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Suggestions for a new digi cam needed!

K

klb028

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hey everyone,

I'm going halves with my Dad to get myself a nice new digital camera for Christmas. I want it to be sleek & slim for sure. I like a lot of the Canon PowerShot ones, but I was just wondering if any of you had more suggestions! Thanks in advance! 🙂
 
katielb said:
Hey everyone,

I'm going halves with my Dad to get myself a nice new digital camera for Christmas. I want it to be sleek & slim for sure. I like a lot of the Canon PowerShot ones, but I was just wondering if any of you had more suggestions! Thanks in advance! 🙂
Click to expand...

It all depends on how you plan to use the camera. Fr my needs I want my next Point and Shoot camera to have manual control of the aperture, ability to store images in RAW format, a lens that zooms to a very wide setting. and Near zero shutter lag. That's about the only features I need. Maybe you don't want any of that.

It will be pretty hard for anyone here to offer advice unless you give some more information. Like a list (in order) of features that are most important to you
 
hmm.. well, I don't want or need the camera for any photography "art" purposes if you'd like to call them that. This is just simply a camera I can take pictures with of myself & friends at parties, school, etc. I want the quality/mega pizels to be really good and I want it to be able to snap the photos fast! Sorry if this wasn't really any help. I know some about cameras, but not a lot of little technical things.
 
I know what you want. 😉

If you're going to be able to take this baby out with you, it's going to need to have to be thin to fit in your pocket. That's where my camera goes during parties and such, and I don't even consider my camera to be thin.

If you want thin, Casio makes very nice thin point-and-shoot cameras. They feel very well built as well. I held one 2 weeks ago with a very nice metal body. Sony and Fuji are good in my experience. Canon makes decent small cameras, but you can get thinner, better looking cameras than what they have to offer. I have one, but I don't think I'm going to get a Canon next time. The photo quality between these cameras is all around the same, I'd say, so it's really the body and manual features that are main factors for me. The Nikon models look nice, has lots of manual settings, and is great for noobs.

If you want rugged (ie: you may accidentally bang it against something or drop it at a party, spilling alcohol/can of Coke on it), then I'd go with one of the Pentax or Olympus shock-proof and waterproof models. Olympus makes the MJU 725, which is somewhat thin and takes decent photos. It's thin, but not as thin and slick as the Casio, Sony, and Samsung models I've seen. 🙂
 
Abstract & Qianlong: yall read my minds! The Canon and Casio cameras were the ones I had my eye on. These are my three choices (one is a Sony!)...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...CategoryId=pcmcat99000050011&id=1155848396989

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...CategoryId=pcmcat99000050021&id=1138087098544

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...CategoryId=pcmcat99000050010&id=1155070314916

What do you think? I am LOVING the Casio one! My pick is definitely going to be out of these three. 🙂
 
I have a lower model of the Sony you showed. I have the W50 and it's amazing. Honestly, my friends cameras get put to shame by mine. I am not sure exactly on how it goes with the others you have selected, but the shutter lag on the Sony is virtually non-existent. The only beef I have with it, is it does everything for me and I want to be able to do a lot of the things myself. The W100 may have more configurable options, but since you said you didn't want the camera for artsy things, this probably makes no difference to you.

I would say, for what you need that camera is perfect. Doesn't hurt that it is the cheapest of the three, either. It's very often just thrown into my pocket.
 
cube said:
You said parties. Look at Fujifilm.
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To elaborate on that, if you need to take pictures where the lights aren't so bright such as clubs, parties, dinner events, or even places that you can't use flash etc, then I would look at Fujifilm as they have great picture quality in low light. It's one of the reasons I find myself using a Fuji now, I wasn't getting very good pictures at parties. Pictures are turning out much better for me! Take a look at the Fuji F20 =)
 
I will make this easy for you. Casio EX-S770. Best camera hands down anywhere. Records video in widescreen format. Its fantastic.
 
I bought a Canon Powershot SD600, about a month ago for the same purposes. The camera has stood up to all the tasks I want it to. I've taken pictures of parties, wrestling matches, and just whenever I want to take the occasional picture. From what I've read for the class of camera it is in, the SD600 has one of the fastest shooting speeds. It takes about .5 seconds for the camera to get ready in between shoots without a flash. With a flash it takes a little over a second. All around the best camera I have ever had.

Good luck with your decision
 
Over Achiever said:
To elaborate on that, if you need to take pictures where the lights aren't so bright such as clubs, parties, dinner events, or even places that you can't use flash etc, then I would look at Fujifilm as they have great picture quality in low light. It's one of the reasons I find myself using a Fuji now, I wasn't getting very good pictures at parties. Pictures are turning out much better for me! Take a look at the Fuji F20 =)
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In the US, you can get the F30 for $30 more than the F20. It's worth it.

If you absolutely must get an ultraslim camera, look at the Z3 and the V10, but the sensor in those cameras is smaller (same size as in the cameras the OP mentioned).

In general, smaller sensor means more noise.

Some people say the SD800 is worse than the SD700. If you google "SD800 F30" or "SD700 F30", you'll find discussions of people considering both cameras.
 
The new F31fd besides the face detection, has also Auto ISO 800, which the F30 doesn't have, but it costs quite a bit more. Not sure if it's worth it.

And it seems the F20 has a tendency to shoot at high ISO, even when the shutter speed could be lowered with no problem. (I don't like these only-full-automatic cameras, that's the main reason why the F30 is better).
 
I'm also going to vote for the Fuji F20/F30/F31fd, if you're at all concerned about noise and quality in low light conditions (indoors, parties, concerts, etc). Read some online reviews of the F30. F20 and F31fd use the same sensor so the high ISO performance will be pretty much the same... I read a lot of reviews prior to purchasing my F30, and it was clear that the sensor in these Fuji's make them THE benchmark in low light performance for P&S... well ahead of any other brand, including Canon, Sony, etc.

My previous digicam was a Nikon coolpix (forget exact model #), but the one thing that bothered me the most was the noisy pictures in low light. Use the flash, and the pictures become totally washed out. It was pretty much imperative for my needs to buy a camera capable of shooting in lowlight, ideally with limited use of the flash.

I bought my F30 mainly for concerts. I havent had the chance of trying it out at a show since i bought it, but this Saturday, I get the chance and i'll post back about my results if you're interested.

The one major downfall is that the Fujis are slightly larger than the Canon SD's and the Sony ultra compacts. That's my one complaint so far. You'll have to decide on what your priorities are and decide accordingly.
 
The Z3 and the V10 are as small as the other ultracompacts, but again they use a smaller sensor and are only fully automatic as their competition.
 
AHA but the Canon is the only cam with Image stabilization which is very helpfull in low light situations, concerts, macro shots,....

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/image-stabilization.htm

IS will also lessen the need for high iso settings. pics taken with iso 400 or higher just doesn't look good on small P&S cameras. for high iso settings you really need a SLR.
on P&S the pics just get blurry and you'll lose detail if you blow your images up.

the canon 800 also has the widest zoom (28mm) -> ideal for family shots

small macro focus range -> ideal for macro shots

and 6 or 7 megapixels are more than enough for normal prints.

did I mention Image stailization 😀

well good luck with your shopping
 
But you cannot shoot at a very low speed even with IS when things are moving, unless you want the blurring.
And the Canon does not have shutter-priority mode for you to be in control.
And it has more megapixels on a really tiny sensor.
BTW, that site you linked is loathed at the dpreview forums.

Have you seen the F30 compared to the D50 at ISO 800?
 
Although IS is a great feature and my friend with the Canon SD700is loves it, IS is definitely not a substitute for a good sensor with high iso performance and faster shutter speed. IS will compensate for hand shake, but you will still get images with blurred subjects due to the slower shutter speed.

And while it is the case for most p&s cameras to produce excessively noisy photos at iso 400 and beyond, the Fuji F20/F30/f31fd are definite exceptions. In fact, the fujis produce amazingly little noise up to iso 800.. and even iso1600 is usable for small prints. If you're comparing photos straight from the camera with no post-processing, I would say the fujis provide almost a 2-stop advantage over its competitors. Definitely worth checking out if you're gonna be shooting in a lot of low light environments. If thats not too important to you, the fuji's are still great cameras, but I would personally go with something in the canon lineup.. slimmer, great colour saturation, maybe IS, and you dont have to use xD cards like on the fuji 🙄
 
F30.

I've gone through a few generations of Fuji's and I've loved them all. I hate flash, and the Fuji lets me get by without it most of the time. The F30 is the best I've had. Don't be put off by the shape-- it's compact enough to keep in a front pocket and has been plenty rugged for me.

Great pictures, but you probably want to use M mode rather than full auto to keep the ISO's reasonable-- Fuji tends to show off their high ISO performance by pushing it higher than needs be.

The movies are also fantastic-- 640x480, 30fps limited only by the size of the memory.

Shutter response is really fast. Focus, then frame and shoot if you really want instant response-- that's true for any camera.

Battery lasts forever. I take a lot of pictures, especially when I travel, and always carried an extra battery until the F30. I've never run this one flat.

There's also a nifty natural light & flash mode that takes two quick shots-- one with flash and one without. Good for when you're not sure what you'll like better.

The F30 dropped RAW and exposure bracketing, but it doesn't sound like you'd use either of those anyway.

dpreview.com (linked by Cube) is the place I went for comparisons. Thorough, scientific and unbiased.

Canon's are good if you have plenty of light, but they degrade pretty quickly indoors-- that's my experience at any rate.
 
Wow! Thanks for all of the help and advice! I'm definitely looking into everything. 🙂
 
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Buschmaster said:
I have the W50 and it's amazing. Honestly, my friends cameras get put to shame by mine. I am not sure exactly on how it goes with the others you have selected, but the shutter lag on the Sony is virtually non-existent.
Click to expand...

Over Achiever said:
To elaborate on that, if you need to take pictures where the lights aren't so bright such as clubs, parties, dinner events, or even places that you can't use flash etc, then I would look at Fujifilm as they have great picture quality in low light.
Click to expand...


I'm in the same situation as the original poster, looking for a point and shoot for when I'm out with friends. I've narrowed it down to two cameras, and I was wondering if you guys have any input on which to get. They are the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W30 and the Fuji FinePix F470. There's three main things that I'm looking for:

1. Takes photos fast, or less shutter lag. This way I can take pictures with a bit of motion, and maybe be able to snap a few in a row. The guy at Walmart said that the Fuji has less shutter lag. Not sure if he's right though.

2. Handle low light levels well. So if we're at a pub or a club, and people are sitting around or dancing, it'll work well. The Sony has higher ISO settings, but from what you guys say in these forums, it sounds like it's better to have a better sensor at ISO 400, then to use ISO 800. So, no idea which of these two cameras is better.

3. Video. Both of these support 640x380 30 fps with monaural sound, but the Sony uses MPEG1 and the Fuji uses motion JPEG. Will both work fine on my Mac? Would they both transcode fine to MPEG2, for burning on DVDs?
 
With my W50, video capabilities have never been an issue.

The low-light abilities are fairly nice on this camera, you won't get the most focused pictures ever, but they'll be fairly well lit.

The W-50 (And I'm sure the W-30 as well) can take burst pictures, this may help you, you should look into that. The start-up time on the camera is basically instant and playing with other people's cameras I feel like it has no shutter lag at all. Not saying it doesn't, but it is very very low.

Does the W-30 run on the same battery as the W-50? Battery life is something that really surprised me with the W-50, it's fantastic!

As far as downsides... you do feel it in lack of options. It's basically a fully-auto camera all the time, and although the modes on it are fairly accurate, it can still be annoying to not be able to adjust things manually. Also, the price. You pay more just because it is a Sony, but that's not saying you're not getting a good product... And there is basically no zoom, but zoom sucks on point and shoot typically anyway.
 
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