NEC Technology Actively Cancels Out Zoom Noise In Digital Camera Movies

I’m not sure zoom noise was really the most pressing concern (I’m more worried about feature bloat and low-light capability, personally), but apparently NEC thought it was worth looking into. They’ve created some tech, apparently already employed by the Casio ZR10, that knows what noise the zoom mechanism makes and works to cancel it out while you’re shooting movies.

It’s basically like other noise-canceling technology, except in this case the noise the lens makes is more or less known, so the reduction algorithm works from a pre-recorded waveform instead of using ambient noise as the “seed.” Hopefully this will combat the scourge of zoom noise proliferating our point-and-shoot videos. Glory to NEC!