Help! Canon S2 IS or Sony H1?

[jvan]

I have read the reviews of both cameras and they both seem to be great. My question is which would be the better one for just point and shoot!? I take a lot of indoor shots of my children so I would want the best one for that but I am getting ready to go to Hawaii and want a camera with a large zoom that takes great pictures. So which would be the better choice? Oh and I am no professional, just a mom who likes to take pictures, so the most important thing would be, which takes the best pictures in auto mode (EASIEST TO USE)? Thanks in advance for any help! jvan

[schmiedel]

Hi,

As interesting differences, I could say you should decide between:

1. Sony has larger screen, but Canon has a flippable one (I find this very useful in many situations).
2. Sony's IS seems not to work quite as well as the one from Canon. With the S2 I can really take pictures on full telephoto and slow shutter speeds (let's say 1/30s) without getting blurry results. I've read that Sony has trouble with full telephoto avoiding blurry results.
3. Do you preffer MemoryStick or SD media if this is an issue
4. Both cameras take great shots in auto and have great manual settings, I don't think one or the other is more difficult to use in auto mode.
5. Check the reviews in the Steve's Digicams site, they have comparision shots. Sometimes Sony seems to have less noise, but I've also noticed that Sony's images seem to be darker, so noise could be hidden this way; I've taken ISO400 shots with the S2 IS, and some NoiseWare or NeatImage postprocessing renders excellent results (obviously not as good as with a dSLR but the Canon has a decent ISO 400 noise amount), it's very noticeable on freshly taken pictures but it can really be filtered out without compromising image quality too much.
6. The Canon takes excellent video clips and has good video features, so this could be a good plus for this camera.

In my case I discarded the Sony from the beginning because I hate the MemoryStick standard (I also hated Betamax and all standards from Sony). Then I saw comparision shots and found out that everyone might decide for the brand he's more familiar with. Any of those cameras you buy will give you great results, just try to decide based on the small differences they have (large screen vs flippable screen, storage media, etc.)

Regards

[armadilloshield]

Hi JVan, you may want to take a look at
http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...mp;forum_id=87
and
http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...mp;forum_id=87

[armadilloshield]

Not sure how true, but latest news about Sony Digital Camera :O

You can check the latest news at: http://www.dpreview.com/

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Tuesday, 20 December 2005
Sony cameras fail quality test in China

Sony China Ltd has suspended sales of several compact cameras after they failed quality tests carried out by China's National Camera Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, according to a report by Interfax China. Nine Sony cameras were selected for inspection and six failed. The affected cameras are the DSC-H1, DSC-L1, DSC-P200, DSC-W7, DSC-W5 and DSC-S90. Chinese consumers who purchased these cameras can return them to Sony for a refund. There were also 13 cameras from other manufacturers that failed quality tests. (17:35 GMT)
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