While some old 35mm diehards still bemoan the lack of prints and negatives for every shot, sharing pictures in the digital age has actually gotten a lot easier: You can have them printed instantly at a kiosk or at home, e-mail them in seconds, arrange them in online albums for friends and family, and even stretch them across your HDTV. With Polaroid’s PoGo pocket printer, you can even make instant prints wherever you are. But what about that staple of post-vacation slideshows in living rooms everywhere, the projector?
It may have slipped into antiquity for a while, but Nikon has resurrected the time-honored task of throwing pictures across any convenient wall, sheet or screen with its new Coolpix S1000pj – a camera with a projector built right in. After snapping a day’s worth of photos, you can set the camera down and view them all blown up to 40 inches across, just about anywhere. A tiny LCD projector within the face of the camera does all the work, and Nikon includes both a stand to make positioning easier, and a remote, so you can sit back and control the slideshow without having to hover over the camera.
That means impromptu hotel-room slideshows at the end of a long day’s travels, showing off photos to friends without looking for a big TV and the right cables, and perhaps most importantly, an on-demand canvas for shadow puppets. Just keep in mind that a very modest output of just 10 lumens (in comparison to the 1,000+ lumens from true home theater projectors) will make a dark room an absolute necessity.
As a camera, the Coolpix S1000pj has modest specs in line with most modern point-and-shoot cams: a 12.1-megapixel sensor, 5x zoom, 2.7-inch LCD display, and the rather impressive ability to shoot at up to ISO 6400 (when taking 3-megapixel shots).
The Coolpix S1000pj will land in September for $430. More information is available from Nikon.
