New camera advice

[daviskenny]

What is the best camera, 5 megapixels or better that offer anti-shake.

[mtclimber]

Think about it please, do you REALLY need "anti shake."

MT

[daviskenny]

Unfortunately this feature may help my photo taking, seems my photos are blurry unless I use a tripod and timer. Old person old hands.

[E.T]

What kind things you photograph?
Is it just general photography? In that case good wide angle is much more useful than ultrazoom without wide angle.
What size it should be? One which fits to pocket?
Then is there is there any other plusses... Like chance for easy manual settings if necessary?
Mechanical zoom? (definitely easier, faster and way more accurate than button zooms)
And what kind "budget" you have?


mtclimber, what is this hostility against image stabilisation?
Or maybe it's that your/media's favorite big PR budget brand (/camera) doesn't have such too high technology-level feature except automatic blowing up ISO and noise?

[mtclimber]

ET-

I am sorry if my post seemed to reflect any hostility. That was certainly not my intent at all. I was just curious. The term "anti shake" is a term used only by Fuji Photo. Most people usually use the IS designation.

I apologize to all for any misunderstanding.

MT

[rags]

I know the Fuji "anti blur" is not IS and perhaps the IS works better for camera shake. As I don't own a camera with IS I can't say. I will say that the Fuji 5200's anit blur works well for me in that I've been able to get good long zoom and low lightish pictures hand held and I have a very shakey hand due to tremor.
Ruth

[E.T]

Considering usefulnes of IS this is good reminder, ordinarily longest "shake-free" shutter speed you can use is 1 second divided by used 35mm eq. focal length.
Which means at 200mm it's 1/200s and at 400mm 1/400s etc.
So in dimmer light you hit this limit really fast.



mtclimber wrote:

The term "anti shake" is a term used only by Fuji Photo.

Looks like Fuji just continues using lies, some "high speed" mode would be at least little closer to truth.

I've been long saying this... there should be really much tighter limits for advertising and lies in those should be punished seriously. Also reviewers should punish from those lies.

And actually Anti-Shake means real IS with KonicaMinolta, instead of moving lens it's based to moving CCD. It enables 2-3 stops longer shutter times, also it works damn nice with video clips... taking those reveals shaking very well.
(also this means all lenses are "stabilised" with KM's DSLRs)

Hmmm... Maybe KM could file suit against Fuji for using that name and distorting meaning of it.

[slipe]

You have a pretty wide range available. If you want long zoom range in a larger camera consider the Panasonic FZ5 & FZ20, Canon S2IS and Sony H1 for 5Mp. If you want 8Mp the choices are the Panasonic FZ30 or Nikon 8800. In the 5Mp I prefer the FZ5 for size and the S2IS for features. The FZ20 has the fastest and probably best lens. In the 8Mp the 8800 is an f-stop slower at full zoom, which reduces the effectiveness of the stabilization. But the FZ30 is particularly noisy.

For pocket cameras with true stabilization you are pretty much limited to Panasonic. The FX9 is an excellent little camera, albeit with no manual controls or viewfinder. None of the small Panasonics have viewfinders. If you want full controls and a wide angle lens in a compact (not sub-compact) camera, the LX1 is interesting. For a small stabilized camera with a 6X optical zoom the LZ2 is a decent choice.

The Konica Minolta A200 is a truly excellent camera with lots of features. You get wide angle to medium telephoto and pretty good in-camera noise reduction. Dpreview says ISO800 is useable and it has good noise qualities throughout the ISO range.

The Fuji S9000 is a nice camera without true mechanical stabilization. The Fuji approach is to give you better ISO capabilities so you can use a faster shutter speed. Stabilization is good only to reduce hand shake, where a higher ISO will work for a moving subject in available light as well. I have a preference for true stabilization, but the S9000 might be a more versatile camera overall.

[E.T]

slipe wrote:

The Fuji S9000 is a nice camera without true mechanical stabilization. The Fuji approach is to give you better ISO capabilities so you can use a faster shutter speed.

But problem is now that Fuji just crammed too much megapixels more into small sensor.
Like this shows high ISO capability of it isn't spectacular in any way: (unlike F10, although lack of noise in F10's highest ISO shots is achieved with heavy "watercolor" filtering)
http://www.videozona.ru/photo_tests/...Z30_page05.asp

If they would have retained megapixels in same level as in F10 their claims would be about true. Now that much touted advantage is actually quite small.
(like I've said, it's job of PR/advertising department to "sell car as sport model even if it has only chainsaw engine")


Considering difference between IS and higher ISO, IS wins in other aspects expect moving targets. (of course having both would be best)

Actually results of one comparison between top of the class prosumer and DSLR were really surprise to me. (KonicaMinolta A2 and Canon 20D)

Visible noise levels at various print size show that the A2 is perfectly suited at ISO 200 (or less) up to 25" wide and at ISO 800 up to 12" wide. The outstanding Canon 20D produces perfectly usable prints up to ISO 1600 even at 25" wide. This demonstrates that even though the A2's noise levels are higher at all ISO sensitivities, for most common print sizes (up to 9"x12"), its full ISO range remains very usable.

High ISO settings are used to achieve higher shutter speeds either to freeze action or prevent camera shake in hand-help photography. The Konica-Minolta A2 has an Anti-Shake system which reduces camera shake. It turns out that the anti-shake system works exceptionally well. So well that in cases where ISO 1600 does not allow a sufficiently fast shutter speed for hand-held photography with the 20D, the A2 managed to produce quite sharp and noise-free pictures using only ISO 200.
http://www.neocamera.com/feature_dslr.html

Reason why A200 (and A2) have quite good capability for higher ISOs (especially when shooting in RAW and processing right) is larger sensor, pretty much all ultrazooms (except 28-420mm Samsung 815 whose shortcoming is lack of IS) have two steps smaller sensors which shows in their highest selectable ISO which is 400 or 320 and noise starts to show after lowest setting... and even lower megapixel count doen't help them.

So I think it hits the point if I say all cameras are compromises.
Those very long zooms sacrifice wide angle (zoom lens from real wide angle to long tele is extremely hard to do without distortions and big size) and higher ISOs for making zoom with long tele possible in small size. (smaller sensor makes longer zooms possible in convenient size)
And camera's with good wideangle and larger sensor has to sacrifice that longest reach of tele to keep size convenient. (that Samsung 815 is really big compared to all non SLRs)
Also it looks like every camera maker has delusion that it's their right to call camera as prosumer even if it lacks good/easy manual control possibilities (menu surfing doesn't count as such), mechanical zoom, two control dials, real wide angle and such.


So before immediately rushing like headless chicken for those ultrazooms with long tele I would recommend waiting answers to questions in my first reply.