Which Compact Camera To Buy?

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Twirly

Mind if I ask why not?

If you buy normal ones, you are damaging the environment, and if you buy rechargeable ones, you don't seem to get any life out them at all.

Lithium-Ion batteries last much longer (both in amount of charge they hold, plus the number of times you can recharge them), they're easier to manage, smaller and lighter. This also means the camera is smaller and lighter.

[Feelingpink]

Originally Posted by pmjd

...So far I've been looking at the Canon Ixus 80 IS, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 or DMC-FX33 , Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W120, Fuji F40FD or F50FD.
...

Out of the ones you've listed, the only one I would avoid is the Panasonic, because its lens goes down to 3.3 and the others appear to be 2.8 - the lower the number, the more light it lets in and the easier it will be to shoot in low light (although this is probably stuff you already know). All appear to have ISOs that go to at least 800 - this is the area where you need to read the reviews about noise performance. Many cameras have ISO settings that produce a great deal of noise when used at the higher numbers - meaning that although you may capture an image without blur, its noise (or digital grain) will make for a rather dismal image.

All point & shoot digi cameras have shutter delay, so the trick with dancing shots is getting to know your camera - including how long the delay is - so that you can anticipate when to press the shutter to get the shot you want. You can also manually set most cameras to 'Aperture' mode, set at 2.8 (or the lowest aperture possible) and see what shutter speed you can get with that (depending on the ISO - again, you may want to manually set this rather than let the camera set it). If you practise waiting until the end of a phrase or for a break, the couples will also be at their most still, so you have the best chance of getting a non-blurry photograph - unless that's what you want.

[Lory]

Originally Posted by Feelingpink

Lot's of great advice

Plus.. you can experiment with not using the 'auto multi-point focus'. Try setting the focus to a set distance or use 'centre weighted focus' then the camera doesn't have quite so much to 'think' about.

It makes it slightly quicker

The great thing about digital, is the fact, you can afford to make endless mistakes

[~*~Saligal~*~]

Originally Posted by pmjd

Thanks Lory and Twirly for the sites, I've already been looking at them, especially impressed by the cameras.co.uk one as the guy buys them all himself to test that's dedication.

I haven't looked at the Sony T20 or T200 but might just go and have a nosey, thought the T200 is a bit out of budget range. The Canon is kinda appealing because it has an old fashioned thing....a viewfinder rather than a screen that can be tricky to look at in direct sunlight.

Still looking and comparing at the moment.....Thanks so far everyone

I have a panasonic lumix - the one with the 10 x zoom... and it has a great screen to view what you've taken. After taking it on a vacation I found that I miss having a view finder - when the sun was so bright I had trouble seeing what I was taking as the photograph.
If you're after a "hardy" camera, Olympus is pretty good - and also well priced for it's options (at least in Australia).
Overall, I think it's best to check out what the market is offering in the way of products, and then compare this with the options you think you'll use. Also good to check out how the batteries are charged and how long they take to charge (sometimes good to buy an extra battery depending on how much you use your camera) - I agree with Ducasi on batteries. Some of the better cameras have the "anti-shake" option - which can come in handy!
Goodluck!

[frodo]

Originally Posted by ducasi

If you buy normal ones, you are damaging the environment, and if you buy rechargeable ones, you don't seem to get any life out them at all.

Strange observation. In general rechargable AA batteries have a much higher capacity that non-rechargables.

Lithium-Ion batteries last much longer (both in amount of charge they hold, plus the number of times you can recharge them), they're easier to manage, smaller and lighter. This also means the camera is smaller and lighter.

Camera is smaller and lighter, but if you're more than just out for the day carrying spare camera specific batteries,and a camera specific charger with mains plug, the overall weight can be signficantly higher.

The overall weight carried would be considerably improved if the custom batteries would just charge in place in the camera, from a standard mini-usb cable, but the manufacturers seem only to want to let you use camera specific mains chargers.

[David Franklin]

Originally Posted by pmjd

I'm looking to get a small camera that can handle low light conditions and action shots well, as any dancing pictures I took with the old one looked like ultrafast blurs on the dancefloor (and no it wasn't pictures of Jamie spinning). I'm not so bothered by megapixelage, prefer good quality pics instead. In the £100 - £150 range.

So far I've been looking at the Canon Ixus 80 IS, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 or DMC-FX33 , Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W120, Fuji F40FD or F50FD.

I've got a Fuji F30.

The good:

• Very little shutter lag (0.01s, allegedly).
• Surprisingly good video recording, even in lowish light.
• Can take pictures in very low light - the viewfinder can even act like 'night vision' glasses at max sensitivity!
• AMAZING battery life (compared to my old Nikon compact, at any rate). Went on a 3 week holiday, only charged the battery once (and it was reading 2/3 full when we charged it). You basically never have to worry about the battery running out.

The bad:

• I'm not impressed by the autofocus, particularly in low light. Could be user error, as I'm far-from-expert, but the %age of blurred shots is quite high.
• Although you can get a shot in ridiculously low light, said shots turn out very grainy. To a large extent, that's probably to be expected, but worth bearing in mind.
• Can only charge the battery while it's in the camera. Not that big a deal, because it goes so long without charging.
• Can't zoom in/out while shooting video (this is a very common restriction, I think, but it does mean it's not quite a replacement for a camcorder).

The indifferent:

• The idea of getting a camera without a viewfinder really put me off at the time, but in practice I can't say it's ever really been a problem.

[Mr Darcy]

Not quite out yet, but the specs have me

panasonic fx500

I've been very happy with my Panasonic FX9, but HD video recording and touch screen to select focus/metering point and all the rest just does things for me

Obviously I will be keeping an eye out for the first reviews and sample photos before buying anything though.

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Mr Darcy

Not quite out yet, but the specs have me

panasonic fx500

Your link is broken, but based on this PR, it does look good.

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by martingold

Looks interesting my only real concern would be the amount of optical zoom on a camera that small
you would need a pretty high shutter speed to avoid camera shake at the upper end of the focal length of that lens

I've decided against the Casio camera. In reviews it does badly in low light, and it needs a special cradle to charge it and connect it to a computer. Standard USB connections, or a simple adaptor is a must, IMO.

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by frodo

Strange observation. In general rechargable AA batteries have a much higher capacity that non-rechargables.

Looking around, yeah, you're right. Why does it not match my experience? Maybe I've been using bad chargers or batteries.

Originally Posted by frodo

Camera is smaller and lighter, but if you're more than just out for the day carrying spare camera specific batteries,and a camera specific charger with mains plug, the overall weight can be signficantly higher.

The overall weight carried would be considerably improved if the custom batteries would just charge in place in the camera, from a standard mini-usb cable, but the manufacturers seem only to want to let you use camera specific mains chargers.

I still prefer Li-Ion. I usually buy a spare battery, and find that the two batteries will last me a day, and I can charge them both over-night.

For my wee video camera, it comes with a power supply that takes both a spare battery and can charge the battery in the camera.

It would be nice if they could charge from a USB cable – anyone know any cameras that allow that?

[Daisy Chain]

Don't forget to ask how much memory is in the camera. My Sony came with enough memory for just 6 photos. So, I had to buy a memory stick thingy - now it will take hundreds.

Daisy Bailey

[martingold]

Originally Posted by Daisy Chain

Don't forget to ask how much memory is in the camera. My Sony came with enough memory for just 6 photos. So, I had to buy a memory stick thingy - now it will take hundreds.

Daisy Bailey

The majority of cameras need a memory card to record the images on
one of the reasons i dislike sony is they use their own memory stick to record images rather than the standard cards which make them more expensive to use and as will all things sony in most cases you pay for the name and the style rather than the quality of the output although they bought out minolta who were a up in the top 5 camera manufacturers long before the realms of digital

The whole problem with digital camera manufacturers is that the camera manufacturer needs to learn about electronic imaging (olympus struggled in this area) and the electronic imagine manufacturers (such as panasonic who were top in video recording and electronic imaging) need to learn about cameras. having said that panasonic are doing very nicely with their still camera market now

[pmjd]

All handy info to know, thanks guys.

OK the Panasonic is out, thanks feelingpink. Also the canon is out due to it's lack of a battery level indicator why they thought this would be a good thing to miss I don't know.

So thinking between the Sony DSC-W120 and the Fuji F50FD.

[Lory]

Originally Posted by martingold

The
one of the reasons i dislike sony is they use their own memory stick to record images rather than the standard cards which make them more expensive to use and as will all things sony in most cases you pay for the name and the style rather than the quality of the output

I agree, although, I brought (via the internet) a Sandisk ExtremeIII Memory stick pro duo for my Sony, at a very competitive price. Its a very fast card, recommended by the professionals. Unfortunately, as yet, they don't do bigger than a 2.0GB yet.

In the grand scheme of things, cards a really cheap.. they take hundreds and hundred of picture and are reusable

When I was a young lass, we had to use something call 'film' AND send it off to be developed

[Barry Shnikov]

The important question is this.

Do you plan to do any post processing (ie, with Photoshop or something similar) or do you want to just post your chip in a machine in Tescos and get six-be-four prints in one go?

This is a critical issue to the question of which camera you get.

If you want to do your own post processing, look for a camera with a RAW facility. Even if you don't use photoshop there are free progs - CameraRAW is one of them - that will process the RAW data (geddit?) and this gives you at least two stops improvement on non-RAW cameras in low light conditions. (As good as at least one step in 'film speed', probably two; i.e. take a picture at 800 ASA and be able to 'boost' it in RAW processing to 1600 or better.)

The big problem with low-light pictures is that when you lighten them in post-processing, you can get a lot of 'colour noise'. Noise Ninja, a Photoshop add-on and available stand alone (about $30, IIRC), is brilliant at removing colour noise and isn't very expensive. There are probably free programs which do much the same thing.

I've just bought a Fuji E900 on eBay which has RAW and is otherwise highly recommended, for £80 odd.

Downside for the E900 - shutter lag (but that's almost universal in compacts) and long storage time - can be 3 or 4 seconds before it's ready to take another piccy. It's a second camera for me so I don't really care about the above.

If you aren't going to muck around with the picture on your own PC, get whatever is currently recommended as the fastest low-light camera. You won't get the best performance for £150, though. More like £300 required. (Although bear in mind that £150 will get you what was the best performance a couple of years ago.)

This site is the best for camera reviews, and there are some hugely informative forums as well.

[Daisy Chain]

Originally Posted by Lory

When I was a young lass, we had to use something call 'film' AND send it off to be developed

When I was young, we had records that spun at 78 rpm and were played with a needle on a gramophone.

Daisy

(A Nostalgic Little Flower)

[martingold]

Originally Posted by Lory

I agree, although, I brought (via the internet) a Sandisk ExtremeIII Memory stick pro duo for my Sony, at a very competitive price. Its a very fast card, recommended by the professionals. Unfortunately, as yet, they don't do bigger than a 2.0GB yet.

In the grand scheme of things, cards a really cheap.. they take hundreds and hundred of picture and are reusable

Sandisk are now IMHO the best manufacturer of cards and flash memory now i am obviously not against cards in general just the sony stick as its proprietory so no other camera manufacturer uses it.
It makes it more expensive and as you have found less versatile (ie less memory per card) my camera uses compact flash which to be honest is now on its last legs thanks to fast small cards such as the SDHC (even canon are using these on their latest dslr the 450D)

Originally Posted by Lory

When I was a young lass, we had to use something call 'film' AND send it off to be developed

Are you sure they weren't plates

[jeanie]

I recently bought a Fuji F30 for diving (with housing!) and took it to Kirrie to try it out on land. You can check out the photos on my facebook pmjd.

The only problem I have with it is it isn't 'instant' enough, still a couple of seconds delay in taking the picture. Which is a bummer as I did miss some cracking photos.

I have a Nikon coolpix (Dundee party photos on facebook) as well which is good but again has that 2 second delay when you really want that good photo.

[pmjd]

Well after a bit of deliberating, and waiting due to the car needing four new tyres, I've decided to get a Canon ixus 70, should be here next week so will test it out sometime soon at a dance night and see how it goes.

Thanks for everyone's advice and comments

[TA Guy]

I did a fair bit of research on compacts suitable for indoor low light such as your average MJ freestyle about a year or so ago.

I to ended up with an F30 too. By far the best low light compact camera out there even tho it's a couple of generations past it's sell by date.

The only thing I really don't like, is the lack of one of those stabilizing filters, anti-shake or whatever they are called.

Originally Posted by David Franklin

I've got a Fuji F30.

The good:

• Very little shutter lag (0.01s, allegedly).
• Surprisingly good video recording, even in lowish light.
• Can take pictures in very low light - the viewfinder can even