P2 IS, FZ 7 or FZ 30 ???

[smitpc]

I'm new to the digital camera market and I don't have a clue...

I'm looking for:

1.) Good quality movie clips and sound

2.) Quality still pictures, which can be blown up and printed at good quality.

3.) A camera that doesn't look cheap (i.e. too plastic)

4.) RAW ability if posible

Please suggest which you think is best??

[E.T]

Before narrowing choises to certain cameras first tell what kind of things you would photograph?
General use with landscapes and architecture or wild animals/birds?
Because cameras with big zoom numbers are worse to former uses than some cameras with smaller zoom numbers.

(yes, zoom number is like megapixels, it doesn't tell anything concretic)

[videosilva]

smitpc wrote:

I'm new to the digital camera market and I don't have a clue...

I'm looking for:

1.) Good quality movie clips and sound

2.) Quality still pictures, which can be blown up and printed at good quality.

3.) A camera that doesn't look cheap (i.e. too plastic)

4.) RAW ability if posible

Please suggest which you think is best??

For Video and sound the S2 is excellent ( possibly the best )but that is it ONLY good feature. Buy the S2 and look for " THE FOG EFFECT". It does NOT look cheap and has ON raw.

End result pictures are a tad out of focus its a shame since this really is a nice camera with LOTS of extras.

[wisely_foolish]

videosilva wrote:

For Video and sound the S2 is excellent ( possibly the best )but that is it ONLY good feature. Buy the S2 and look for " THE FOG EFFECT". It does NOT look cheap and has ON raw.

End result pictures are a tad out of focus its a shame since this really is a nice camera with LOTS of extras.

what are you talking about videosilva?? I have heard alot of uneducated and unsubstantiated arguments but this one takes the cake!

You seem to be taking any negative words you can see from the forums (other forums too, not just here)about this camera and make some half-hearted attempt to put them all together to form a coherent sentence. Granted the S2 has fabulous video, one of the best to come of out digital cameras in its range I believe, however, some of your comments cannot be taken as stated.

You don't even know what the "FOG EFFECT" is! In fact, no one explicitly stated it anywhere on the forum! Some forum members have alluded to it in a-matter-fact style humour, but I specifically do not recall anyone of them defining this term. Furthermore, I remember quite clearly that you, yourself, asked for the definition of this term. But no one answered and so you decided to make your own definition on it.

Furthermore, I have not had any photos from you as evidence of your complaints. Therefore, I challenge you, as a rational, integral and honest gentleman as I think you are, giving these so called honest opinions of your's, to show us with some pictures what you mean. I will show my pictures first.

http://static.flickr.com/31/96255787_a1e4e571d5.jpg

This picture, I deliberately used depth of field to blur the background and use the variable focus to pin-point the focus on the tree. There is no out of focus here!

http://static.flickr.com/12/96239880_6f78fef75f.jpg

This one was taken at full zoom

http://static.flickr.com/21/96239877_119bb38518.jpg

This was an indoor shot


PS. I am a complete novice photographer as well

[smitpc]

I would like to take general tourist photo's of landmarks using full zoom (x12) and still expect a clean picture with good detail. And I would also take sport photo's (action photo's and movies) with as much available zoom as possible.

I've just read somewhere that JPEG images are compressed somewhat that you lose some critical detail if you want to blow the picture up, where when you have RAW capability all the esential detail is kept. I know the down side is that it takes up more space, but these days having a 1GB SD card should be more than enough to keep one outing's pictures on.

I know by now that the S2 is better at video, but found out that it loses still picture quality around the edges, is that true??

Is the FZ range so much worse at video or is it just a minor difference??

Because from what i heard, i believe the FZ's picture quality is alot better and the Lens as well??

And what's with the watercolor effect of Pany's?? Good or Bad?

So If I want x12 zoom at least 5-6 MP and all of the above do you think I should go for the S2 or FZ 30. OR should I wait for the FZ 7 to be released?

Maybe if you know about any other new releases that might satisfy my needs.

Your help is appreciated..

[E.T]

smitpc wrote:

would like to take general tourist photo's of landmarks using full zoom (x12) and still expect a clean picture with good detail. And I would also take sport photo's (action photo's and movies) with as much available zoom as possible.

It isn't the zoom, it's called as tele(photo), that longer focal length which decides how much "magnification" you get for distant targets.
Neither does zoom mean that you'll get that nearby building to frame without taking lot of steps backwards, that's what wide angle, that shorter focal length number decides.
And for how that magnification of tele relates to difference in focal lengths of tele: Doubling magnification requires doubling the focal length.
(double magnification means lens zooms to area whose edges have length of 1/2 of comparison frame, you can visualize effect as dividing photo half in horizontal and vertical direction and zooming to one of the resulting 1/4ths)

That's why my personal choise for long tele camera would be Fuji S9000 (S9500 in Europe) despite its "just" 300mm tele. (~400mm doesn't magnify so much more, double magnification would require 600mm) Its 28-300mm zoom range covers good wide angle lacking from others.

And what's with the watercolor effect of Pany's?? Good or Bad?

"Washing" is how all non-SLRs get rid of noise at higher ISOs. It's especially noticeable in these super/ultrazooms because to enable long tele in compact size they use smallest sensor sizes and when you cram lot of megpaixels to that noise gets strong immediately after lowest ISOs.
And this washing of noise means bye bye for fine details and blurry look.
When using RAW it's almost always possible to get much better results with high ISOs because PC has lightyear more calculating power for using more advanced processing algorithms.


How much JPEG looses details depends on how much photo is compressed, Canon S2's best setting with it's 2.3MB size for 5MP pic shouldn't cause visible loss of details.
Although I would be more confident if I would know what's largest size JPEG anyone have managed to get out of it. (white wall or even sky compresses well but detailed shot needs much more space)

RAW's advantage is that it's literally raw, unprocessed data from sensor and it has more bits per pixels meaning more brightness valuess (/finer scale) which benefits if photo is processed much.
RAW's disadvanteage is that it isn't picture, raw data has to be converted in computer before you have that image. (so RAW is similar to original negative whe nyou compare to films)

Now most of Point&shoots actually do quite heavy incamera processing, for example contrast is often cranked out of scale which easily leads to clipped highlights while shadows are very dark so I would recommend lowering contrast setting for incamera processing if there's that problem.



wisely_foolish wrote:

http://static.flickr.com/21/96239877_119bb38518.jpg
This was an indoor shot

Entirely meaningless as "inside" photo, windows are well illuminated by light from outside, what matters is how it takes photos from rest of church's insides.

[videosilva]

Lololo that is too funny. " THE FOG EFFECT " NOT " FOG EFFECT " is a term that I coined.

I'm truly sorry I can provide you as many images as you like, unfortunately many do not see (for what ever reason) or want to admit that the S2 produces slightly out of foucs images. Again its a shame I did not want to give up that camera since it had so many features but when it comes down to it all the features in the world can not help this camera. The ONE feature this camera needed and does not hace is " THEIN FOUCSIMAGE" feature.

Your pictures are very nice.

[slipe]

I don't see a lot of corner softness in the S2. Pbase has over 20.000 S2 photos and quite a few are 100%. Look through some. The problem with finding corner softness is that there isn't usually anything there significant to the photo. If you wanted a full frame of a document, tapestry, painting etc the corners might be significant. But for most photos it is immaterial. Steve has the S2 on his best cameras list and dpreview gave it a highly recommended. It has good optics. http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/powershot_s2_is

Several people got S2s that weren't focusing properly. Canon made them right, but it is a lot of hassle to send one in. I would hope Canon is a good enough company to have fixed the problem.

The FZ30 and FZ7 have good movies. The FZ5 and FZ20 movies are tiny and not worth fooling with IMO. The S2 and FZ30 have the advantage of being able to zoom with a manual ring while recording movies. And the S2 has wind buffered stereo mics. Wind noise can be irritating with movies.

Stabilization doesn't help at all for subject motion. If you shoot a lot of sports in arenas or less than perfect light you might want to consider the Fuji S9000. It will give good images at ISO 400 and emergency shots at higher ISO. The wide angle is also a good feature. Wide angle is more important for general photography than a long telephoto IMO.

My personal preference is for stabilization over the higher ISO offered by the S9000. But I don't shoot a lot of action. My first digital camera had raw cycle times about what you find with the S9000 and I found I didn't use it much. I like raw, but I missed too many shots waiting for the camera to cycle. The FZ30 has decent raw cycle times, although you can't use the burst mode with raw.

You might also look through the pbase FZ30 shots to decide for yourself whether people are getting a lot of what you call watercolor results: http://www.pbase.com/cameras/panasonic/lumix_dmc_fz30

[wisely_foolish]

E.T wrote:

wisely_foolish wrote:

Entirely meaningless as "inside" photo, windows are well illuminated by light from outside, what matters is how it takes photos from rest of church's insides.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...m/516178d7.jpg

Let me know if you want an entirely pitch black room too without any windows nor doors nor lighting whatsoever :Ghehehe

that brings me to a philosophical question...what can be defined as indoors? Enclosed room with artificial lights, or a house with windows open and no artificiallights on...your still indoors technically

[E.T]

Looks to be propably other irrelevant shot, shutter time kinda gossips that it isn't really handheld shot.
Or in that case you have extremely stable hands.