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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:33 pm

SpotTheCat wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
So Spot, any pics night indoor parties with lots of faces and stuff? What about nightshots? I thought you said you wanted to take some during that lunar eclipse a while back.

I did and the zoom is pathetic. It is much more suited as an indoor camera because of the wide-angle lens. Low light level pictures... I can't help you there, but they look fine to my eye.
Zoom is bad because there is no matching flash. Sure you can zoom in but there is nothing to light up the objects. Usually wedding receptions will be my problematic areas since I don't always sit in the front, but I will be happy to let the DSLR-ers deal with that and send me the pictures afterwards.

SpotTheCat wrote:
I am a little hesitant to veer away from the companies that made good film cameras. We tried a Sony, too, and it was just awful. It constantly wanted to be 2-3 ISO levels too high in auto-mode, so everything came out super grainy. Automatic modes shouldn't be so useless.
Which Sony, the W's or the T's? Yes, when they guess wrong things are horrible. My mom's Panny FX01, even at the same restaurant, can guess right and wrong from almost the same location and lighting conditions, the results between ISO200 and ISO800 are drastically different. I personally couldn't care less as long as it is good in max ISO400, and if there is manual aperture control (which my A40 has) I can compensate. However I expect these situations to be the minority so I need good out-of-box performance. And if the "night scene mode" is good enough I can live without manual aperture control I guess.

I do see myself eventually moving on to almost complete auto P&S and a bigger pro-sumer level unit if I get more serious. However, for now an all-rounder is what I am looking for. Damnit Canon why not put out an A with <35mm lens. :evil:
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crazybus
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:01 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Actually I thought Panasonic P&S gives even more redish pictures. The Canon ones are fine by my standards.
Hmm...interesting. I'll admit I don't have that much experience with Panasonic P&S's. Mostly my sister's TZ1 and a few others.

What's telling is that this past Christmas I went out with my sister and her fiancé for some casual engagement shots and we brought along three cameras - my Fuji F30, the Panasonic TZ1 and a Canon S2 IS. Since I was mainly taking pictures with my F30 I set the other cameras to "Snow" mode and hoped for the best. Unfortunately when we looked at the pictures afterwards the only ones that were decent were the ones from my F30. The TZ1 had locked itself in ISO 200 mode so all the pictures were mottled and worthless, and the Canon's pictures pretty much all featured glowy red overexposed skin tones. Granted the lighting conditions weren't ideal and snow often creates exposure difficulties but in the end I wasn't impressed by the other cameras' output.
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:14 am

crazybus wrote:
What's telling is that this past Christmas I went out with my sister and her fiancé for some casual engagement shots and we brought along three cameras - my Fuji F30, the Panasonic TZ1 and a Canon S2 IS. Since I was mainly taking pictures with my F30 I set the other cameras to "Snow" mode and hoped for the best. Unfortunately when we looked at the pictures afterwards the only ones that were decent were the ones from my F30. The TZ1 had locked itself in ISO 200 mode so all the pictures were mottled and worthless, and the Canon's pictures pretty much all featured glowy red overexposed skin tones. Granted the lighting conditions weren't ideal and snow often creates exposure difficulties but in the end I wasn't impressed by the other cameras' output.

The S2 is kind of old and I look at dpreview's samples and even the A7xx seems to beat it a bit. Your F30 is supposed to be really good at lower light with high ISOs. So you are basically using the Fuji's strong point vs the others' weak point. It depends on use I guess. For Fuji the use of xD bugs me, and they don't seem to be as big name as Nikon and Canon. They do film cams and lenses, right?
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crazybus
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:41 am

Flying Fox wrote:
The S2 is kind of old and I look at dpreview's samples and even the A7xx seems to beat it a bit. Your F30 is supposed to be really good at lower light with high ISOs. So you are basically using the Fuji's strong point vs the others' weak point. It depends on use I guess.
Yeah the S2 is getting old that's why I was wondering if the newer cameras exhibit similar behaviour. I really do prefer the default colour of my F30 to many other P&S I've tried. In ideal situations with sufficient manual tweaking I'm sure most cameras can do fairly well. The cameras that do well in less than ideal situations are the ones to look out for :wink:.

Flying Fox wrote:
For Fuji the use of xD bugs me, and they don't seem to be as big name as Nikon and Canon. They do film cams and lenses, right?

Yeah, xD is crap, but memory cards are cheap enough that it's not that big of a deal. Fujifilm actually puts SD slots in their new cameras. My F30 is getting old, but I haven't seen too many new P&S other than the 870IS and this upcoming Panasonic really worth getting excited about. Fuji was (and still is I guess) a big name in the actual production of film. Their single SLR model, the S5 Pro, is actually a Nikon D200 body and uses Nikon F mount lenses but features Fujifilm's SuperCCD sensor. It's kind of a pricey, interesting model that excels in certain scenarios but falters at most when compared to the competition. Looking at their P&S models, the only ones that are interesting are the ones with a SuperCCD sensor. They've had some decent long zoom cameras, but have only just recently added image stabilization. I've yet to read a review on those or test them personally.
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:24 am

IS on the Fuji is done by moving the CCD, not exactly the "optical" that is supposed to be the preferred method. The new flagship F100fd also does away with Aperture and Shutter priority, which seems odd.
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:55 pm

Oops? This looks bad? Then again he comes from a D70... And the test shots to me were fine. I wonder what kind of criteria the guy used?
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:32 pm

DPReview's take on the new TZ5 probably gives a good indication of what to expect with the the FX500. It looks better than previous Panasonics but there are still visible noise reduction artifacts at ISO 100 :( See this sample photo to see what I'm talking about.
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TRS-80
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:58 pm

Flying Fox wrote:
I had high hopes for the Panny, but looks like I may be slightly disappointed. Damn Canon why they still haven't put some of these manual controls on their ultracompacts? I don't really want to go back to the A-series since they are a bit too big to bring out to parties and they don't have sub-35mm wide yet. Another sign of Canon dragging its feet when there is no serious competition. :evil:


You could always use CHDK to get manual controls.
 
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:20 am

crazybus wrote:
DPReview's take on the new TZ5 probably gives a good indication of what to expect with the the FX500. It looks better than previous Panasonics but there are still visible noise reduction artifacts at ISO 100 :( See this sample photo to see what I'm talking about.
Where? The shrunken image seems fine to me. :( May be ignorance is bliss? PhotographyBLOG's review of the Venus IV-equipped FS20 seems to be fine at ISO100?

TRS-80 wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
I had high hopes for the Panny, but looks like I may be slightly disappointed. Damn Canon why they still haven't put some of these manual controls on their ultracompacts? I don't really want to go back to the A-series since they are a bit too big to bring out to parties and they don't have sub-35mm wide yet. Another sign of Canon dragging its feet when there is no serious competition. :evil:


You could always use CHDK to get manual controls.
Hey, good to know! This suits both my need to take pictures and the inner geek to tweak/unlock stuff. Can they overclock the processor too? :P

Edit: a quick glance I don't see Aperture/Shutter priority available? :(
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crazybus
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:44 pm

Flying Fox wrote:
crazybus wrote:
DPReview's take on the new TZ5 probably gives a good indication of what to expect with the the FX500. It looks better than previous Panasonics but there are still visible noise reduction artifacts at ISO 100 :( See this sample photo to see what I'm talking about.
Where? The shrunken image seems fine to me. :( May be ignorance is bliss? PhotographyBLOG's review of the Venus IV-equipped FS20 seems to be fine at ISO100?
Maybe I'm overly picky, but when looking at that picture my eyes are drawn toward the faces, which seem more mottled than they should at the cameras lowest sensitivity setting. It's a lot more apparent in the full-size image. While that's not going to be noticeable in a 4x6, I imagine you would be able to see it in larger prints. :shrug:
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:28 pm

crazybus wrote:
Flying Fox wrote:
crazybus wrote:
DPReview's take on the new TZ5 probably gives a good indication of what to expect with the the FX500. It looks better than previous Panasonics but there are still visible noise reduction artifacts at ISO 100 :( See this sample photo to see what I'm talking about.
Where? The shrunken image seems fine to me. :( May be ignorance is bliss? PhotographyBLOG's review of the Venus IV-equipped FS20 seems to be fine at ISO100?
Maybe I'm overly picky, but when looking at that picture my eyes are drawn toward the faces, which seem more mottled than they should at the cameras lowest sensitivity setting. It's a lot more apparent in the full-size image. While that's not going to be noticeable in a 4x6, I imagine you would be able to see it in larger prints. :shrug:

Oh I forgot there is a link to the full picture. Yeah I can definitely see it. Seems to me more like JPEG artifacts than actual noise, but I could be wrong. I'm not that picky.
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Fri May 02, 2008 6:47 am

DCFever.com has just posted a comparison of the FX500 (FX520 in Asia), Fuji F100fd, Casio EXILIM EZ-Z100, Ricoh R8 and the IXUS 860 IS (SD870 IS here in North America).

http://www.dcfever.com/news/readnews.php?id=2058

The site is horribly slow, so be patient. The most important thing is the comparison shots. They are giving the F100fd, R8, and FX520 special mention. I don't like the fact that the F100fd takes away A/S priority from its predecessor. So what to choose...

Edit: I'm grabbing the test pics with a download manager now, so hopefully by the time I come back from work tonight I can mirror them (sorry DCFever, but your site really sucks outside of your region).
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Sat May 03, 2008 12:06 pm

Damn, imageshack auto resizes to get under 1.5 megs. Can anyone host those test shots for us?
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Sat May 10, 2008 10:53 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Damn, imageshack auto resizes to get under 1.5 megs. Can anyone host those test shots for us?

DCFever seemed comparatively snappy this morning, so I downloaded the images. I can host a mirror of the page on my home PC.
http://geatian.dyndns.org:8086/dcfever/readnews.php.htm
Let me know if it doesn't work right, or if I missed an image.
 
crazybus
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon May 12, 2008 4:21 pm

Wow...the lack of distortion with the FX520's lens is incredible, esp. considering it's wider than the others. The sensor IQ looks like it's good enough. It's certainly not terrible. The F100fd still wins IMO for sharpest lens and best sensor but has pretty bad distortion at wide angle.
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diamond2a
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon May 12, 2008 5:13 pm

Firestarter wrote:
I'm not too happy about the trend of squeezing 10+ megapixels onto a tiny sensor, but the 25-125 F2.8 lens sounds like it's a cut above the rest of the P&S lenses.


Just to clear up any confusion, thats a F2.8-F5.9 lens. Just shy of two full stops slower at 125 mm than at 25. That's another casualty of the miniaturization race.
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon May 12, 2008 5:23 pm

diamond2a wrote:
Firestarter wrote:
I'm not too happy about the trend of squeezing 10+ megapixels onto a tiny sensor, but the 25-125 F2.8 lens sounds like it's a cut above the rest of the P&S lenses.


Just to clear up any confusion, thats a F2.8-F5.9 lens. Just shy of two full stops slower at 125 mm than at 25. That's another casualty of the miniaturization race.

Just shy? More like just over. Not better or worse in that regard than most alternatives.
...
 
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Wed May 14, 2008 10:54 pm

crazybus wrote:
Wow...the lack of distortion with the FX520's lens is incredible, esp. considering it's wider than the others. The sensor IQ looks like it's good enough. It's certainly not terrible. The F100fd still wins IMO for sharpest lens and best sensor but has pretty bad distortion at wide angle.

The pink banding issue is making the F100fd a very suspect choice. Of course with the "internets" this is being hyped to no end. A firmware has been released to "reduce" the issue, but there have been conflicting reports claiming it helps or even in some case makes things worse. The consensus seems to be that it is a hardware design flaw (battery compartment too near the sensor causing the A-D circuit to go haywire?) and may not be completely eradicated with firmware changes. Some are even claiming a redesign may come out soon (F110fd?) to fix this.

So for me, it's down to 3 choices:
Canon SD 870IS: the default choice if I can't make up my mind about Fuji vs Panasonic, been out a long time, cheap price, all rounder, less manual control, me being familiar with Canon UI
Fuji F100fd: best sensor, not as good lens (some claim they are not using glass :o), poor UI, some manual controls, pink banding that may or may not show up
Panasonic FX520: best lens, not so good sensor, still noise issue, best manual controls (A/P/S/M), me also familiar with Panasonic UI, though I miss the instant preview of previous picture option (may be I still haven't found it yet), most expensive with all the features, joystick definitely will take some getting used to.
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:35 pm

Why oh why Fuji puts such a weak lens in the F60fd? With Aperture and Shutter Priority and the same ok-ish sensor from the F100fd, the lens is turning me off. I need at least 28mm wide! :cry:

Canon is still silent. It better puts out something good by Photokina. :evil:
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:36 pm

I don't know as much about cameras as some of you guys, but I've been extremely impressed by the Canon 1100IS I bought back in April. The digital macro mode is insane. The manual settings for night shots are sufficient. And it takes stellar point-and-shoot pictures even with fast action under normal light.

I'll post up a few pix when I get a chance.
 
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Mon Aug 25, 2008 10:18 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Canon is still silent. It better puts out something good by Photokina. :evil:

Finally there is some noise about Canon. Amazing they have kept it under wraps so long.

But WTF is with the supposedly "flagship" A2000IS that they took out the viewfinder? Also with the bump to 10MP they'd better increase the sensor size or we will be looking at some noisy pictures. :evil:

Nothing on the ultracompact front yet. I am dreaming/hoping for a good SD870IS upgrade.
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Flying Fox
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Re: "touch me, touch me!" said the little camera...

Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:11 am

I hate market(ing) segmentation. :evil:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/17/cano ... -sd880-is/

Looks like they are not starting to "trickle" down the manual stuff to the top-end ELPH, but they have to handcuff it with the non-wide lens. Or you can think of the wide lens version not being deemed "top end" and the manual stuff is left off the SD880.

The 990 has the 1/1.7" sensor, if only they forget about the MP race and stay with 10-12MP... :cry: Still, it's a top end ELPH, why didn't they put that wider lens in there? Didn't they know that once they cross this stupid segmentation **** they will end up with a "best of breed" monster?
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