"Blur reduction / Anti-shake" on compacts?

[irbdavid]

Hi all,

I bought a benq point-n-click camera a while back after my old cannon broke out of warranty. This turned out to be a bad idea - the benq sucked, and died a death. Its in the RMA process now, but it'll probably just go on eBay as a BNIB when the replacement gets back.

So I'm looking for a replacement, and this time I'm sticking with a decent brand. This Pentax seems reasonable value (just shy of £120) - but I have a question. It has a "blur reduction" thing, which it claims boosts the ISO up to 1600 at the expense of a few megapixels of information, which sounds like a good deal to me.

Would anyone who has experience with this anti-blur stuff care to comment, does it do what it says on the tin, or is it like "digital zoom", thus a waste of time?

Cheers,

Dave

 

[wmmk]

hmm... high ISO will also make pictures noisier, which is an issue. this isn't SR (or IS as it's called by nikon and i think canon folk), it's just letting you use a faster shutter without underexposure. for PS cameras, this is unnecessary. if SR is a big deal to you, get the K100D.

 

[dllavaneras]

There are three types of "Shake Reduction"

There's image stabilization built in the lens. This is argued to be the best, followed closely by the next one...
Then there's Image stabilization by moving the sensor. New developments are making it better each time, but perssonally I doubt it's better than the optical IS.
Finally there's shake reduction by raising the ISO, which lets the picture be taken at a higher shutter speed. As a drawback, the noise is raised (many times in a horrible amount) and the pic comes out smaller in many cases.

I suggest try that blur reduction feature in a dark environment to see if it's worth it. Personally, I think it's just marketing

 

[wmmk]

There are three types of "Shake Reduction"

There's image stabilization built in the lens. This is argued to be the best, followed closely by the next one...
Then there's Image stabilization by moving the sensor. New developments are making it better each time, but perssonally I doubt it's better than the optical IS.
Finally there's shake reduction by raising the ISO, which lets the picture be taken at a higher shutter speed. As a drawback, the noise is raised (many times in a horrible amount) and the pic comes out smaller in many cases.

I suggest try that blur reduction feature in a dark environment to see if it's worth it. Personally, I think it's just marketing

agreed. any camera can crank up the ISO. only good ones can do so without extra noise and loss of detail. BTW, how exactly does in lens IS work?

 

[robbieduncan]

agreed. any camera can crank up the ISO. only good ones can do so without extra noise and loss of detail. BTW, how exactly does in lens IS work?

Lens IS works by moving a lens element to correct for the camera movement. In a compact there is little benefit to this over sensor movement. In the DSLR world the amount of movement and speed can be tailored for each lens as the motors and CPU are part of the lens. This cannot be done if you are moving the sensor. For very long telephoto lenses it is argued that you cannot move the sensor enough so lens IS is preferred...

 

[irbdavid]

Thanks for the replies people,

I guess I'll try and find one in town somewhere to get my sticky mitts on before buying. Frankly I'm not too bothered about taking a hit in terms of sensor resolution to get a better shot - anything above 3 megapixels does me fine.

From what I can tell it only appears to be SLRs and some of the more hybrid-SLR type things that have the active anti-shake stuff, which are generally speaking out of my price range, especially as I don't see the benq making a huge amount of moolah on eBay.

Unless anyone in the UK has a 2nd hand DSLR they want to offload on me

Cheers,

Dave

 

[robbieduncan]

If you want/need something that will work in low light I'd get a Fuji F30 (or F31 or F40). They have the best high-ISO performance for a compact (obviously the larger sensor in a DSLR gives better results). I've no idea what the current price is on these now, my F30 seemed like a bargain when I got it...

 

[ChrisA]

There are three types of "Shake Reduction"

There's image stabilization built in the lens. This is argued to be the best, followed closely by the next one...
Then there's Image stabilization by moving the sensor. New developments are making it better each time, but perssonally I doubt it's better than the optical IS.
Finally there's shake reduction by raising the ISO, which lets the picture be taken at a higher shutter speed. As a drawback, the noise is raised (many times in a horrible amount) and the pic comes out smaller in many cases.

I suggest try that blur reduction feature in a dark environment to see if it's worth it. Personally, I think it's just marketing

If the image comes out smaller then they are combining pixels in effort to reduce noise but at the expense of resolution. Not a bad idea as many P&S camera have way to many pixels anyways. So while ISO 1600 in a small P&S sounds like a bad idea if they have combined pixels to get it then the noise could be better then you would think.

In the end a tripod (or other rigid support) works better then any of the three anti-shake methods.

 

[wmmk]

Lens IS works by moving a lens element to correct for the camera movement. In a compact there is little benefit to this over sensor movement. In the DSLR world the amount of movement and speed can be tailored for each lens as the motors and CPU are part of the lens. This cannot be done if you are moving the sensor. For very long telephoto lenses it is argued that you cannot move the sensor enough so lens IS is preferred...

thank you for that. when I get my 400mm prime (as if that'll be soon ), I'll keep it in mind. speaking of that, what's the best K-mount 400mm prime out there?

 

[dllavaneras]

In the end a tripod (or other rigid support) works better then any of the three anti-shake methods.

Only if your subject doesn't move. IS lets you take sharp pics at lower shutter speeds, and if your subject moves, all you'll have is a blur

 

[cutsman]

If you want/need something that will work in low light I'd get a Fuji F30 (or F31 or F40). They have the best high-ISO performance for a compact (obviously the larger sensor in a DSLR gives better results). I've no idea what the current price is on these now, my F30 seemed like a bargain when I got it...

Ditto!

The F30, F31, F20, F40 all have the same sensor and are all considered the best P&S cameras for low light shooting

I have an F30 and it has "picture stabilization", which is basically the "shake reduction" spoken of in this thread... it cranks up the ISO for faster shutter speeds. I personally never use this as I personally see it as a pretty useless feature since I'd rather manually select the ISO. I've said this before on here and I'll say it again... i'd rather have a nice large (relative) sensor like that of the Fuji F series with no IS than a camera with small/noisy sensor WITH IS.

 

[irbdavid]

Given the rave about the F30/20s here I'm considering splashing out on one. They're a bit above my budget, but kelkoo reckons I can get an F30 for ~£140-150
So, has anyone had any experience dealing with Fuji - good support etc?

Thanks for the replies,

Dave

 

[robbieduncan]

So, has anyone had any experience dealing with Fuji - good support etc?

I've had my F30 for 8 months or so now. It's great. I've no idea about support: I've not needed any! For me the worst thing about the camera is that it takes xD not the more usual SD which is a bit annoying.

 

[cutsman]

I've had my F30 for 8 months or so now. It's great. I've no idea about support: I've not needed any! For me the worst thing about the camera is that it takes xD not the more usual SD which is a bit annoying.

Ya, I gotta agree with you there... nobody really likes xD. The good news is that, apparently, Fuji doesn't like them either. Fuji F40 now uses SD! Yay!

My gripe is that the LCD is unprotected. It doesn't have that clear hard plastic on top of it and instead feels soft and delicate like that of an LCD monitor.

Gotta love the battery life on this thing.. took about 275 photos over the course of a week during the holidays and the battery indicator still shows 2 out of 3 bars. And that was with a lot of reviewing and deleting too