Name: Canon EOS Kiss F
Category: digital SLR camera
Price: Open price (about JPY70,000 for body only)
Release date in Japan: late June, 2008

The "F" stands for "friendly" and "family". That's Canon's message to potential buyers who may have been eyeing single lens reflex cameras, but have been put off by price or complexity. The Kiss F follows in the steps of the beginner-oriented Kiss X2 released in March of this year, with a lower pixel count and smaller LCD screen to bring the price down by about JPY20,000. (The older, bulkier Kiss Digital X is heading out of production to make way for the F.)

Image size is 10 megapixels, more than enough for a home printer's largest printouts. Automatic ISO setting and automatic sensor cleaning remove those concerns from newcomers' minds. Face recognition takes care of the best exposure, flash, etc. for portraits. And like the X2, "Live View" lets photogs compose the image on the 2.5-inch LCD monitor before shooting, a plus for compact camera users who aren't used to looking through an SLR's viewfinder.

More experienced users will appreciate RAW image format in addition to JPEG. Quick shooting allows 3 shots/sec using JPEG, 1.5/sec using RAW.

Expect a price of about JPY70,000 for the light 450g body, or JPY80,000 for a kit with EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 IS lens, which sounds like a good lens for wide and low-light shots, if not telephoto shooting.

More info: http://cweb.canon.jp/camera/eosd/kissf/ (Japanese)