcorder, weighing in at a measly 380g and measuring 73mm x 63mm x 129mm in size. Being a flash memory based camcorder cuts down drastically on size as it doesn’t have to house an internal hard drive or tape mechanism.
It packed with features. Camcorder enthusiasts will value the 25p cinema shooting mode, a microphone input and a headphone input. It also utilizes a very nice 1/3.2inch, 3.3 mega pixel image sensor to provide full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution images. These images are recorded directly to the memory card thanks to the new AVCHD compression system. We hooked this up to our Samsung Full HD 1080p LCD and the footage was quite simply breathtaking.
As with all HD camcorders we wanted to know how big a memory card we would need. Well, we managed to fit 2hours of HD footage on a 16GB memory card, so it’s not too bad at all. But is you are desperate for space it has three lesser quality record setting to get the most from your storage space albeit with a compromise on picture quality.
All in all, we were not disappointed with the HF100 in fact we were very impressed. It is as good as you can get in the camcorder market at the moment. The HD footage is superb when viewed on a Full HD TV, or even on a CRT monitor via the AV Connectors. The 2–channel Dolby Digital sound is brilliant, its looks and feels just great.
This new boy from Canon gets the thumbs up from Elite Gadgets!!!
This is no normal camera. If James Bond was a camera, this would be it. If Clint Eastwood carried a digital camera (and he doesn’t, he’s far too cool for that) then he would carry an Olympus 1030 SW.
You can…..smash it, bang it, soak it, or even freeze it, and it will still emerge a winner. It’s like the Navy Seal of digital camcorders. Damn….this solider will even survive a nuclear holocaust… (Well, maybe not, but you get the idea?)
Here are the statistics. It’s waterproof to 33ft, freeze proof to minus 10, and crushproof to 220 LBF. If you’re an adrenalin junkie who wants a camera that can withstand all you throw at it, or even if you’re just that little bit clumsy, then this is the camera for you.
As well as being extremely robust it really is a nice bit of kit. It utilizes the latest technologies to provide you with perfect pictures every time. With its 10.1 mega pixel CMOS sensor and a 3.6x wide angle lens it will give your shots in super clear definition and a great field of view for them action shots.
It uses face detection technology for taking great family snaps and a beautiful Hyper crystal II LCD screen to display them in there full glory.
If you going to use this digital camera for action shots on the slopes it is perfect as it incorporates anti-blur technology and digital image stabilization to ensure perfect shake free shots every time.
In a nutshell, it is a great digital camera in a protective case which will withstand the tests of time.
At Elite Gadgets we love it!!Links
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