Kyocera Samurai 2100DG (1999)

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Kyocera's second digital camera of the digital Samurai series, announced 1999-06-15. It was the world's first digital camera with 4x optical zoom in the 2 megapixel class. The camera was bulkier then it's predecessor, the Samurai 1300DG and adopted the feel and look of the older Samurai film cameras. The camera was marketed in two colors, black and silver, and the production estimate for japanese and overseas sales was set at 5,000 units per month. The package included a lithium ion battery, an 8MB compact flash card, a hand grip and an dedicated AC adapter.

 

Other improvements over the Samurai 1300DG were improved playback and recording speed due to larger internal buffer memory. The start-up time was reduced to 2 seconds, time between taking pictures to 1 seconds and playback standby time to 0.5 - 4.5 seconds depending on the playback feature. For sequential shooting a total of 3 images could be taken in super fine and fine mode and up to 12 pictures in normal mode. A newly adopted infrared active autofocus system was also implemented to gain a higher focusing accuracy.

 

Apart from the unconventional LCD viewfinder in the back of the camera there was also an optical viewfinder with diopter correction, a macro mode of up to 10cm, several shooting  and playback modes and a custom setting mode for personal settings. Shooting with this camera is actually quite some fun because you can hold it in one hand and shoot images similar to a movie camera. A Samurai 2100DG is getting harder and harder to find these days and if you do find one then it will in most cases be the silver edition, the black version is extremely difficult to get.