quote:

Brad on cameras I would suggest something by Panasonic.

I think they are on the verge of pulling the trigger on new models. They just announced this one last week the Lumix FX100. There is also this one the Lumix TZ3. Both these cameras are very compact and pocketable. The FX100 is a little smaller. The TZ3 is considered a super zoom as it has a 28-280mm optical focal range. The FX100 has a larger sensor and less reach than the TZ optically.

If you want something a little more sophisticated there is the Lumix LX2. This camera is a serious tool. It can capture RAW files. The actual sensor dimensions is in the 16:9 aspect ratio giving an outstanding wide angle view. It has great edge to edge sharpness without much vignetting wide open.

I would suggest staying with what is most recent so the FX100 or the TZ3 would fit this bill. If you enjoy taking snaps later you could upgrade to the successor to the LX2 when it is released and pass on the FX100 or TZ3 to your nephew.

Non of these cameras have an optical viewfinder. The LCD's are quit superb though.

My mouth is still watering for the Lumix LX2. It's getting to the emergency stage for me where I need a digital camera... and I think this month I have to make a decision. Getting the bike put a dent in my spending.

Wow, this is a really compact design... only 2.2" x 4.16"?? I friggin' love it.

I see the thing takes SD or SDHC Memory cards... what's the difference? What's the leading brand nowadays, Sandisk? Panasonic?

SDHC=High Capacity. SDHC is the new standard set up by the SD Card Association. They have the ability to go up to 32GB in the future.

As long as the brand you buy is marked as indicated the cards should perform as advertised. Sandisk still does a good job. Their Extreme III cards are pretty fast. They are still pricier than other brands. I am using a Kingston SDHC 4GB card without any problem. You can get 8GB cards now for $80. A year ago that would have cost $350 at much slower transfer rates.

With SDHC the card readers are the problem. SDHC will not work in older card readers or older products that don't specifically say they do.

Those LX2's are seductive. The product cycle is coming around again. So I am not sure if I would suggest getting something cheaper now and waiting for the next generation later in the fall. The LX2 is a serious tool. It really covers a lot of ground for a pocket camera. It even does excellent macro. One thing I wish it had was lens threads. The Leica Digilux 1 I bought back in 2002 (wow I can not believe it was five years ago this fall) had a great design with a barrel that screwed over the lens that had a 49mm lens thread. The D1 works great for Infrared. It does great macro work too. The D1 is not a pocket camera though.

The more compact Panasonics I mentioned do not have lens caps. The lens retracks into the camera body with a cover that closes over the opening. The LX2 does have a lens cap.

As for the waterproof cameras I linked earlier the really cheap ones for $100 were really just a cheap shitty camera in a housing. You would be better off spending the money for a better camera and getting a simple waterproof bag like this which I thought was less expensive than that. Man that is pretty hefty price. Here is an example of the cheap waterproof models. I am not sure if I would trust it to blow the money on one. The waterproof Pentax or Olympus linked earlier might be a good stop gap camera. The image quality will be as good or better than your older Nikon. They would make for good fishing boating beach general use cameras.

Then again you could just get one of those bags for the LX2.

Do you realize how many god dammed cameras there are to choose from out there? And name brands (such as Sony) are no guarantee of picture quality. I'm starting to camera-settle on an on-sale Kodak Easyshare C653 that I saw for a hundred bucks at Office Depot. The downside on this camera is that it produces more than average noise under low light conditions.

Heck, I even checked out a sample picture of the LX2 and it was pretty crummy, I unfortunately have to say. (You can find comparisons here between some different popular camera models.) So I might just roll the dice and see if the hundred dollar camera will suit my needs. I was at Office Depot last night and this nice yute who worked there was trying to help me out. I told him I wanted something small that that took high-quality pictures. The other features weren't as important. And he was then honest enough to say that most people simply just went for the looks of the camera, the number of megapixels, and the amount of optical zoom. But I'll take 5 megapixels of excellent quality over 8 of mediocre quality.

Anyway, I've got to take another look at the Canons too. They seem to consistently pop up as digital cameras that take consistently good quality photos. The ultra compact Canon SD1000 is a camera that is mentioned again and again as a good one, as is the A460 or the A630.

What's a digital camera thread without a link to dpreview.com ????

Still a great site even though Amazon bought them.

Canon all the way Brad.

Keep the hell out of Office Depot, too. Just because you have a car doesn't mean you have to use it.

Use the Internets. This very efficient series of tubes will be your guide to getting that perfect camera.

SD1000

A460

A630

DPReview is a shill for Canon.

Every P&S camera image will look like crap when viewing at 100%. These cameras are made to optimally print at 4x6 to 8x10.

Panasonic TZ3

Panasonic FX30

Panasonic FX07

These cameras all have a wide angle of 28mm.

For low light everyone claims the Fuji F30 is da bomb. I think what Fuji does is just a better job at smearing the noise than every body else which in turn just supplies a soft smooth image.

In my opinion if you are shooting low light with a P&S you should be doing so with the intention of converting the images to B&W. Doing so render the "noise" mute.

btw, my 3 camera links above were for Brad's convenience — I wasn't recommending any of them. I'm SLR all the way, so I can't speak about point 'n' shoots much.

...

And where's the proof of the "Canon shill" slur?

Hardly evident from the site. Perhaps a few Nikon/Panasonic/Kodak/fill-in-the-blank-manufacturer fanboys got their fragile megapixels stepped on?

If Canon makes great products, and a site honestly reviews them, and Canon comes out on top, is Canon just good or is the site therefore a shill?

Needless namecalling, as far as I can see.

Show me proof then. I'm openminded.

Quite right, Mighty One. Digital Photography Review is another great site.

Holy crap, John. I think you're going to cost me another hundred bucks. I'm gonna send you the bill. Now that I take a good look at the Canon Powershot A630, I think the hundred buck is worth it. It seems to have everything I want, including aperture and shutter priority modes. It may be slightly bigger and heavier than the ideal, but criminy, if you're going to shoot pictures there's no use getting mush. There are always tradeoffs, and I think the A630 could be very near what I want. But tell me, is the lack of image stabilization a big deal?

Every P&S camera image will look like crap when viewing at 100%. These cameras are made to optimally print at 4x6 to 8x10.

Rico, I agree that by the time you take these 2000 x 1000 pixel images (or whatever the dimension) and print them in a 4 x 6 or 8 x 10, differences in sharpness might pale in comparison to things such as accuracy of color, shadow detail, or highlight detail (detail in the sense of thing not washing out or disappearing into a black smudge, not necessarily that highlights or shadows show particular fine detail in the detail that does show). But for me, a lot of the stuff I'm going to share will be on the web. Fine detail is king as far as I'm concerned. I'm often going to want to heavily crop some images, even though I know that I ought to do a better job of composing the image when I'm taking it. It's stupid to acquire all that detail if you just throw it away. But when you sit at your computer you have a chance to see composition that you might not when out in the field. So give me nice, sharp detail. The more the better.

Speaking of B&W, Rico, it really intrigues me that some of these cameras will capture in black and white (or sepia). Of course, I think it's likely that the conversion to B&W best be done in Photoshop, but maybe not. I'm not sure. But at least by capturing in full color you have the option of doing really soft or muted colors -- or just doing the single rose in color while the rest of the photos is in black and white. But I do think I will very much want to do a lot of black and white. As far as I'm concerned, particularly when shooting some macro shots of nature (leaves and things), or when shooting rocks or river beds, color can be distracting. The unique forms and patterns really tend to pop out in black and while. And although I would probably bore most people with black and white shots, I do like to dabble with the less-is-more aspect of black and white.

Mighty I am not name calling I am only stating the obvious. Phil Askey the site founder and the other reviewers he uses are all Canon fanboys so what does that make it as a review site. DPReview does have a lot of information to go thru but as time has gone by the reviews they deliver were lacking in objectivity and frankly to a large degree any real understanding or photographic ability. It is great to see all the charts and graph tests but in real world use they seem like they do not know what they are doing.

Brad if sharpness is what you want in particular macro sharpness from my experience the Panasonics will deliver this for you. The color from the Panasonics are also very accurate. The P&S I listed from Panasonic are just that P&S. They have scene modes to chose from with no manual overides other than I believe exposure compensation. The Panasonics that do have Aperture and Shutter priority are the super zooms they make. The FZ8 FZ50. These cameras are a whole different concept.

The LX2 is a fully manual pocketable camera from aperture to shutter to focus. It captures RAW files as well. This all comes at a price.

The one thing I don't like about the Canons Mighty listed starts with the use of AA batteries. The LCD's are not as high quality either which is a major part to digital P&S. Optical viewfinders are nice but they are so small on P&S that in my personal opinion are not worth the effort.

As for cropping there is no P&S that will crop well at all. They will crop to some degree but nothing close to what a DSLR is capable of doing. The nice thing about the P&S's is the fact that the LCD's show near full frame allowing you to see entirely what will be captured during exposure. This can help cut down on the need for cropping.

PS CS3 has some strong B&W conversion tools now. You can dial out the chroma noise when converting to give very exceptable B&W images that can be printed I would say up to 11x14. Traditionally 35mm B&W film is good for printing around this size. Going any bigger was stretching it.

I would stay away from using the B&W modes. When shooting in RAW the LX2 will shoot in B&W/Sepia modes but the nice thing is two files are produced one JPG that is B&W and the RAW file retains the color data. RAW mode always produces a JPG and RAW file. I am not sure what happens with P&S that only produce JPG if you get a color and B&W version. If they only produce B&W images you can not colorize the image after the fact. Of course you can monochrome a color image.

AlienSkin has a plugin called Exposure that looks really nice for changing digital images to all kinds of film styles from Trix to Kodachrome. I have never tried it out.

Sorry, I meant namecalling in reference to the many other people that have used the phrase "Canon shill" online in reference to dpreview.com.

dpreview + "canon shill"

dpreview "shill for canon"

Just seems like one of those fanboy bandwagon things that gets said and spreads like wildfire without questioning the truth of it. But if I could see a thoughtful critique with evidence somewhere I'd be more open to criticizing them myself.

:shrug: Thus far, their site has lead to several Nikon and other brand purchases, from people I know. The Canon hypnotism doesn't work on everyone apparently.

The whole shill thing goes in all directions too.

shill for Canon (202)

shill for Nikon (62)

shill for Panasonic (7)

shill for Sony (1,060)

To be fair: "shill for sony" NEAR camera (16)

shill for Kodak (4)

LOL...whatever.

I'll take facts over opinion any day.

MightyOne what are you shooting with now. I remember you getting the 10D before your sojourn with Thai women.

I recently picked up the Pentax K10D.

quote:

Brad if sharpness is what you want in particular macro sharpness from my experience the Panasonics will deliver this for you. The color from the Panasonics are also very accurate.

I saw the Lumix test photo (the one with the color gauges and so forth), and I was fairly impressed for the accurate color. The other thing I'm drooling over is all the groovy aspect ratios I can shoot. I'll be able to view the photos edge to edge on my Panasonic plasma TV monitor, I'm sure.

But what's selling me overall is the design. Compact, minimal, and friggin' BLACK. Woo Hoo! I hate little silver P&S cameras. It never struck me as intelligent to have camera bodies that are good at reflecting light. I'd never do one in stainless, for example. I mean, come on, cameras are black for a reason.

I think I'm going to get that LX2. It's either that, or spend three times as much for a more pro SLR. For my needs, though, the Panasonic ought to fit the bill. If it doesn't, I'll use it for family snaps and pictures of trout.

I'm gonna do the 30D soon. I sold the 10D a while ago and I'm jonesin' to get back to shooting.

Onward and upward.

And that's one thai lady.

Thanks for all the input, guys. I'm still scratching my head on which shill to believe, the Canon shill or the Panasonic shill. Actually, again, when I look at the quality of the A630 side-by-side with the LX2, the A630 is as good or better. Money is a real consideration for me so I'll probably end up making bigger trade-offs then all yuze professionals. I'm still rolling the dice. Ooo. Ooo. Those pink-bodied ones over there look COOOOL.

Nelson in the end the most important thing is whether you are taking photos or not the camera is secondary. The A640 which is another $60 over the A630 has support for SDHC media and image stabilization. These are last years models too. They were released in August 2006. For the price the A630 gives you a lot of control. Not nearly as much as the LX2. The RAW format alone puts the LX2 in a whole other class than the A630.

Check the user reviews at DPR if you have not yet. The DPR review on the A640 says battery life is best using NiMH type.

There is also the A710 that is basically the same camera as the A640 with IS SDHC support but with a smaller sensor size and I think the LCD does not swivel. It only uses 2 batteries rather than 4. It is priced between the A630 and A640. I like the idea of the bigger sensor though.

Thalo the LX2 files will fit perfectly on the Plasma. The unique thing about the 16:9 aspect ratio of the LX2 is the sensor is actually 16:9. Other cameras can do 16:9 but only by cropping the 4:3 sensor down. It should do a good job at photographing your work as well. Using natural light will give you accurate color which is the most important aspect of photographing work. Plus the RAW file will allow you to fine tune afterward. LX2 is not a DSLR by a long shot but what it offers in small package is hard to beat.

MightyQ if memory serves me you pulled the trigger on the 10D only weeks before the 20D. The 30D has been around for a long time the product cycle looks like August might bring the successor.

Yeah, I'm waiting. I recall my shitty timing. But if the successor doesn't add much, praps I'll get a deal on a 30D then.

Nelson in the end the most important thing is whether you are taking photos or not the camera is secondary.

Thank you for that advice, Rico. That actually helps a lot. I need to focus on what I'm going to do and I think I will be taking snapshots as sort of a travelogue. Photos with some running commentary. An HDT on wheels (that stands for "High Definition Thoreau"). The quality of the photos will be secondary, so I'm rethinking this and am going to go for compact size – something I can easily stuff in a pocket and fuhgettaboutit. But the camera will still need to have a decent macro setting. Do you or John have any suggestions along this line? It wouldn't hurt to have stitching software or in-camera stitching for panoramas and such, but that's not abolutely required.

I'm leaning heavily toward the Canon PowerShot SD1000. This is your last chance to stop me before I make a pixel fool of myself. But I checked out the pixels that that camera produces, and they seem to be extraordinary.

I am a shill for truth. Yeah, that's my new tagline.

Read the c/net review here.

quote:

The SD1000's new cosmetic look harkens back to the original Elph with the big black circle around its lens, but drew mixed reactions from the people to whom we showed our sample. Some were turned off by the overall boxy shape, though just as many admired the tiny, simple shape. Likewise, about half felt the look was too retro, while the other half admired the throwback design. If you don't like the black-on-silver design, Canon also offers a silver-on-silver version.

Please. Turned OFF by the boxy shape? Huh? That's its biggest selling point to me. I think functionally, it NEEDS the black around the lens. How about an all black-on-black version? That would make it a contender.

Brother Rico, back to SLRs for a minute:
if you put the Lumix DMC-L1K up against the Pentax K10D, how would you rank them?