Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. (Fujifilm) has announced the "FinePix S9000," a single-lens reflex (SLR) style digital camera with a 9.03 megapixel effective resolution.

It should be noted that the price is expected to be as low as around ?80,000 (about $730), despite featuring a 9 megapixel class CCD image sensor. The lens is integrated with the camera, and the optical zoom extends to 10.7x, equivalent to a lens focal length between 28 mm wide angle and 300 mm telescopic.

The CCD image sensor in this camera is the company's "Super CCD HoneycombV HR" released in February 2005. Fujifilm boosted the size of the image sensor to 1/1.6 inch in an effort to raise the resolution. The Super CCD HoneycombV HR's strongpoint, a high S/N (signal-to-noise) ratio, allows the FinePix S9000 to achieve a peak sensitivity equivalent to ISO1600. Thanks to a faster shutter speed compared to most other digital cameras, given the same light condition, blurring from camera shake or subject movement can be much reduced.

The dimensions of the camera are 128 x 93 x 129 mm. The weight including components such as a battery pack and a compact memory card is approximately 755 g. The camera is equipped with dual memory card slots for xD-Picture Card and CompactFlash Type II.

From Nikkei Electronics