Top 10 Weirdest Digital Cameras

Over the last 11+ years there have been a large variety of interesting and creative products, some of them made it to market, while some of the more difficult to produce ideas did not. Here's a countdown of the Top 10 Weirdest Digital Cameras:

10 - Pentax Optio X, from 2004 features a split body in the middle, one half 2 inch camera screen, and the other half 3x optical zoom lens and 5mp sensor, twisting so you can take photos from strange and interesting angles.

9 - Nikon Coolpix 2500, from 2003, features a lens unit that twists round, letting you take photos of yourself. With 2 megapixels and a 3x optical zoom lens, the camera was priced at $799 when new!

8 - Nikon Coolpix SQ - 'SQ' may have stood for square, as the shape was very much square when you put the lens away. This wasn't the last Nikon swivelling camera, just one of the most interesting, and features a 3x optical zoom lens, and a 3 megapixel sensor, also released in 2003.

7 - Casio Exilim TRYX / TR100 - one of the newest cameras available, it features a twisting screen, and rotating frame, allowing you to hold the camera as a camera or a camcorder. Find out more in our Casio Exilim TRYX TR100 Review.

Image courtesy: DigiCamReview.com

6 - Olympus Wooden prototype, using Japanese Evergreen wood, shown around the time the Olympus Mju Mini Digital made it into production, the wooden digital camera never saw the light of day, and was just shown as a working model at Photokina instead.

5 - Leica Digital Module R (DMR) - Digital Film Back - you attach this to the back of the Leica R9 film camera, and it turns your film camera into a 10 megapixel digital SLR.

image courtesy: digitalcamera.jp.

4 - Silicon Film, or e-film / electronic-film, was quite literally designed to replace film in film cameras, thanks to a sensor positioned where film would normally be. Unfortunately the product never saw the light of day.

3 - Film and Digital Camera combined - Sticking with the idea of combining a film and digital camera into one camera, someone actually did it - the 35mm film and digital camera, although the digital camera is above the film camera. source: Digicamreview.com.

2 - Necono Digital Camera - is it a cat? is it a camera? It's both! Made by superheadz the digital camera, shaped like a cat, designed by Lisa Larson, features magnetic feet so you can stick it anywhere and leave it to take photos (every 1 or 2 seconds). Alternatively you can buy a camera made specifically for your cat (or dog) letting them photograph their day.

1 - Pentax compact interchangeable camera (no, not the Pentax Q...), years before mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras were even invented, Pentax were toying with the idea of an interchangeable lens camera, and showed this prototype at Photokina 2006. The Flash unit opened up, and the lens / sensor combined would then plug into the camera. A nice idea... in fact one that was implemented in the Ricoh GXR system.