Suitable Pocket camera for Railfanning?

I'm looking for a reasonable priced pocket digital camera. I want one with
a decent lense with a low aperture.

I'm interested in one with a good range of shutter speeds with less spacing
than say a film slr with 1/250 and the next increment being 1/500. I would
also like to burn at least 5-8 fps to the flash card in one burst.

Is there one out there with all the settings fully controllable by the
user?

thanks
bill

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

I'm looking for a reasonable priced pocket digital camera. I want one with
a decent lense with a low aperture.

Which brands are you considering?

I'm interested in one with a good range of shutter speeds with less spacing
than say a film slr with 1/250 and the next increment being 1/500.

That is a standard half-stop exposure change.

I would
also like to burn at least 5-8 fps to the flash card in one burst.

You seem to be describing a Canon 1D Mark III.

Is there one out there with all the settings fully controllable by the
user?

There are several compact cameras with manual controls, but they usually
cannot shoot at more than 1 fps without reducing the resolution and the
exposure time. You may be waiting quite awhile for a compact camera
that can support faster fps rates when using short exposure times. If
you want at least 5-8 fps and the buffer to support those bursts, you
should be considering a Canon 1D Mark III or similar dSLR.

On Mon, 12 May 2008 07:04:58 +0000, Alexander Rogge wrote:
: I'm looking for a reasonable priced pocket digital camera. I want one with
: a decent lense with a low aperture.
:
: Which brands are you considering?
:
: I'm interested in one with a good range of shutter speeds with less spacing
: than say a film slr with 1/250 and the next increment being 1/500.
:
: That is a standard half-stop exposure change.

Is it? Doubling the speed halves the number of photons hitting the sensor.
That's a change of a full stop, isn't it?

Bob

: That is a standard half-stop exposure change.

Is it? Doubling the speed halves the number of photons hitting the sensor.
That's a change of a full stop, isn't it?

I was referring to the 1/350-1/500 half-stop. I am not sure which
modern cameras have a full-stop shutter speed option, although older
35-mm cameras had such a dial setting.

Robert Coe wrote in
:

On Mon, 12 May 2008 07:04:58 +0000, Alexander Rogge
wrote:
: I'm looking for a reasonable priced pocket digital camera. I want
: one with a decent lense with a low aperture.
:
: Which brands are you considering?
:
: I'm interested in one with a good range of shutter speeds with less
: spacing than say a film slr with 1/250 and the next increment being
: 1/500.
:
: That is a standard half-stop exposure change.

Is it? Doubling the speed halves the number of photons hitting the
sensor. That's a change of a full stop, isn't it?

Bob


No kidding... So I must be stupid or something as no want else wants a
decent pocket camera for which you can control the settings and can take
more than one picture a minute?

thanks

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

William O'Hara wrote:


No kidding... So I must be stupid or something as no want else
wants a decent pocket camera for which you can control the settings
and can take more than one picture a minute?

thanks

Hardly stupid.

My few-years-old Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 goes:

" ... 80 100 125 160 200 250 320 400 500 ... 2000"

Fully controllable, a little noisy, high-quality construction and
lens. A Leica-branded version was much more expensive.

I believe there has been at least one edtion since I bought it, but in
contrast to the one-new-small-camera-every-six-months tenor of my
previous "pocket" camera quest, I haven't encountered a need to try
again.

You could go to Flickr.com and search on "LX1" to see tens of
thousands of examples of the kind of output it generates.

--
Frank ess

"Frank ess" wrote in
:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1

What does Unlimited Consecutive Shooting function mean? 3fps is kind of
slow. I know from experience. Can it really do 5fps? Is this only in
JPEG mode?

thanks

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

Allen wrote in news:482dedb4$0$30524
:

Alexander Rogge wrote:
: That is a standard half-stop exposure change.

Is it? Doubling the speed halves the number of photons hitting the
sensor.
That's a change of a full stop, isn't it?

I was referring to the 1/350-1/500 half-stop. I am not sure which
modern cameras have a full-stop shutter speed option, although older
35-mm cameras had such a dial setting.
Where did the 1/350 come from. The OP wrote 1/250 and 1/500.
Allen


No... The OP wants cameras that can do exposures at 1/320 or 1/400.

thanks

--
---
William O'Hara
www.N1ey.com - Amateur Radio and Railfan Blog
www.yahoogroups.com/group/illinoiscentral - premier discussion list
ICRR

William O'Hara wrote:
"Frank ess" wrote in
:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1

What does Unlimited Consecutive Shooting function mean? 3fps is
kind of slow. I know from experience. Can it really do 5fps? Is
this only in JPEG mode?

thanks

I believe "Unlimited Consecutive Shooting" is something no one has
bothered to understand. I certainly don't. It seems to be a concept
like "There's plenty of room until it's full", which goes without
saying, doesn't it?

My experience is that there is no actual 5fps in this camera. I have
mis-filed (hidden) the Owner's Guide, and won't be able to offer any
authoritative advertising propaganda, but the picture-taking I do with
it is of the natu
Frame
Press
Focus two three four
Fire and process two three
Repeat as needed.

That's with a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB card. It may go faster with faster
cards.

Yes, slow.

--
Frank ess

You learn something new every day. Until this thread, I had never heard the
word 'railfanning' and had no idea what it meant, which appears to be the
American equivilent of 'train-spotter' or 'anorak' in Aussie / Pomspeak.
Wonder what you call a propellerhead / plane-spotter?

Paul