Epson PhotoPC 850Z (1999)

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The Epson PhotoPC 850Z was announced and shown at the PMA Europe '99. At the time of the announcement it was Epson's flagship with a powerful zoom lens and a flash hot shoe. The native resolution was 2.1MP (1600x1200) but the HyPict camera software boosted it up to 3MP (1984x1488). The camera featured several shooting modes like sport, portrait or landscape and featured a built-in microphone and even a speaker! More features were automatic exposure control, automatic white balance, continuous and interval shooting modes and a lot more. Epson supplied a lens adapter with the camera so that optional lenses could be mounted. For whatever reason this digital camera, like the PhotoPC 750z, was not marketed in Japan.

Audio clips of 3, 5 and 10 seconds could be recorded and played back and supported direct printing to several Epson Stylus printers. The camera had 3x optical and 2x digital zoom, self-timer and built-in flash. Few people only know that the PhotoPC 750z, 800 and 850z were compatible with Epson's acclaimed Image Authentication System (IAS). This meant that the optional Image Authentication System software could be loaded into the camera and acted as a digital fingerprint on the taken images. The software would embed a digital fingerprint on the picture at the time it was taken. This fingerprint could neither be altered nor removed and could be checked with special verification software, this was especially interesting for law enforcement and other institutions.

All images © Take-it-or-leave-it except Epson promo shot © Epson Seiko Corp.