Create 360-degree 3D landscapes from your digital photos

Every so often, a genuinely new technology appears that astounds. Microsoft has launched a service at www.photosynth.com that’s designed to change the way you experience the places you photograph. By uploading a selection of photos you can use the free web service to transfer them into a 360-degree, three dimensional experience that you can click around and explore. The only downside is that it takes a little while to process your photos, so you’ll need a decent broadband connection.

Photosynth analyses all of the images for common features and pieces together the 3D environment where you can clock and zoom into the different images; the quality when you zoom in will depend on how good your digital camera is. You’re also able to share ‘synths’ with other users, while you can also pinpoint the location of your synth on Virtual Earth.

Eventually, the service will be able to take yor location directly from information embedded in your photos; an increasing number of camera phones and even cameras now have GPS, enabling precise positions to be plotted. In time, you’ll be able to explore places using other people’s synths!

The service was so successful on the first day that Microsoft had problems meeting demand. Paul Foster, Microsoft Evangelist for Photosynth, told us that the engineers working on the project needed to reconfigure the servers twice that day!

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A wonderful waterproof novelty , but better cameras overall can be had for the price.

The latest pistol –grip Xacti is an update to the company’s previous waterproof model, the VPC-CA65EW. Rather than attempting to beat the competition on storage capacity, price or even image quality, Sanyo has instead gone after the niche market of swimmers, surfers and holidaymakers who want the novelty of a submersible camcorder.

The necessitates a larger amount of protection and seals than other models in the Xacti range, so while it’s the size of the VPC-HD700, it only manages to house the features of the far smaller VPC-CG9.

The camera can be used at depths of up to 1.5m, though knocking it while underwater is a no-no, warns Sanyo, as one of the waterfight flaps may open and allow gadget-killing water inside. The camera also needs to be rinsed with fresh water after any dip in the ocean, and Sanyo recommends the rubber seals be replaced every year. Despite these restrictions, the image quality remains largely the same above and below the water, and even audio is captured.

But the image quality isn’t great: the ½.5 in sensor will only  capture footage at 600x 8480 pixels, though stills can be taken at 12-megapixels using interpolation when not filming. The video output is poor, while low-light perfomance leaves much to be desired, with detail suffering badly, and bright light similarly confuses the sensor.

Results aren’t much better in normal light. The auto-focus struggles to keep the image sharp when cutting between near and far objects, and the image stabilization is no match for the A-listed Panasonic HDC-H59.

The image quality is bad enough, but the price is worse. The Xacti VPC-CA8EX costs as much as cameras with better image quality and features, though without the water-proofing.

But the lure of shooting underwater is enough to forgive many of these problems. Considering the technical challenge of waterproofing a delicate and fragile piece of electronics, Sanyo has done rather well.

Sanyo VPC-CG10 HD Flash Memory Camcorder w/5x Optical Zoom (Black)

An unusual design with some imperfections, but you get a lot of versatility for your money

Panasonic’s latest Lumix pushes the boundries of what you could reasonably call “compact”  . Even if your pockets are large enough to accommodate it-you can just about squeeze it into the back of your jeans- the bulge of the lens housing tends to catch and makes things awkward.

The payoff for its size the Leica branded lens which, while not perfect, is impressive for a compact. Not only does it boast a generous 10x optical zoom, it zooms out to a very wide 28mm-equivalent focal length. The big body also gives space for a bright 3in screen, while still leaving room for controls in the familiar place down the right-hand side. The extra coverage afforded by the 28mm lens setting is very useful for dramatic scenery or architecture shots. With the lens zoomed right in you get huge magnification; this massively accentuates camera shakes, but to the rescue comes some very effective optical image stabilization.

Still aside, the TZ5 excels with video in HD 720p resolution at 30fps and, unlike most compact cameras the autofocus and zoom remain active. It makes for a fine stand-in camcorder.

It’s not the fastest in the world, though. From switching it on to being ready to shoot takes almost three seconds, compared to the half-second or so from the best of the Canon and Nikon competition (and the near-instant ready time from a typical digital SLR).Three seconds doesn’t sound like much, but it’s more than enough time to miss that perfect shot.

Image quality is generally good. With the exception of some softness at full zoom, the lens is sharp with little distortion. Auto white balance is patchy, though: taking pictures at a festival on a bright summer’s day resulted in quite a few shots with a pronounced blue colour cast. We did appreciate one very neat feature on that particular day, however: you can set the TFT screen to an over-the-head mode, improving your ability to preview shots from an angle like when trying to shoot the band over the top of the  crowd, for example.

The DMC-TZ5 , probably won’t be for you if you’re in the market for a straight ahead pocket compact, but for something with a bit more versatility than the average , and without the bulk of a normal superzoom of digital SLR, it’s well worth considering.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5S 9MP Digital Camera with 10x Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)