Which 5MP digicam?

Hullo!

 

I guess I'm going to get something digital soon, so I'd appreciate

advice. I definitely want RAW format, so the very nice Sonys are out.

I was just about settled on the Oly 5050 until I saw some sample

images that had a lot of nasty color fringing (trees against sky,

etc). The Nikon 5400 and Canon G5 did not exhibit this fringing, but

they are about $100 more... OTOH, the 5400 will GET its RAW

capability soon, but does not have it now, and it's lens, while

wider, is slower than the others. Yeesh!

 

If anybody has useful advice to get me pointed in the right

direction, please post!

If you only want color prints, I think that the Olympus E20 is miles ahead of everythng else. But there's no B&W option, no movies, no sound bites, basically nothing but a pure digital SLR. If you don't use the LCD view screen, the batteries last an incredibly long time, and even when they're virtually exhaused, you can switch to manual focus and they'll last another few hours. It's so heavy that it doesn't need anti-shake technology, and with the lens perminently fixed there's no dust covering the chip when you change lenses. Nothing fancy, it just works. It's like a digital Speed Grapic!

Hi Les,<br>

Welcome to the digital side.<br>

When I was looking at the Canon G2 vs Nikon 4500, one reason I went with the G2 was that it compressed TIFs as RAWs therby tripling or quadrupling the number of photos on a CF card. That's one consideration.<br>

Another is the speed of the lens at the tele end. Canon was better here<br>

Nikon really shines in macro but I briefly looked at a few of your folders and did not see any macros there so it mightn't be very important to you.<br>

I do see some Chromatic Aberration in the G2 - in branches against a bright sky, otherwise it is really good w.r.t. CA.<br>

See if you can take a CF card to a store and shoot the same scene on two or three cameras, come home and take a look on the computer. That might help you decide.<br>

All the best!!<br>

Raghu

Hi Les,

 

AFAIK color fringing is a common side effect on most if not all digitals. I know for a fact that my Minolta DiMage 7i has tons of it. No Leica Summicron here... You can browse some thorough reviews that include real life image samples here: http://www.dpreview.com/ so far the most comprehensive site about digital cameras I've found. You can filter by file size, price, type, etc.

Raghu's suggestion for taking a CF card to the store and shooting with several cameras is a good one. However, in several cases, you will need the manufacturer's software to view/convert the raw versions of the files.

Why 5 and not a 6 MP DSLR ?

I suggest a second hand Canon D60....

Noooo!

 

I have nice film SLRs (Nikon), and a Mamiya 645 Pro with lenses. This is NOT a knock on digital in general, but FOR ME, film is better at present (price of DSLRs is still way to high for me to show a profit). What I want is a "knock-around" camera to replace my film P&S (Oly Stylus Zoom). For this, the sheer convenience of digital is great; no airport X-ray worries, easy cataloging and storage, etc.

After weeks of researching and hundreds of MB downloaded and printed on Epson Premium glossy photo paper, I finally decided:<br>

On Saturday I will -hopefully- receive my brand new Canon G5<br>

I also didn't want a DSLR as my main system is Leica-M and I am very happy with it. The G5 is a small(ish) camera with very good handling, not too small- not too big, not too heavy-not too light, with an ugly but so useful grip, a RAW mode, and many-many pluses (and some minuses of course)<br>I hope I made the right decision...

A digicam and a dSLR are different beasts. The capabilities, cost (don't exclude dSLR lenses and flash units), and knowledge base required are radically different.

 

In the Canon line, the G and S series are similar on the inside. On the outside:

 

1) The S will fit in your pocket. The G will not.

 

2) The G has that really, really cool flip out LCD screen.

 

3) The G has flash and lens attachments. That is a plus.

 

To make a decision, consider the following:

 

1) SHUTTER LAG. Test for yourself. Do not trust the spec sheet.

 

2) Flash capability. A slow lens is one thing. An underpowered flash is another thing.

 

3) How do they feel in your hand?

I find the P&S squintfinder digitals seriously painful. The viewfinder shows only 85% of the image and no exposure information, waiting for the lens to grind out at startup is a pain, etc. With essentailly the best resolution and noise performance in consumer digital, the Sony F717 is a joy to use in comparison. The EVF isn't great, but it's good enough to be usable and has 100% coverage, which makes it wonderful compared to the P&S squintfinders. The tight (1%) spotmeter works well and is usable, thanks again to the EVF. The F717 is the closest approximation you'll get to a real camera in consumer digital.

 

Except for the Sony V1, the new 5MP P&S models have nasty noise at higher ISO settings. (The F717 ISO 400 noise is pretty much the lowest ISO 400 noise in consumer digital, but it's still pretty bad.) If you're printing at 8x10, the 5MP 1/1.8" sensor models (other than the V1) will be unusable at any but the lowest ISO setting.

 

The F717 doesn't have RAW, but considering the noise levels even at ISO 100, RAW really doesn't make a lot of sense in a consumer camera. The lens is sharper, longer, and faster at the tele end than the P&S digitals, it has the best AF assist (throws its own pattern so can focus on a blank wall) and cutesy IR stuff.

I've been using a sony f707 (replaced by the f717) for the last

year and a half, mostly for street photography. Here are some pix

if you are interested:<P>

 

<a href=http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/SF>Pix 1</a>,

<a href=http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Cannes>Pix 2</a>,

<a href=http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/SF2-9-03>Pix 3</a>,

<a href=http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Web>Pix 4</a><BR>

Hello!

 

Pix from the Sonys look very good, but the size of the camera and the lack of RAW coupled with the 128MB memory limits really do put them out of the picture.