Pocket camera

I've got an EOS 350D, and I'm very happy with it. But I'd like
something I can carry around all the time.

The most important requirement is that it be small and light; ideally
it should fit in a coat pocket.

Other things I care about: fine control over exposure (for instance
the equivalent of the Canon's Av/Tv+EC); shooting in RAW, so I'm not
stuck the wrong side of an in-camera JPEG implementation; a reasonably
fast shooting rate.

Things I _don't_ care about: very high pixel counts; 'macro' mode;
media type (as long as I can get the pictures into Lightroom without
too much pain); tripod mount/external flash connector; movie mode;
second hand vs. new.

Any recommendations?

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

Richard Kettlewell writes:
Other things I care about: fine control over exposure (for instance
the equivalent of the Canon's Av/Tv+EC); shooting in RAW, so I'm not
stuck the wrong side of an in-camera JPEG implementation; a reasonably
fast shooting rate.

For reasons I've never understood, compact cameras that shoot RAW
shoot it extremely slowly. Ask yourself how much you really care
about this.

Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I've got an EOS 350D, and I'm very happy with it. But I'd like
something I can carry around all the time.

The most important requirement is that it be small and light; ideally
it should fit in a coat pocket.

Other things I care about: fine control over exposure (for instance
the equivalent of the Canon's Av/Tv+EC); shooting in RAW, so I'm not
stuck the wrong side of an in-camera JPEG implementation; a reasonably
fast shooting rate.

Things I _don't_ care about: very high pixel counts; 'macro' mode;
media type (as long as I can get the pictures into Lightroom without
too much pain); tripod mount/external flash connector; movie mode;
second hand vs. new.

Any recommendations?

Panasonic Lumix LX1, no question. It's small, shoots RAW, has a great
lens, true 16:9 wide format, and very good controls. For example, you
can switch from autofocus to manual focus by moving a switch on the
lens, no need to jump through screen menus. And it has an AF/AE lock
button. I'm very happy with mine.

Panasonic recently released LX1's successor, the LX2, but I prefer the
LX1. The LX2 goes a little too crazy with noise reduction and has too
many pixels for a small sensor (10MP vs. 8MP).

The only drawback is that the images are a little noisy, but it's
nothing that Noise Ninja won't fix, and I actually prefer to have less
noise reduction done in camera - I'd rather have the detail.

-Gniewko

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:10:15 GMT, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I've got an EOS 350D, and I'm very happy with it. But I'd like
something I can carry around all the time.

The most important requirement is that it be small and light; ideally
it should fit in a coat pocket.

Other things I care about: fine control over exposure (for instance
the equivalent of the Canon's Av/Tv+EC); shooting in RAW, so I'm not
stuck the wrong side of an in-camera JPEG implementation; a reasonably
fast shooting rate.

Things I _don't_ care about: very high pixel counts; 'macro' mode;
media type (as long as I can get the pictures into Lightroom without
too much pain); tripod mount/external flash connector; movie mode;
second hand vs. new.

Any recommendations?

Panasonic's LX1 comes to mind. Now that the LX2 has been released, the
older version should be available at a reasonable price, and the extra 2
MP on the newer version (8 vs 10) doesn't make much difference.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicLX1/
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicLX2/

-dms

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:10:15 GMT, Richard Kettlewell
wrote:

I've got an EOS 350D, and I'm very happy with it. But I'd like
something I can carry around all the time.

The most important requirement is that it be small and light; ideally
it should fit in a coat pocket.

Other things I care about: fine control over exposure (for instance
the equivalent of the Canon's Av/Tv+EC); shooting in RAW, so I'm not
stuck the wrong side of an in-camera JPEG implementation; a reasonably
fast shooting rate.

Things I _don't_ care about: very high pixel counts; 'macro' mode;
media type (as long as I can get the pictures into Lightroom without
too much pain); tripod mount/external flash connector; movie mode;
second hand vs. new.

Any recommendations?


I recently bought a Oly SP-350 that I very happy with. Price is now
about $225 on the internet and it has everythiing you want plus a
buch of the other stuff which comes along for free.

After buying the high speed XD card and upgrade the firmware to fix a
wierd battery battery problem, I've been showing the 11 by 14 prints
my toy camera produces to a group wedded to high end DSLR and MF film.
So far I've got three of them thinkiing about buying a toy camera
for their pocket.

jpc
i