Compact camera..

[imamartian]

Have had a panasonic TZ7 for a while now, loved it to bits, but giving to my son, so need to get a replacement.

Doesn't need to be Panasonic (although i do like the TZ20), but i wan't to look at the best out there in the £200 range...

Zoom is v important.... as it pixels.. GPS not so....

Anyone got any thoughts, or websites to look at?


Thanks in advance..

 

[ericmark]

What you need to do is work out what you want. So some pointers.
1) RAW capture. Better compacts often have the option of RAW capture this is 16 bit rather than 8 bit so will allow far more control.
2) CCD design. Some cameras have a special CCD designed to extend the dynamic range.
3) ISO number. Cameras with a high ISO number available can generally work with less light than with low ISO number.
4) Max aperture. The lower the number the more light as well as relating to ISO number is also means you can adjust depth of field more.
5) Zoom lens. Most compacts have only one lens so you will likely need some amount of zoom.

Forget about how many mega pixels it has. Put it this way a HD TV will likely show 1366 x 768 pixels with is about 1 mega pixels so since most will view on a TV or computer screen your finished image will likely be just 1 mega pixels. Taking at 10 mega pixels allows one to crop to size. Quite important with mobile phone. However your compact unlike mobile will have an optical zoom lens so really no need for over 2 mega pixels and don't think any are made that small so mega pixels is last thing to look at.

There are three basic levels of compact. RAW or just Jpeg (RAW cameras will always be able to give a Jpeg) and built in lens only or exchangeable lenses. I think the 4/3rds cameras with exchangeable lenses will be out of your range. There is also a problem where one can remove the lens dust can get in so unless your doing something special likely better to not have exchangeable lenses.

Although the Canon and Nikon cameras are used by the pros in the main this is so they can hire lenses when required and even hire bodies when theirs is under repair and still use their stock of lenses. In the compact range the Panasonic and Fugi have a very good name and are hard to beat.

Having said that due to deals sometimes one can get a better camera for your budget so it's not a case of any being best. This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cameras_supporting_a_raw_format is a list of cameras that will work with RAW. In some cases it's a hack and not standard.

I was unimpressed with RAW until I moved to using Photoshop. The RAW processor that came with the camera needed one to adjust curves and was not easy to use. The same with UFRAW that works with GIMP. But once I started with Photoshop RAW 5.7 I realised why so many use it. The program allows red eye removal, spot removal, graduated filters, dodge and burn (under different name), recovery, and add light which means nearly all corrections are done in 16 bit mode. This in turn means less grain when converted to 8 bit mode. RAW 5.7 comes with Elements as well as full photoshop and anyone who gets into photography will in the end move to taking pictures in RAW.

My problem is you go to Panasonic web site and look at cameras for example and pick the best you can afford. But then you find X shop is offering a deal on Y model so the order of price was not as expected. Add to this all the other makes and it makes it a complete mine field.

Also many compacts (Since no mirror in the way) will also take cine.

The problem is as a result many have no viewfinder and use a LCD panel of some type. Although this can be an advantage where you can hold it up high and still see what you are taking it can also work against you with bright sun light making it that you can't see the screen. Some to combat this have VDU view finders in some cases black and white but still allows you to use it in bright light. In some cases this is an add on extra.

But my D-SLR is 10 mega pixel and that's far more than I require to print at 20 x 16 so I would forget mega pixel and look more at ISO rating.

 

[imamartian]

Eric Eric Eric, you're the sort of bloke i want to live next door to !!!

Thanks again for an incredibly detailed response.

Can i qualify a few of my requirements against your points in your post...

I'm lucky enough to have a Canon 60D (with which i'm trying to learn photography - but not many lenses thus far), and a panasonic lumix 18x bridge camera (with which i get decent animal/bird photo's and love the zoom) and a Panasonic TZ7 (which i use on most trips and for all video) oh and a htc hd desire phone with an 8mp camera..... (i use this for photos and vids of bank robberies, UFO's, Tsunamis and nephews falling off their skateboards into a hedge - so not much use of yet !!)

My TZ7 is going to my son for his birthday (is that a bad present? but it's a lot of money in a camera!), so i want to fill the void...

megapixels i feel are important, i feel in case i want to put a particular snap on to canvas or poster... and always better to have too many pixels than not enough?

Raw... i use raw on my DSLR, but with the view that i might get that great shot... I have no desire to use photoshop... (although i accept you may be right that ultimately i may gravitate towards photo editing software)..

Zoom - this is essential to me.... great to get the deer's face, or a close up of the cormarant on the branch on the side of the lake... or the surface of the moon (i have so many moon photos it weird!!) - can't quite afford the big grey and black lenses yet...

ISO... must admit i don't know how to use this yet, but i'm glad you mentioned it as something to look for...

Video quality... i'm not too bothered by the quality

FPS shooting... should i consider this? my Canon is about 5.8fps(?) but i see some compacts stating 60fps... am i reading this wrong? are they talking video? or is it the miirror thing? Plus, what sort of shot benefits multi fps?

Thanks

 

[ericmark]

You seem to know what you want with exception of ISO so I will just cover that.

My Camera a Pentax K10D has an ISO range from 100 to 1600. I did some experiments and found if I expose at 800 ISO and under expose by one stop so all the pictures are on dark side then in RAW 5.7 correct it's exactly the same as setting to 1600 ISO. Talking to others they have found the same and the fastest ISO the camera can run at is really to be avoided I will normally only go up to 800 ISO with mine.

But the whole idea of setting the aperture to suit depth of field required and speed to suit camera shake or other movement requirements then let the camera set the ISO to suit was something very new to me. It is in essence what the mobile phone cameras do.

The DMC-FZ45 goes to 6400 ISO with an auto range from 80 to 1600 far better than my D-SLR and with an aperture of f2.8 to f5.2 according to zoom setting it can take hand held pictures without flash where I could only dream. The 25-600mm in 35mm equiv I can only emulate by having three lenses and even the 14.1 mega pixels puts mine to shame. Then add to that it can take movies.

It does not take in RAW and the auto bracketing only does three exposures although it will allow a massive 3 EV stops between them very good for HDR.

What you can't see from the spec is how good it is for anti-shake. I have been very impressed with my D-SLR and at wide angle (18mm) I have got away with 1/10 second hand held. In days of film 1/30 second would have been limit.

I selected this example as seen at £218 although it should be nearly £300.

The Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR slightly more expensive but very little in it and very similar spec. With advantage this one will work in RAW. The zoom is equivalent to 24-720mm on a 35mm camera so better than Panasonic at f2.8 to f5.6 it will be higher than Panasonic as it has longer lens so in real terms about the same. ISO 100 - 12800 which is far better than Panasonic. So it would seem a better camera on the spec.

As to if worth the extra £18 only you can say. But I would happily swap my D-SLR for one.

My father-in-law got a Panasonic and is pleased for some reason very limited as to type of batteries it can use. Ni-MH allowed but not Ni-Cad. And every camera will have some odd things about it.

Non of the specs give the max shutter speed with flash. My D-SLR is 1/180 and for fill-in flash I find that a little slow. Pictures of water falls using flash and available light give some really weird effects where the flash has frozen the droplet at 1/25000 second but available light has added a tail.

I would pay the extra and go for Fujifilm but as far as price goes it all according to deal you can find. Oh and yes it's 16 mega pixels so yes more than Panasonic.

 

[ChrisR]

You sorted out yet?
When I grow up I'm gonna be a photographer so I could bore you for hours.
I've got a range of stuff from tiddlers to pro. Probably 50 lenses.
I wouldn't disagree (as such!) with wot he^ rote but will add a few angles.

IF you want a great zoom at anywhere near your budget then you have to go with a camera with a tiny sensor. You won't do it with a DSLR.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format
(Mine go up to 24 x 36)
A 12MP 24 x 36 sensor will take pictures in light several "stops" lower than an 18MP APS sized sensor one, long after you'd have had to put a tiddly sensor camera away. The big 12MP one would be able to use much faster shutter speeds too, in good light.
The problem is "noise" which looks like film grain.
(Bigger sensors simply collect more light)


But the lenses for the same angle of view on the bigger sensor camera, are monsters.
In fair light, tiddlers are OK though, and you can have physically small "long" zooms. They're fine for pictures up to say A3, depending how geeky you want to be.
So we'll assume you're best off with a tiddler.

Then, it's mostly about personal taste and reading the reviews. You're up against the laws of physics here, improvements in technology will only be able to do so much more. Current cameras with the small sensors make only slightly better pics than older ones.
More Megapixels means smaller pixels. That means WORSE pixels.
We have a very old Canon 6MP and a newish Nikon 36x zoom 12MP, which is a little bit better, but the lens is a compromiise.
A 3x zoom ( or a fiixed lens, even moreso) will tend to be better than one with a wide range.

More than about 8MP on a tiddler isn't really gaining you anything much, and will be costing you low-light performance, which is important for interiors, flash pictures, action photos too..
Over 12MP is silly. Remember it's an area thing, so doubling the number of pixels only gives you 41.4% more on a side
Canon & Nikon's 24 x 36 latest sensors are only 18 or 24 Mp, but they're huge.

Personally:
I strongly prefer cameras to have a viewfinder.
RAW I use (all the time) but for a tiddler it's not so much of an advantage, more a geeky thing.
BUT watch out in the reviews for criticisms where they say the JPEG converter in the camera compresses too much. That degrades your image by trying to save too much space. Our Lumix does that.

The 36x zoom on the Nikon Coolpix summitorother we have is outrageous. In good light it's impressive as hell.
I preferred the Canon competition when we bought it, except that it was so SLOW to do anything.
Stuff like that may be important if you want to take it to a footy match.
Some of the gizmos they have these days are really good. Face recognition isn't a great thing for me but could be for you.
Panoramas though, eg where you press the button and rotate the camera and it matches things up, are doing things you couldn't have done a few years ago, so do some research.
WIde angle end I like to be very wide. At MOST 28mm in "35mm " terms. Our Lumix does 28mm, the Nikon 24mm which is quite a bug %age wider. It's very important indoors.

Close focus is my thing - some are excellent. Olympus especially I think.
Some are good at video.
Some are absobloodylutely goddawful a video. A Sony we looked at was much much better, but really a cheap camcorder wipes the floor with them for overall usage.
£200 is pushing it. I'd expect that if you stick to a lowish zoom range you'd get better quality at that price.

 

[imamartian]

Somebody already said this, but you photo people can type !!!!!

But seriously, thank you Chris... lots of interesting stuff.

I haven't bought yet, as i'm waiting for the sales....

Currently contemplating an Olympus SZ-30MR as it has a big zoom on a compact - however, i'm yet to digest your info, and the bit about the pixels is interesting.

What i'm beginning to think though, is i really need to get on a course... and learn some of the science behind all this stuff......

 

[ericmark]

I think Chris R has put it very well.
I was reading the review in Digital Photo on Nikon V1, Olympus E-P3, Panasonic GX1, Pentax Q, Samsung NX200 and Sony NEX-5N all out of your price range but it says exactly what Chris R has said about sensor physical size and mega pixels compared with ISO rating.

If you have to chose between a camera with ISO 16000 and 5MP and one with 1600 and 16MP then the first would be the better one.

Look up spec for your TV. Likely 1366 wide by 768 high for a high definition one. That's about 1MP so a 5MP camera is 5 times better than your HD TV can show. So look for ISO number and max aperture that's far more important.

 

[imamartian]

Invaluable info....thanks and a Merry Xmas to you and Chris !!

 

[ericmark]

If we have made you realise how unimportant the pixel count is we have succeeded! I feel the way cameras are advertised does not help. First thing you see is 12 Mega-pixel and it does mislead. In the early days of 1.2 Mega-pixel yes it was important but today things have moved on.

 

[imamartian]

If we have made you realise how unimportant the pixel count is we have succeeded! I feel the way cameras are advertised does not help. First thing you see is 12 Mega-pixel and it does mislead. In the early days of 1.2 Mega-pixel yes it was important but today things have moved on.

i am so grateful... so what minimum Mpixel should i aim for, and minimum iso?? bearing in mind i want 20+x zoom?!!!

 

[ericmark]

Although 5 mega-pixel will work I would say today really looking for 10 mega-pixel to allow some cropping of finished picture.

As to ISO this is related to the lens used. So some education first. There are four items which will alter the amount of light.
1) Flash gun power (I will forget that for now)
2) Speed of shutter. Although with a digital camera with floating CCD one can take hand held with 28mm (35mm equivalent) at 1/10 second in real terms 1/30 is about the slowest speed for hand held.
3) Aperture of lens. With a fixed lens f2 or better but as we move onto zoom lens we start to get at telephoto end f6.8 around 1/4 of the light gathered by a f1.4 lens.
4) The ISO of film was 64 for best quality slide film. For a standard print film about 100 and for a special film for low light colour 600 ISO (was called ASA). So a camera able to work at 100 - 1200 ISO will work with half the light required for a film camera. However the last stop on any ISO is very grainy so 100 - 1200 is really same as film camera. My D-SLR will go to 1600 and to be frank it's not fast enough with my F3.5-f5.5 standard zoom lens. However not far short so at double 3200 ISO I would just about be able to walk in the woods and take hand held. But not capture much action. 1600 - 3200 is one stop. So really need around 6400 ISO to be sure I can hand hold. But if looking for wild life then 1/30 second is too slow so need even more. 12800 ISO is really fast the limit at moment is around the 16000 mark that's just over 3 times faster than mine at 1600 not 10 times.

So I would say for general use look for a f5.6 lens with 6400 ISO. At that one should be able to walk in the woods and take pictures hand held. I say woods as about the darkest area where you are not using lens at wide angle.

In a building like a church you are normally wide angle so f3.6 rather than f5.6 so since lens is gathering more light you CCD does not have to gather so much. So really same light as in woods but will get away with ISO 3200. (Still twice as fast as my SLR).

In a church I need either a tripod of wedge myself against a pillar to keep steady enough.

Do remember my pictures when entered in a competition are displayed at around 6 foot square so do need to be pin sharp. At that size any camera shake can be seen by judges.

I would say the last ISO stop on any digital camera is a cheat. So although mine will go to 1600 ISO I will normally limit it to 800 ISO. So a camera able to take at 16000 ISO in real terms would not set above 8000 ISO.

Unlike me where I can remove my zoom lens and fit a fixed lens at in my case f2 to work in low light your lens is not interchangeable so your ISO needs to be higher than mine.

In general for the same mega-pixel CCD the bigger it is the better the ISO which means there as also a trade off in camera size. The bigger the CCD the bigger the lens and also the further from CCD so it quickly gets to silly sizes. The cameras used by the professionals have massive CCD's and view finders rather than looking through lens or use a LCD display. As the mirror in the SLR means lens is further away from the CCD so lens has to be bigger. I personally think the days of the SLR are limited and soon they will be replaced in the main by 4/3 type cameras. Which still have interchangeable lenses but no mirror.

So what you have to do now is decide where you will use camera and which to select. There is not such thing as best for money. It's all down to what you want to do with it. I still use a camera in my phone for some work. The D-SLR is just too big to lug around.