April 2013

Kodak cameras are available again...
You can now buy Kodak digital cameras again... as long as you don't mind that they come from JK Imaging Ltd., which acquired a global licensing agreement from Kodak under which they can manufacture and sell digital imaging products with the Kodak name. The first product is the Astro Zoom AZ361, a 16mp camera with a 36x (24-864mm) optical zoom, a 3-inch LCD and 720p video. MSRP is US$229. [See the JK Imaging Ltd/Kodak website] -- Posted Friday, April 5, 2013 by chb

Compact digital cameras getting clobbered by smartphones
The conventional digital camera industry has a problem. Seems that digital camera sales in the U.S. will drop more than half from the roughly 38 million in 2011 to an anticipated 18 million this year. Problem is that with smartphones having ever better integrated cameras that can shoot high quality pictures and HD video, and then send and share images and video instantly, there's just not that much of a need to carry around a usually bulkier separate digital camera. Our suggestion to the digital camera industry: concentrate on making compacts that do things smartphones can't. -- Posted Tuesday, April 2, 2013 by chb