By Evan Ackerman
We took a look at the Ricoh 500SE (and it’s crazy features) last year, and now GeoSpatial Experts has added another little doohickey to the water resistant, WiFi enabled, Bluetooth enabled, GPS equipped camera: a compass. It may not seem like much, but it’s a very nice thing to have integrated into your geotagging system. Now, you get a record of which direction you’re pointing the camera in addition to where you’re standing when you take a picture. Pop that data into Google Earth, and you’ll be able to stick a geotagged picture into the same location and perspective (both heading and tilt) as when it was taken, which could make for some pretty sweet virtual tours.
The rest of the features on the Ricoh 500SE are mostly standard, including 8 mp resolution, a 28mm wide angle 3x zoom lens that can macro focus to 1cm, a 2.5″ LCD, and image stabilization. The camera takes SD cards and accepts a range of accessories, including additional lenses and even an external GPS antenna. Oh, and it can be hooked up to a Bluetooth laser rangefinder to record distance data along with pictures, and it scans barcodes.
All these bells and whistles will cost you just under $1800, which is certainly a little steep on the compact digicam spectrum. My guess is that there’s a certain type of person out there who this camera is absolutely perfect for, and they probably lead a far more dangerous and exciting life than I… You know, until they get devoured by a gang of ravenous anteaters in the jungles of Borneo, which is not generally something I concern myself with. Knock on wood.
[ Ricoh S00SE ] VIA [ Gearlog ]
