Buy the Nikon D700 and save! True, it's anything but a penny-pincher's camera; the 12.1-megapixel pro SLR's body alone costs JPY324,300, or JPY405,500 with AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor ED 24-120mm F3.5-5.6G (IF) lens. But buy either of those by November 30, and you get JPY30,000 cash back.
D700 (Japanese):
http://www.nikon-image.com/jpn/products/camera/slr/digital/d700/
Cashback program (Japanese):
http://www.nikon-image.com/jpn/event/campaign/d700_cashback/

Name: Exemode YASHICA EZF924
Category: digital camera
Price: JPY9980
Release date in Japan: Early November, 2008

Want a camera with an impressive pixel count - say, almost 10 million? Want to spend less than JPY10,000 for it? The  EZF924 from Tokyo-based Exemode, recent reviver of the YSHICA brand in Japan, may fit the bill.

The 85-gram YASHICA's CMOS sensor yields 9.12 million (3488x2616) pixels. On back is a 2.4-inch TFT display. Other specs, while not necessarily bad for a camera, do match up with a low price tag: ISO goes from 100 to a middling (if perfectly serviceable) 800. The 43mm, F3.25 lens is fixed-focus (though a macro mode lets you shoot as close as 20cm). Internal memory is only 16MB, not enough for two shots at highest resolution; make sure to get an SD/SDHC card (up to 8GB) for real shooting. There's no optical zoom, just 8x digital (i.e., no real zoom at all). There is video capability, though just 640x480 AVI (Motion JPEG) at 15-20 frames per second. (That's good enough for YouTube, and the camera includes software for uploading video to YouTube.)

The EZF924 follows on the heels of the EZ824 introduced earlier in October. That model has only 8 megapixels, for JPY14,800, and weighs 40g more than the new model - but it also sports 3x optical zoom, the feature that the EZF924 drops to lower its price and weight so drastically.

Okay, so the EZF924 isn't packed with features. But sounds fine as a small, hi-res cam that you can buy with a single bill. (Before tax. And memory card.)

More info (Japanese):
http://www.yashica.jp/pro/f924.html

Compact digital cameras ("kondeji") have long graduated from a two-way choice of colors (silver or black). With a wide palette of colors available, what hues do Japanese buyers prefer?

Business Computing News ran that question through its database of retail data, looking at all available manufacturers' kondeji sales data for the year ending in September. Not surprisingly, silver and black still rule the roost, at about 41% and 19% of units, respectively. But those colors may be coasting on tradition; BCN found that pink and gold, heavily marketed toward females, rose steeply over the year to a respective 14% and 7% of unit sales.  

Models like the Panasonic DMC-FX37-P, Casio EX-Z300PK, and Olympus mu 1060(PNK) snap up big portions of the pink market, while products like the Casio EX-Z100GD, Canon IXYD920IS(GL), and Casio EX-Z200GD grab the gold. For the silver, the Olympus FE-320, Canon IXYD25IS(sL), and Olympus mu 1060(SLV) sell the most units. The Canon IXYD25IS(BK), Canon IXYD910IS, and Fujifilm FX-F100FDDB were the favorites of black-camera traditionalists.

Popular for fall 2008, though not yet making the charts, are cameras in natural tones like plum, raspberry, wine red, and brown. Ask BCN next year whether those earthy hues have taken another chunk out of black and silver.

For another look at color preferences, BCN turned its attention to the brightly-hued 4th-generation iPod nanos. From a palette of silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and pink, what's grabbing Japanese buyers' yen?

Surveying JPY17,800 8GB models and leaving out the special direct-sales "(PRODUCT) RED" model, BCN again hands the crown to black and silver, followed in order by pink, blue, purple, orange, green, and yellow. (Sorry, percentage breakdowns aren't available.) BCN expressed surprise at the win by black, given the iPod's strong association with white. But the lack of a white nano and a love of matte black by male buyers put the non-color on top, says BCN, which also surmises that silver scores high as a surrogate for white and as a match for the look of Apple's computers.

Pink was introduced in the previous generation of nanos, and, ranking high with female buyers then, has been carried over to the new line. Blue does well with color aficionados of both genders. Purple wins among the remaining new colors. Orange does very well at some retailers, not so well at others, says BCN; green shows hope with its "eco" associations; and yellow, while bringing up the rear, still ranked a very impressive #33 among 684 audio player models tracked by BCN.

Speaking of other audio players (and going off the color topic), one often hears the meme overseas that Japan's electronics market is a near-impenetrable fortress from the viewpoint of foreign manufacturers, who are lucky to sell even a few scant units in Japan. The iPod is one of many examples showing that to be untrue. In BCN's tracking of retail audio player sales during the week of October 13-19, individual iPod models (broken down by color and memory size) took the top 14 sales ranks, with the Toshiba Gigabeat T401S Black finally breaking the i-monotony at #15. Then it's mostly more iPods again for a while. The same for the month of September: iPods on top, that Toshiba at #12, and then another run of iPods.

Don't listen to the naysayers, foreign manufacturers: bring a good product, and the Japanese electronics market can be yours.

More info (Japanese):
http://bcnranking.jp/news/0810/081020_12140.html
http://bcnranking.jp/news/0810/081015_12142.html

At Photokina in Germany last month, FUJIFILM announced its upcoming "FUJIFILM FinePix Real 3D System", an all-new combination of two-lens 3D camera, 3D photo frame, and even 3D printing, all with no funny glasses required. Both the camera's display and the photo frame share "light direction control module" technology controlling image transmission to the viewer's left and right eyes; the print technology appears to attempt something similar with a "fine pitch lenticular sheet". While we'll have to expect major limitations ("Don't tilt your head!"), it'll be interesting to see what develops from this concept when (or if) planned commercialization transpires in 2009.
Intro movie (Japanese):
http://finepix.com/jp/#/theater/real3dsystem/

Name: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Category: digital SLR camera
Price: About JPY300,000
Release date in Japan: Late November, 2008

With all the light'n'easy digital SLRs  coming out - the Panasonic LUMIX G1, the Canon EOS Kiss F, the Pentax K-m, and more - it's good to see a new release of pro-level heavy iron. "Middle high class" iron, more specifically, to quote Canon's positioning of its newly updated EOS 5D DSLR camera, the Mark II.

The key bragging points are two-fold: a 21-megapixel CMOS sensor, and 30 fps full HD video recording. The former offers about twice the pixels of the recent "light" DSLRs (as you'd expect from a camera in a much higher price range), churning out shots in resolutions up to 5616x3744 pixels. Continuous shooting is 3.9 fps.

The latter feature comes too late to claim "first!" for video in a DSLR; the Nikon D90 brought that to the world in early September. But while the D90's video topped out at HD720p (1280 x 720 resolution), the 5D Mark II leaps to HD1080 (1920x1080). Video is saved to Quicktime 1080p H.264 format. (As with the Nikon, some restrictions apply: HD video shooting is limited to 12 minutes, and auto-focus is disabled.)

The camera's new Canon CMOS sensor handles ISO up to a whopping 25,600, for shooting in light so dim even owls give up and lie down. Shutter speed is as fast as 1/8000 second. There's a 3-inch LCD display, with automatic brightness adjustment and 30 fps Live View mode for composition without use of the viewfinder (useful for shooting from difficult positions). The EOS Integrated Cleaning System repels and removes internal dust. (The only major feature you might expect but won't find is a built-in flash - sorry, the pros don't use those little lights.) Weight without battery is 810 grams.

Expect to see the Mark II turning up soon in the hands of photojournalists, wedding photographers, and other pros (as well as the really serious hobbyists). With the 5D Mark II representing "middle high class", the 5D and 50D "middle class", and the kiss X2 and kiss F "entry class", Canon expresses hope that it'll grab 45% unit share of Japan's DSLR market in the coming year.

More info (Japanese):
http://cweb.canon.jp/camera/eosd/5dmk2/index.html
Panasonic LUMIX G1 (English):
http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/09/lumix_g1
Canon EOS Kiss F (English):
http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/06/eos_kiss_f
Pentax K-m (English):
http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/09/pentax_k_m

Name: GAUDI GHV-DV24SD
Category: digital video/still camera
Price: About JPY12,800
Release date in Japan: Early October, 2008

Tokyo-based GREEN HOUSE introduces the GHV-DV24SD, a new videocam entry in its GAUDI (Green house AUDIovisual) line of AV products. Its sales proposition: acceptable video at a dirt-cheap price, about JPY12,800.

The earlier GAUDI GHV-DV17SDS somehow hit an even lower price, JPY9800. Pretty amazing for a video camera that on the surface looks a lot like a one-hand, vertically-oriented compact camera from a big-name maker. But that cam's generous-sized display panel swung out to reveal a tiny 1.7-inch screen on the other side (smaller than many mobile phone screens), its internal memory was only 16MB, its zoom was 4x digital, and its 30fps video capture maxed out at VGA resolution (640x480) - not too impressive.

For JPY19,800, you could move up to the horizontally-oriented GHV-DV30SDS, which brought 32MB memory, 16x digital zoom, and a nice 3-inch display, but not much else - still the same VGA video.

The new GHV-DV24SD takes the middle ground between the two earlier entries: the 4x digital zoom of the one, the 32MB internal memory of the other, and a display that splits the difference at 2.4 inches. Its raison d'etre is improved video: D1 resolution (720×480), the standard for regular DVD video. The addition of image stabilization further improves video quality.

That's still a far cry from the glorious HD video now the norm in camcorders. The 32MB of memory, shared with the camcorder OS, is next to useless for video; all of the GAUDI camcorders are made to use SD memory cards (up to 2GB) for actual shooting. Further, the cam's digital zoom isn't "real" (optical) zoom. Its focus is fixed (with a single switch for closer macro shooting). Yet not all the basic amenities are missing: there's a microphone/speaker and a voice recording mode, headphone jack, AV input/output, a flash, MP3 playback, and 5-megapixel still snapshots.

Okay, so the tech specs aren't exciting, but this one's all about price. At only JPY12,800 and 136 grams, do you want to be without a camcorder in your walkabout bag?

More info (Japanese): http://www.green-house.co.jp/products/gaudi/digitalvideocamera/dv24sds/i...

Name: Pentax K-m
Category: digital SLR camera
Price: About JPY60,000 (body only)
Release date in Japan: Late October, 2008

Hoya Corporation's Pentax Imaging Systems Division adds to the growing range of lighter, simpler digital SLR (DSLR) cameras coming out of Japan, with the entry-class K-m. Less expensive than the maker's existing K20D and K200D models, the K-m puts an "m" in its name to denote "mini", "micro", and - says Pentax - "mama".

The 10-megapixel camera has the tech features you'd expect from a DSLR in 2008: Shake Reduction (special lenses not required), a dust removal system for the large (23.5x15.7mm) CCD image sensor, a big 2.7-inch LCD panel, RAW and JPEG formatting, and "digital filters" to apply special effects to photos. Features aimed specifically at DSLR newcomers include newly-simplified controls,  Auto Picture selection of shooting mode (with a new ability to automatically select Night Scene Portrait mode), and use of 4 regular AA batteries. There's a 5-point Auto Focus system and automatic ISO setting (100 to 3200) as well. Storage is SD/SDHC memory card.

All in all, it's a good basic package, with nothing outstanding: no radical move to a digital viewfinder, no "live view" preview, no swivel mount on the LCD display, and so on. The biggest attraction is not tech, but size: with a chassis redesigned to shed bulk, the K-m body is only 525 grams (over 100g less than the K200D) and only 122.5 mm wide. Pentax says that's the smallest width in any DSLR, beating even the Panasonic LUMIX and its compact Micro Four Thirds build.

Pentax is introducing two new lightweight, plastic-mount lenses to go with the K-m: the 200-g DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL and the 235-g telephoto DA L 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED. A K-m kit with the former lens will run about JPY70,000; with both lenses, JPY80,000.

More info (Japanese):
http://www.pentax.jp/japan/imaging/digital/slr/k-m/feature.html