Canon S60: fast startup and shoot?

I'm looking for a compact wide-angle digicam.

The Canon S60 seems nice. Offhand the extra resolution of the newer
models seems pointless. (Or am I missing something?)

Anyone know if the startup speed and focus/shutter-lag speeds are
considered fast?

I really like the idea of Ricoh bragging about the operation speeds of
its Caplio's. Fast is good, to me.

I have an older Nikon Coolpix 775 right now (largely busted and
malfunctioning in many ways). One lame thing about it is that it seems
to take forever to start up or to change modes or to autofocus and take
a photo.

However, I've read that other companies are catching up to Caplio's
speeds. But I haven't seen any brags about other wide-angle minicam
speeds to know which brands these faster models are. There aren't many
wide-angle mini's so I'm hoping that basically all newer cams are
faster than old ones.

Help?

I suppose that in my wideangle search I'm also considering the Fuji 510
and Nikon 5400.

THANKS! --JP outyourbackdoor.com

On 2 Jan 2006 14:08:40 -0800, wrote:

I'm looking for a compact wide-angle digicam.

The Canon S60 seems nice. Offhand the extra resolution of the newer
models seems pointless. (Or am I missing something?)

The extra resolution isn't pointless for those that need it or can
occasionally take advantage of it. For most people, the S60
provides far more than enough resolution. I used the older S10 and
S20 (2mp and 3mp) and for the small 4"x6" prints I usually made,
even the S60's higher resolution wouldn't have produced sharper
pictures. But 5"x7" and larger would be a different story. You
probably won't need the higher resolution of the latest Powershots,
but the S80's DigicII processor makes it a much faster camera than
previous models, and that alone may make it worth the higher price.


Anyone know if the startup speed and focus/shutter-lag speeds are
considered fast?

Reviews at dpreview.com (the complete, multi-page reviews, that
is) provide extensive information about speeds, lags and other
timings.


I really like the idea of Ricoh bragging about the operation speeds of
its Caplio's. Fast is good, to me.

I was interested in one of the quick Caplios earlier this year,
but was discouraged from getting one by the general unavailability
(in the USA) and, according to reviews, less than great picture
quality.


However, I've read that other companies are catching up to Caplio's
speeds. But I haven't seen any brags about other wide-angle minicam
speeds to know which brands these faster models are. There aren't many
wide-angle mini's so I'm hoping that basically all newer cams are
faster than old ones.

Help?

I suppose that in my wideangle search I'm also considering the Fuji 510
and Nikon 5400.

I wouldn't think that the Fuji 510 is a particularly fast camera,
nor is it a new model. Check reviews - it may be fast enough for
you. I think that the Fuji 900 has replaced the 550, but there
aren't any upgrades for the 500 and 510. I'm not too familiar with
these compact models though, but at the time the 900 was introduced,
the S5100/S5500 was replaced by the S5200/S5600 and the S7000/S...
was replaced by the S9000/S9500. The best way to really know if a
camera is adequately fast is to do business with a good camera shop
that will let you test their cameras. Indoors, where the light
won't be the brightest will provide a tougher speed environment, so
that'll help weed out the slower performers. The Powershot S80 is
probably one of the better, speedier ones.

ASAAR wrote:
On 2 Jan 2006 14:08:40 -0800, wrote:


I'm looking for a compact wide-angle digicam.

The Canon S60 seems nice. Offhand the extra resolution of the newer
models seems pointless. (Or am I missing something?)


The extra resolution isn't pointless for those that need it or can
occasionally take advantage of it. For most people, the S60
provides far more than enough resolution. I used the older S10 and
S20 (2mp and 3mp) and for the small 4"x6" prints I usually made,
even the S60's higher resolution wouldn't have produced sharper
pictures. But 5"x7" and larger would be a different story.

What I like about higher resolution is the ability to crop and still
have decent resolution. Getting the framing of an action shot just
right the first time is very hard. I'll even confess to holding the
camera off level ocassionally. Starting with more pixels gives a better
result if you need to crop or rotate later.

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:50:12 -0700, timeOday wrote:

The extra resolution isn't pointless for those that need it or can
occasionally take advantage of it. For most people, the S60
provides far more than enough resolution. I used the older S10 and
S20 (2mp and 3mp) and for the small 4"x6" prints I usually made,
even the S60's higher resolution wouldn't have produced sharper
pictures. But 5"x7" and larger would be a different story.

What I like about higher resolution is the ability to crop and still
have decent resolution. Getting the framing of an action shot just
right the first time is very hard. I'll even confess to holding the
camera off level ocassionally. Starting with more pixels gives a better
result if you need to crop or rotate later.

That's true, but doesn't really address the OP's needs. That's
mainly because he didn't adequately state what they were, since he
didn't indicate what size prints he'd either usually or occasionally
make. I don't make very many large prints, and I'm able to do
extensive cropping and still get very sharp prints, and this with a
camera that I believe has less resolution than the S60. I was
limited a bit with my 2 and 3mp cameras, but when I got my current
camera a year ago, judged that a 4mp Fuji would be more than
adequate. That's turned out to be the case, and my ancient computer
appreciates not having to labor with much larger image files. When
I get my next camera in a year or two it is almost certain to have
8mp or more but, that won't be a big factor in choosing it. Other
features making it easier to capture the shots I'm after will be
more important, such as much quicker response, higher ISO/lower
noise capability, etc. Back to your last sentence, it may well be
that the S60 already provides the OP with an abundance of pixels for
later crops and rotations. If he had mentioned the S10 and S20 that
I referred to in my reply, I'd think the odds of him being better
off with a higher res. camera would increase substantially.
Unfortunately (or not) different people have different needs, and
for some, even a 12 or 16mp DSLR is inadequate. The solution for
them (if they can afford it) would be MF or LF cameras.

Thanks for the tips and info. My needs are for max 8x10 prints and my
impression is that 3-4mp gives enough detail---but the idea of cropping
does give value to modestly more pixels. (But I forget what are the
pixels needed to make a sharp 8x10...it's not that much as I recall.
I've recently been printing 8x10's from shots from my Sony Cyber
ultra-mini U30 2mp and they're a bit fuzzy so that's not quite enough
but mabye there's handshake in there.) It just seems like the 5mp+
cameras are overkill in terms of pixels for 99% of market. Who
regularly prints bigger than 8x10 in the popular-everyday-shooter
market? Close to none probably.

That's why in terms of mp's I find that older cameras are still
fine---but I didn't know if I was overlooking other things like the
processor speeds mentioned.

I'll look again at the DPReviews about speeds/lags. I only checked
their conclusions and side-by-side charts, none of which mention lags.
I was surprised about that. I'm guessing lags are mentioned somewhere
within their huge reviews. I wonder where... Well, we'll see...

Thanks, JP

I'm looking at as S50 or an S60 as well, so I'm a little interested in
your results.
As for megapixels, I read in a few resources that a higher megapixel
count in the same size sensor and some optics would just give
dramatically more noise (from having to amplify weaker values in
smaller pixel sensors, making more noise per pixel, and an increased
sensitivity to hot spots and the like). Even if it is noisy, it could
give you resolution that's otherwise not there... so I'm not sure how
to approach it.

wrote:
I'm looking at as S50 or an S60 as well, so I'm a little interested in
your results.
As for megapixels, I read in a few resources that a higher megapixel
count in the same size sensor and some optics would just give
dramatically more noise (from having to amplify weaker values in
smaller pixel sensors, making more noise per pixel, and an increased
sensitivity to hot spots and the like). Even if it is noisy, it could
give you resolution that's otherwise not there... so I'm not sure how
to approach it.


dpreview.com does something *very* useful - they measure the resolution
of the cameras in their full reviews. This is done by taking a picture
of a test pattern from a known distance and focal length, and reading
off the smallest discernable features.

megapixels is all too often taken as a proxy for resolution but this is
not the case. For instance the Fuji F10 with 6.3 megapixels has greater
resolution than the Canon S80 with 8 megapixels.

megapixels is all too often taken as a proxy for resolution but this is
not the case. For instance the Fuji F10 with 6.3 megapixels has greater
resolution than the Canon S80 with 8 megapixels.
Yes, and they always seem to hype up the numbers just like they do
MHz/GHz.
There is no doubt an upper limit to the resolution of a single
megapixel, though (similar to a Nyquist frequency, I guess). As a
matter of curiosity, how much of the available resolution do a variety
of cameras actually use?