The latest model in Ricoh’s popular CX lineup has arrived in Aussie stores. The CX5 is similar in most key specs to the CX4 but offers a faster auto-focus system that can reduce focus acquisition time by up to 50 per cent.
Many long-zoom compacts struggle to find sharp focus quickly. The CX5 uses a new hybrid AF system in combination with a passive AF sensor that continuously measures the distance between the camera and subject using an area sensor together with Contrast AF (a system in which the imaging elements search for the peak location for contrast on the subject and focus on that location).
This, says Ricoh, stops hunting and allows AF focusing times to be cut to around 0.2 seconds, whether the camera is zoomed to wide-angle (28mm) or telephoto (300mm).
Like the CX4 the new model features a 10-megapixel CMOS sensor, image stabilisation, a 3-inch, 920,000-dot screen and 720p HD video recording.
Ricoh CX5