If you like your digital camera tough, or suffer from a bad case of the gadget clumsies, Panasonic have a new ruggedised digital camera coming up for you – the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT4.
The DMC-FT4 is waterproof to 12 metres, shockproof to 2 metres, and freezeproof to -10 degrees Celsius. It is a 12.1 megapixel camera, with a Hi-Speed CCD sensor, 28mm wide-angle lens, 4.6x optical zoom, and in addition to taking still images it shoots Full High Definition (1920 x 1080) video in both AVCHD and MP4. Add the optional Marine Case (model number DMW-MCFT3), and the camera is waterproof to 40 metres.
As ever it has a lot of augomatic smarts built-in, using Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto (iA) mode, but the DMC-FT4 also allows the manually setting of shutter speed and aperture. This is the first time that such manual setting have appeared on a Panasonic tough digital camera.
As befits a tough camera, liable to be taken anywhere and everywhere, the DMC-FT4 has inbuilt GPS functionality. In addition to location information added to the metadata of images, the camera can also record such data as underwater depth indicator and orientation data.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT4 price and availability
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT4 will go on sale in April 2012, and have an RRP of $449. Choose from black, silver, blue or orange.
In the box is the DMC-FT4, a battery charger, battery pack, AV cable, USB cable, hand strap, brush, silicone jacket, and CD-ROM with PHOTOfunSTUDIO software.