Action Cameras - the Next Big Thing?

By PF Staff in Photokina 2014 on Sep 24, 2014

Ricoh recently announced the WG-M1 "action camera" for the active outdors users, a market that is currently being dominated by GoPro. Plenty of WG-M1's were on display for people to play with at Photokina. We have compiled the specifications here.

Polaroid is also jumping on the bandwagon. They showed off the $99 "PolaroidCUBE" as well as a cylinder-shaped action camera, and they weren't the only ones at the show with products like these.

Standing only 35 mm the PolaroidCUBE is tiny tiny so without a huge mock-up in the ceiling no-one would have noticed it. This new 6 MP "camera" has a field of view of 124 degrees and also does 1080p HD video:

We particularly like the monkey stand:

There's apparently no limit to what maketing will do to peddle their wares:

The cylinder-shaped contraption aka XS100i Wi-Fi is somewhat larger and water proof to 10 m like the Ricoh WG-M1 and thus well suited for water sports. It is a 16MP camera and also does 1080p HD video. The field of view is 170 degrees:

We do find the Ricoh offering the best looking of the trio, though it's also the heaviest. We only wish that it had a monkey stand in addition to the spike...