I NEED YOUR SUGGESTION!

[aram_aryan]

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hi everyone

since im going to buy my first digital camera i thought its better i

get some help ...it seems you are all professionals here:)

so here is what i need:

price $500-$600

high resolution ,since i want to use the photos in graphic designs i

need very clean close-ups ,and a very strong zoom.

and one of the most important things i need is a very clean and real

colors for pix taken at night or low lights.

i think thats it

i liked the photos taken by canon g6 and fuji finepix s7000 though i

dont know if they are any good.

i'd appreciate if you could help me

regards

[nick_breedlove1]

stick with the g6...so much better battery life, much better zoom...fuji just sucks all around...i hate fuji and don't really want to even waste the time to tell you why. GO CANON.

[aram_aryan]

then you think g6 is my best choise?what about other brands or models?

[nick_breedlove1]

The g6 is the best option. In that price range and need for high resolution, you severly limit your options. There are other point and shoot all automatic cams in that price range, but they don't offer the customizable control and battery life that the g6 does. I think off the top of my head the g6 takes like 500-600 shots on a battery, the other digicams, like sony's comparable models, etc shoot about 100-150 per charge. plus the g6 uses compact flash. most other brands use proprietary expensive as hell memory, i.e. memory stick, xd picture card, etc.

[godfrey]

I prefer the Konica MInolta A2 over any of the other cameras in the $500-600, higher end

fixed lens price class. 8Mpixel resolution, lots of exposures per charge, an excellent 7:1

zoom ratio lens (28-200mm equivalent field of view range), capable of output RAW

format, buffered writes (so the camera isn't locked up for extended period between

exposures), the best and most flexible viewfinder in this class, etc. It uses CF cards and

takes a Lithium-Ion battery, which runs well over 350 exposures per charge. There are

also reasonably priced, matched lens extenders for additional wideangle and telephoto

field of view, and the lens is very well corrected for macro work.

 

It has more features and better controls than just about anything else short of a DSLR, and

is fully capable of professional quality work. I bought mine as a refurb for under $500 last

year, it's the only fixed-lens camera that I'm very reluctant to sell since I moved my work

entirely to DSLRs.

 

Godfrey

[jorgen_udvang]

You should also have a look at Olympus 7070. Similar to the G6, the same sensor, but a more rugged design and better ergonomics in my opinion. If you can live with an electronic viewfinder, Konica Minolta A2 or A200 may be alternatives. The advantage of those are manual zoom among other things, but it looks like the 7MP sensor of the Canon and Olympus is a bit better than the 8MP sensor of the Konic Minolta.

 

Olympus 8080 may also be an alternative, and has a fantastic lens, but both the zoom and the viewfinder is electronic. It is also rather big.

 

The 7070 is my personal favourite.

[jorgen_udvang]

Btw., I see that a previous poster claims that the Fuji S7000 sucks all around. Does that mean that it can be used as a vacum cleaner? I haven't seen that option in a camera before, but it would be a great option for people who only take photos at home...

[yongbo]

Save more money and go for Canon Digital Rebel.

[rob_murray]

Depends on the budget...

From high to low:

Canon G6

Canon S2

Canon A95

Canon A520

[mag_miksch]

if low light quality is real important look for a Fuji F10

[jcuknz]

If you simply take a couple of dozen shots for design purposes and then return to the studio where you can charge your battery, Li-ion batteries can be 'topped up' after each use, what does it matter if a camera only takes 150 shots. It seems to be a spurious recomendation to me.

[Brian]

I'm interested in knowing what's so terrible about the Fuji S7000 that Nick can't even write it down. Anybody else feel able to come out and say it?

[byronlawrence]

Something I would strongly suggest. is buy a used DSLR (not too old) something like the digital rebel (new with kit lens is 700, a used body only is 549, with a 70 dollar 50mm lens that makes $620,, a really good deal), d30 (older, but used bodies go for 289)or even a 10D (if you can find one that cheap most used bodies go for)

an older Nikon digital should also work but I am not as familiar with Nikon.

 

then get a 50mm f1.8 lens. this lens is cheap ($70 for the canon version), and will cover most of what you listed,, except for the strong zoom thing. for that save a little and get some zoom lens (maybe even a kit lens will work for short term).

 

these cameras will give you results that should be superior to fixed body point and shoot cameras (they are like really expensive reusable disposable cameras :) ).

 

anyway good luck. If you like the cameras mentioned they will work too of course.

[rmdavis]

I have no experience with the s7000, but the first digital camera that I bought was an s5000. The s7000 seems to be improved in several ways, but there are also a number of problems with the s7000 that people have told me about that are similar.

 

Start up time is stil an appalling 2+ seconds. It didn't sound like much to me when I bought my first digital, but 2 seconds is a long long time. I can't count the shots that I have missed waiting for the thing to power up. If you do street type photography I would recommend looking very carefuly at this aspect of the camera.

 

Also, the power/mode switch turns at the slightest provocation- and if you turn it from picture taking mode to picture viewing mode, you have to turn it back very slowly and give the cam some time to "think." If you don't, the whole thing freezes up and you have to shut down completely, wait a second or two, and then wait another 2 seconds to power up. Extremely frustrating.

 

The zoom on the s5000 was very good- 10X optical is quite nice, and more useful than I had imagined. Lately I have switched to prefering wider angles for my shots, but you get quite a lot of distance with the 10x, which is good for remaining unobtrusive. Also the camera is entirely silent.

 

The s5000 vignettes like crazy- check with someone who has used the s7000 to see if Fuji has addressed this. The problem is really quite severe, although you can clean it up with Photoshop. Then again, why should you?

 

Fuji makes claims about its megapixel count that aren't exactly "transparent." For instance, the s5000 claims to be able to shoot at 6 MP, but it achieves this through interpolation that severely degrades the image. The camera's 3MP shots take up less space on the memory card, and are actually better quality.

 

Noise at higher ISOs is not so good.

 

XD xards are ridiculously overpriced, but I hear with the s7000 you can use a compact flash, so that's good. VERY IMPORTANT!- You will want to buy a high capacity card, especially if you travel, so check out the pricing. The included 16MP is basically worthless.

 

Battery life on the s5000 is actually extremely good, and in a jam you can buy some AAs at wal-mart or whatever. I ran out of juice in Arizona and this saved me, if I had to use a proprietary battery I would have been sunk.

 

If you want to check out the image quality of Fuji at 3MP, check out my photos (Shameless Plug! ;). Everything I have on the site thus far was taken with that camera. If you don't intend to crop images and you are shooting at a low ISO, and you are lucky enought to avoid vignetting the images can be very good. It's nota terrible camera, I just realized after I bought the thing that I could have gotten better value for my money. But who hasn't had that experience?

[aram_aryan]

well thanks guys i checked the cameras you mentioned

i like the canons more though:)

but now im confused to choose between g6 and powrshot S2 IS

which one is better you think?

[yongbo]

G6 support RAW format (the most important feature) and hot shoe flash. For DSLR, the only thing needs to be upgraded is the body. No matter which camera, tripod is a must. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/g6.html

[Brian]

Ryan, thanks for the input on the Fuji S5000/S7000. These are problems that would steer me away from it. I'm shopping for a digicam at the moment and the Fuji was on my list, but not any more.

[rmdavis]

Brian,

 

Take what I say with a grain of salt. I haven't actually picked up the s7000, so Fuji may have solved some of these problems. Go to a camera shop and test drive one, just look out for persistence of the s5000 issues.

[icd55]

I had the S5100. Ryan is right on the money. That's the only Fuji I've ever owned so I wont make a general comment on the company. I was going to give the 5100 to the kids.

[acrummey]

Comparing the S5000 to the S7000 Fuji is like comparing the Canon A70 to the G6, they are completely different animals. The S5000 and S5100 both use a small 1/2.7" sensor, 3MP Super CCD HR in the S5000 and a 4MP standard sensor in the S5100, the S7000 uses a 6.3MP 1/1.7" Super CCD HR sensor. Both S5*00 cameras use a 10X zoom lens which is completely different from the S7000 lens, which is a fine 6X zoom with no vignetting problems.

 

Fuji bashing seems to be the order of the day here so let me add my comments, first of all I do own and regularly use a Fuji S7000, unlike some posters here who have only used the S5000/5100/5500. Check out the work of M. Zafar Rabbani at http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?include=all&photo_id=3018325 if you wish to see the quality of images from the S7000.

 

Now lets get to some facts, according to reviews I have read the Canon G6 has a startup time of 3.5 seconds, the same reviewer stated that the S7000 took 4 seconds, a 0.5 second difference. Yes there are cameras that are much faster to start but the G6 is not one of them. The G6 and the Olympus 7070 are both excellent cameras with the latest 7MP chip but neither offers the zoom range of the S7000.

 

xD picture cards are a joke, CF cards work fine in my S7000, which by the way has a USB 2.0 transfer rather than the slower 1.1 so downloads are quite fast.

 

Battery life!!! The Fuji gets about 400 shots on a fully charged set of 2500mah NiMH batteries, extra sets of these AA NiMHs cost less than $20 and you cans pick up AA alkalines if you are stuck with dead batteries, they won't last long but some pictures are better than none. Proprietary Li-ion batteries are great but very expensive to replace (and you will always need at least one spare battery for when the inevitable happens and your main battery dies).

 

The S7000 has a substantial number of buttons and dials but the result is that more controls are directly available rather than through menus. There is even a "fly by wire" zoom/focus ring around the lens which, although it is nowhere near as accurate or responsive as mechanical controls, does allow for more control than the usual buttons. The P setting supplies a shiftable exposure program and in manual (M) mode the shutter speeds run from 15s to 1/10000th of a second.

 

External flash, well the hot shoe does not offer dedicated TTL flash control, but if you have an old Sunpak or Vivitar automatic flash lying around you can use it with the Fuji. Mine is a Vivitar 285, I set the camera on manual, shutter speed about 1/250 and aperture as stated on the flash for the mode in use. The result is a very high percentage of properly exposed flash shots, without the cost of an expensive dedicated unit. Is it as flexible as the G6 or 7070, no, but with a little learning you can get comparable results in most circumstances. The built in flash is quite powerful for this class of camera as well. (note that the consumer S5000/5100/5500 models have no external flash sync)

 

I have handled all three of these cameras, with their lower available ISO settings the Canon and Olympus offer less noisy images and a true 7MP, the Fuji is saddled with a 200ISO minimum so noise is present, and the Super CCD produces interpolated 12MP images, but only because of the diagonal array of pixels in the super CCD chip. In true resolution the Fuji is equivalent to about 9MP in RAW 12MP mode, this means a somewhat noisy but very high res image capable of very large prints. I shoot at 6MP almost exclusively and find that even with the high compression at that resolution (another Fuji weakness) I get excellent prints up to 11" X 13" (on an HP Designjet wide carraige printer).

 

Sorry I am rambling, I think that the G6 and the 7070 are both excellent cameras but the S7000 also offers a lot and should not be overlooked because someone used a lesser Fuji product an did not like it. BTW the Olympus also uses both xD and CF cards. Which one to buy? I guess it depends on your needs, the 7070 seems to offer more of a system approach, the G6 has the excellent Canon engineering behind it and the Fuji is closest in handling to an SLR which may be a plus if you are moving from a film SLR to digital, as I did. DSLRs with lenses to match either of these cameras will cost a lot more than the base kit does (the slowest lens here is the f2.8/3.1 Fuji with the Canon at f2.0/3.0), something many people forget, you will need a couple of f2.8 zooms and a good macro lens for your DSLR if you wish to compete. Are DSLRs better, of course, but they are still pricey when lenses are factored in.

 

Next time anyone wants to write off a camera as some have here they should at least check it out first. I am not trashing the other products mentioned, they are excellent, I am just defending the S7000 which is not without flaws but is far more capable than these writers would have you believe.

 

Ira