The Canon T4i has a face only a gadget enthusiast could love. It's black, bulbous, and utilitarian to the exclusion of all else. Of course, that design is nothing new; but for a handful of fine details, the T4i looks and feels exactly like the T3i, its predecessor. It's a predominantly plastic camera, but it's remarkably well-built. At 2.3 pounds with the 18-135mm STM lens included in the pricier kit, it's just a little bit weighty, and the black plastic is solid, firm and unyielding. If you ask me, that's actually a little bit of a problem, though. While I found I could fit all four of my fingers on the T4i's grip, it's narrow and firm enough that it feels hard to hold.
If you're considering a DSLR over a mirrorless camera, there's a fair chance it's because you want an optical viewfinder for your work. If so, the T4i will definitely do the trick. If that's the primary reason, though, you might want to consider a different camera. While the T4i's pentamirror viewfinder isn't any worse than the Rebels that came before, it's not really any better, either: it’s a little small, you're still only going to see 95 percent of what the camera is aiming towards, and the view will be slightly dimmer than real life. That’s a hard sell when you can get a Canon 60D or a Nikon D7000 with brighter, larger pentaprism viewfinders and more coverage for just a slightly higher price.
Each DSLR manufacturer has slightly different ways of approaching prosumer camera controls. Nikon has loads of physical buttons, for instance, while Canon relies a little more on menus, requiring you to dig through screens for little-used settings while keeping the primary controls at your fingertips. If you liked that, don't worry, it doesn't change with the T4i at all: every single physical control works exactly as it did on previous cameras. In fact, the only real difference between the T4i's physical controls and the T3i and T2i before is that the keys have slightly different shapes and they all jut out a little bit more. They're fairly well laid out as physical controls go, with all the most common controls accessible with the right hand alone.
The T4i also has a few creative filters you can apply to an image, but only after it's been shot, including a miniature effect, soft focus, fisheye, and a new Water Painting effect that can, well, make pictures look like watercolor. Each time you add a filter, you save a new processed image to the SD card.
At roughly $800 for a body-only camera or $1,200 with the 18-135mm STM kit lens, the Canon EOS Rebel T4i costs a considerable amount more than its predecessors right now. You can pick up a T3i for around $580 (or about $850 with the original, non-STM 18-135mm lens) at the time I wrote this sentence. If you can live without intelligent scene modes and the articulating screen, you can even still find the T2i, which has a smaller, more comfortable body and nearly identical image quality.
Full frame cameras have been the fine line that divided amateurs/hobbyists from serious professionals for the longest time. Mostly, it was due to the fact that an amateur would have a hard time justifying the usually skyscraper-high price tag of a full frame. The professional, however, could easily shell out that kind of money, because the quality (and the work requirement) justified it.
Each DSLR manufacturer has slightly different ways of approaching prosumer camera controls. Nikon has loads of physical buttons, for instance, while Canon relies a little more on menus, requiring you to dig through screens for little-used settings while keeping the primary controls at your fingertips. If you liked that, don't worry, it doesn't change with the T4i at all: every single physical control works exactly as it did on previous cameras. In fact, the only real difference between the T4i's physical controls and the T3i and T2i before is that the keys have slightly different shapes and they all jut out a little bit more. They're fairly well laid out as physical controls go, with all the most common controls accessible with the right hand alone.
A year later and one hundred dollars cheaper than its predecessor, Seattle-based Contour announced its Contour+2 action camera this week and will be available later this month. The latest improves upon the previous generation with a sprinkling of features from other models in the lineup, new accessories and a different way of sharing content. Oh, and you can now use your smartphone (Android, iPhone) to control all the action remotely.
Samsung has launched its first Android-based camera at IFA 2012. Called the Galaxy Camera, the device comes with Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core processor. Pricing and launch details however, have not been shared yet.
Nikon India has officially announced the availability of its Sports Optics lineup for the indian consumers, which essentially includes binoculars, field scopes and laser rangefinders.
Fujifilm has been stepping up the efforts to establish its presence in India by releasing some very impressive cameras into the market.