Contax Announces i4R Digital Camera

Digital camera maker Contax announced Thursday a new ultracompact digital camera with a stylish design that resembles a high-end perfume atomizer and puts the flash strobe on the retractable lens cover.

The Contax i4R (shown below) at less then 94mm long and 21mm thin has a resolution of four megapixels, and a fixed focal-length lens equivalent to 39mm on a 35mm camera, featuring a Carl Zeiss Tessar T 6.5mm lens. In addition, Carl Zeiss special multi-layer T coating reduces flare and ghosting which results in sharp images. For greater control, the i4R has the ability to focus down to 2 inches in macro mode.

Other features include SD memory card storage, resolutions to 2272 by 1704 pixels, a 15fps VGA movie mode, 6x digital zoom, nine-point AF, three metering modes, ISO ratings from 50 to 400, a 1.5-inch LCD display, eight scene modes, and burst modes of 3 frames per second (fps) without autofocus, or 1.4fps with autofocus.

Pricing and availability for the camera have not yet been announced.