Yashica’s New $170 Point-and-Shoot Has the Looks but Not All the Charm of the Cameras It Emulates
Yashica is back with yet another compact point-and-shoot camera designed to capitalize on the trendiness of old-school digicams. This time it’s the Yashica Crew, an ultra-lightweight compact camera with a 13-megapixel sensor and 6x optical zoom.
The Yashica Crew looks like a classic Canon PowerShot, Nikon CoolPix, or Sony CyberShot. It’s small, thin, and streamlined in its design. The Yashica Crew has a 13-megapixel Type 1/3.06 image sensor that Yashica says captures “36MP JPEG photos,” meaning it does some in-camera upscaling. The camera also records 4K video at an unspecified frame rate. Yashica says it has seven built-in “creative color filters.”
A big part of the Yashica Crew’s proposed appeal is its compact and lightweight form factor. The camera is only 25.7 millimeters (1.06 inches) thick when powered off and weighs just 126 grams (4.5 ounces). Although Yashica doesn’t disclose the camera’s other dimensions, the 3-inch touchscreen takes up a lot of the back, and in in-situ product shots, it doesn’t look very large. Speaking of the screen, the 3-inch 16:9 panel flips up for easy selfies, an added convenience.
The retractable built-in 6x optical zoom lens is 4.26-24.81mm, which, after accounting for the small sensor’s significant crop factor, is around a 31-183mm lens. It has an f/3.1-6.4 aperture, meaning that the depth of field will be quite expansive. It will be very challenging, if not impossible, to blur the background in normal photo scenarios. This is also true of the old-school point-and-shoot cameras the Crew wants to be like.
The camera features a removable 700mAh Li-ion battery that recharges via USB-C. The removable battery is a nice touch, making the camera a better long-term prospect. It seems that the Crew has a built-in LED rather than an old-school Xenon flash. While the camera may look the part of a classic, trendy digital camera, it misses a big part of the nostalgic mark without the old-school flash.
In any event, the Yashica Crew digital camera is slated to launch the week of October 26 for around $170. It comes in black and silver. It’s certainly much cheaper than many used versions of the extremely popular old point-and-shoot cameras it seeks to replicate.
Image creditsYashica
