looking for great 6mp or less portrait P&S camera

any suggestions? new or used. portraits are the only thing i want this
camera to excel in. therefor, good at full aperture, and a great lens. i
already have a DSLR, so i want a P&S that will do the trick in a bind.

"joe mama" writes:
any suggestions? new or used. portraits are the only thing i want this
camera to excel in. therefor, good at full aperture, and a great lens. i
already have a DSLR, so i want a P&S that will do the trick in a bind.

I'd have to say a Canon G6, it has a fast lens and a flash shoe that
accepts the Canon dedicated flashes. I don't think Nikon has anything
comparable, i.e. that has any kind of external flash control. What I
don't know is whether the G6 can operate multiple flashes like the
Nikon iTTL system. Anyway, lighting control matters a lot more than
lens speed. Most p/s are limited to that awful in-camera direct flash
which is the kiss of death for good portraits.

Paul Rubin wrote:
"joe mama" writes:
any suggestions? new or used. portraits are the only thing i want this
camera to excel in. therefor, good at full aperture, and a great lens. i
already have a DSLR, so i want a P&S that will do the trick in a bind.



One problem you may face is that small sensor digicams have significant
depth of field even when used wide open, which you probably don't want
for portraiture :-/

joe mama wrote:
any suggestions? new or used. portraits are the only thing i want this
camera to excel in. therefor, good at full aperture, and a great lens. i
already have a DSLR, so i want a P&S that will do the trick in a bind.



I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.

--
| Brendan Gillatt |
| brendan {at} brendan \removethis// gillatt {dot} co {dot} uk |
| http://www.brendangillatt.co.uk |
| PGP Key: pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6E265E61|

Brendan Gillatt wrote:

I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.

My Canon A620 has a manual aperture setting. It's 7.1MP, inexpensive
now that the A630 and A640 have come out. The on-camera flash isn't
good for portraits, though.

Jim Blue wrote:
Brendan Gillatt wrote:

I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.


My Canon A620 has a manual aperture setting. It's 7.1MP, inexpensive
now that the A630 and A640 have come out. The on-camera flash isn't
good for portraits, though.

Choose an aperture, e.g.f=11, that will cause the puny on-camera flash
to contribute very little to the overall exposure. The flash will,
however, be bright enough to trigger one or more strong slaves to
actually provide the correct exposure.
Bob Williams

Brendan Gillatt wrote:
joe mama wrote:
any suggestions? new or used. portraits are the only thing i want this
camera to excel in. therefor, good at full aperture, and a great lens. i
already have a DSLR, so i want a P&S that will do the trick in a bind.



I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.

Not true. There are many, many P&S cameras with a manual aperture
setting and even with full (aperture and shutter speed) control. You
can search dpreview.com for them.

Regardless, P&S cameras are pretty bad for portraits because no matter
what you do, you'll have too much depth-of-field, which makes it very
difficult to isolate your subject from the background.

The OP really needs a camera with a larger sensor to get shallow DOF
for portraits. There is only one small P&S camera with a large sensor,
and that's Sigma's new DP1. But that camera introduces other problems,
like a non-zoom lens that's too short for portraits, and of course the
Foveon sensor that many people don't like. Apart from that, just get a
DSLR.

-Gniewko

Bob Williams wrote:
Jim Blue wrote:
Brendan Gillatt wrote:

I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.


My Canon A620 has a manual aperture setting. It's 7.1MP, inexpensive
now that the A630 and A640 have come out. The on-camera flash isn't
good for portraits, though.

Choose an aperture, e.g.f=11, that will cause the puny on-camera flash
to contribute very little to the overall exposure. The flash will,
however, be bright enough to trigger one or more strong slaves to
actually provide the correct exposure.
Bob Williams

Good luck getting f/11 on a P&S. Most of them don't go beyond f/8.

-Gniewko

wrote:
[]
Not true. There are many, many P&S cameras with a manual aperture
setting and even with full (aperture and shutter speed) control. You
can search dpreview.com for them.

Regardless, P&S cameras are pretty bad for portraits because no matter
what you do, you'll have too much depth-of-field, which makes it very
difficult to isolate your subject from the background.

The OP really needs a camera with a larger sensor to get shallow DOF
for portraits. There is only one small P&S camera with a large sensor,
and that's Sigma's new DP1. But that camera introduces other problems,
like a non-zoom lens that's too short for portraits, and of course the
Foveon sensor that many people don't like. Apart from that, just get a
DSLR.

-Gniewko

It does rather depend what you mean by portraits, doesn't it? Take a look
here for some great people shots - all done with a P&S.

http://www.larry-bolch.com/CP8400/

David

wrote:
Bob Williams wrote:
Jim Blue wrote:
Brendan Gillatt wrote:

I would say you need a camera with a manual aperture setting. The only
P&S cameras I know of like this are some of the high end Fuji Film ones.
Check Dpreview.com for some reviews of them.

My Canon A620 has a manual aperture setting. It's 7.1MP, inexpensive
now that the A630 and A640 have come out. The on-camera flash isn't
good for portraits, though.
Choose an aperture, e.g.f=11, that will cause the puny on-camera flash
to contribute very little to the overall exposure. The flash will,
however, be bright enough to trigger one or more strong slaves to
actually provide the correct exposure.
Bob Williams

Good luck getting f/11 on a P&S. Most of them don't go beyond f/8.

If the A620 is anything like my A75, you can set it up in manual
mode, thus choosing any lens opening within its range, and then also
control the flash output manually. I find if I set it to 1/3 flash
output (the minimum), it's enough to trigger an outboard flash which
will provide most of the illumination. Nice thing about this mode is
that there's no pre-flash so a standard slave works fine.
I have an A630 but haven't tested its manual mode yet. I notice it
also allows manual control of flash output in several of the automatic
modes, but I don't know whether this means it also dispenses with the
pre-flash. Obviously I need to do some testing, unless someone has
already checked this out ... ?

-- Ron