DSLR vs P&S a replay of Film vs Digital?

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:33:31 +0000, Tony Polson wrote in
:

John Navas wrote:

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:03:08 -0800, SMS ???• ?
wrote in
:

It all comes down to the sensor and the over-aggressive noise reduction
that is Panasonic's forte.

There's nothing wrong with the sensor, which is current state of the
art, and the noise reduction can be turned down (or even off with RAW)
if you don't like it.

Get some real experience so you'll hopefully not make yourself look so
foolish.

Far from making himself look foolish, which he has done many times on
here in the past, SMS is 100% right on this one.

He's at best half-right (on noise reduction), and even that's being very
generous (since noise reduction is configurable on some models, and even
RAW is available on some models).

I carry a Panasonic DMC-LX2 with me all the time. It has a Leica lens
and is sold with a different finish and slightly different settings
for colour rendition as the Leica D-Lux 3. I like it very much
because of the 16:9 widescreen format, the excellent 28mm (equivalent)
wide end of the zoom lens and the high degree of creative control that
can be applied.

But it is a noise box. The noise is extremely bad at high ISOs. And
as SMS says, the noise is noticeable at ISO 100.

A single data point. Other Panasonic cameras are very good at ISO 100,
including the FZ8.

There are far better digital point and shoot cameras than the
Panasonic from the point of view of noise. Notable examples include
the FujiFilm Finepix F series, which produce images that could almost
pass for those from a DSLR.

Again just a single data point, and they suffer in other ways (e.g.,
optics, resolution).

There are few worse digital point and
shoot cameras than the Panasonic from the point of view of noise in
this price bracket. ...

In fact Panasonic is comparable to other digital cameras with similar
sensors. What's different is that default noise reduction settings of
the latest Panasonic processors are more aggressive than some (not all)
other cameras, although that's adjustable on some models.

Furthermore, the colour fringing from the "Leica" lens is noticeable.
It also lacks sharpness wide open at the edges, and doesn't perform
all that well in the centre.

Independent reviews say just the opposite.

I use Canon DSLRs (two EOS 5D bodies) with mainly Carl Zeiss lenses
and a range of film cameras including 35mm rangefinder bodies and
Leica lenses. The "Leica" lens on the Panasonic DMC-LX2 is not worthy
of the Leica name it carries.

I've used German-made Leica lenses, Canon L-series lenses, and other
top-grade lenses, and I strongly disagree.

I have tried several examples of the Panasonic DMC-LX2 and found they
performed more or less the same. I have compared my results with
those from friends who use the Leica D-Lux 3 and they are essentially
the same - except the colour rendition is more subdued, but that is a
known feature of the D-Lux 3's firmware.

In the end, I have had to accept that the Panasonic DMC-LX2 is a very
noisy camera. I limit its use to situations where it performs well
and/or for applications that don't demand good results. It is a noisy
camera with a lens that is seriously optically flawed.

It's pretty clear that you're unhappy with your LX2, probably should
have gone with something else, that you're confusing lens with sensor,
and that you lack experience with other Panasonic models, judging the
entire brand on your unhappiness with the LX2. Do yourself a favor and
try other models.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:19:39 -0800, SMS ???• ?
wrote in
:

Tony Polson wrote:

But it is a noise box. The noise is extremely bad at high ISOs. And
as SMS says, the noise is noticeable at ISO 100.

No question about it. I don't own one, but I've seen the results from
one. ...

Painfully obvious, like other superficial nonsense you post.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:45:27 -0500, "Neil Harrington"
wrote in :

"SMS ???. ?" wrote in message
.. .

GOOD GRIEF!

He must have a lot of time on his hands, and nothing to do with it but
troll.

Steven clearly does.

How pathetic is that?

Quite.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:42:52 -0800, SMS ???• ?
wrote in
:

grant_jiles wrote:

About as pathetic as a person with that much time on their hands to compile a
list like that.

No compiling at all. Just dumping the contents of my Thunderbird filter
list for rec.photo.digital. It may help others in setting up their kill
files without having to add the e-mail addresses individually.

With a good filter list, newsgroups becomes much more readable and more
useful.

Translation: You're not troubled by those exposing your fantasies for
what they are.

It actually saves time by not having to wade through hundreds of
posts by know-it-alls that know nothing.

On the contrary -- you're not in it.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:58:43 GMT, John Navas wrote:

The reason manual focus is often omitted from compact cameras is that
most of the target market can't or won't use it. Those that want it can
of course choose a compact camera that has it.

Considering how much that DSLR users depend on, pray to, and worship their
camera's auto-focus I'm surprised that this feature hasn't been dropped from all
DSLRs. If it wasn't for how fully "point and shoot" featured their DSLRs were
they'd never buy them. The way they talk about their dependencies on auto-focus
I doubt most of them even know what manual focusing is used for or even how to
find it on their cameras.

All my P&S cameras have manual focus. The ones I like best have a manual
focus-ring on the lens barrel, just like all my SLR gear. Then again one of my
others can run CDHK. That gives it a menu option to change the default manual
focus method from button presses to the zoom lever, making it about as easy to
use as a manual focusing ring. It also has a nice feature added, a simple press
of another button does a micro-focus touch-up once you are in the right
neighborhood. Locking in on the most detailed object within a few millimeters of
where you manually focused to, never aiming for something of stronger contrast
in the background because that's outside of it's micro-focus hunting limits. A
well thought out compensation that's pleasurable and quite easy to use. It was
the first P&S camera I bought that didn't have a manual focus-ring method. But
then I wasn't buying it for that, I was buying it for how many more things it
could do than no DSLR could ever do. I thought I'd hate the button-presses
method. It was implemented surprisingly well. Not as nice as my others with a
focusing-ring, but quite useable once you learn how to use it properly. Just as
fast and accurate, if not more so under the right circumstances.

A compact camera is a small sub-set of all P&S cameras. So it's fine to say that
manual focusing has been dropped from many of those. But don't go lumping all
P&S cameras into compacts or you'll be giving everyone the wrong impression.
Most all the P&S cameras with manual modes have manual focusing of one type or
another.

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:20:46 -0800, SMS ???• ?
wrote:

Neil Harrington wrote:

Easier than entering all that stuff into a killfile, which obviously will
only grow and grow (and I assume he never bothers re-using his old ones
anyway), henceforth I'll just assume any unknown poster supporting that jerk
is the jerk himself, and ignore it. Likewise I'll just assume any other
idiotic post is from the same jerk, regardless of the subject or name used.
It's easy enough to pick him out from his headers, but why waste the time.

Sometimes I get to the point of kill-filing not only anyone that
supports him, but anyone that even replies to him, because he feeds on
the attention they provide.

A newsgroup reader that could filter on text in the body of the message
would work best, since he uses the same key words no matter how often he
changes the "from" address in the header.

Oh look, another off-topic troll from the MOST PROLIFIC RESIDENT-TROLL around!
What were the chances of finding THAT again!

LOL

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:26:15 -0800 (PST), Annika1980
wrote in
:

Calling a Crapasonic Lumix lens a "Leica" is kinda like calling a VW
bug a Porsche.

I'm not talking about Lumix lenses, I'm talking about Leica lenses.

Panasonic is actually a world class manufacturer.

Got anything substantial, or is flaming all you've got?

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:18:59 +0000, Tony Polson wrote in
:

John Navas wrote:

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:10:28 +0000, Tony Polson wrote in
:

John Navas wrote:

It seems you are right and my information was incorrect.

Apology accepted.

No apology either warranted or given.

Thanks anyway.

You're welcome.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:40:13 -0500, "Neil Harrington"
wrote in :

"John Navas" wrote in message
.. .

Moreover tests of these lenses confirm that they do measure up to Leica
standards; e.g., "everything you'd expect from Leica glass"
http://www.popphoto.com/cameralenses/4597/lens-test-panasonic-leica-d-summilux-25mm-f14-af.html

That's "everything you'd expect from Leica glass" by Julia Silber, who in
the first paragraph uses "prime" when she means fixed focal length. I think
she's the only columnist in Pop Photo who does employ that popular but
ignorant misusage. (Herbert Keppler certainly never does.) Someone that
careless with language is not to be taken very seriously.

Cheap shot #1. "Fixed focal length" is now the commonly accepted
definition of "prime" lens -- see Wikipedia for a good discussion.

And she does not say that the lens was "designed by Leica" or that "Leica
monitors the quality control." She says, "Made in Japan by Panasonic to
Leica's specifications," which is all but meaningless.

Cheap shot #2. It's not meaningless, and these lenses do measure up to
Leica optical and quality standards.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:20:14 -0800, SMS ???• ?
wrote in
:

And of course you realize, given the poster's extremely long history of
complete fabrications, never with any citations, references, or names,
that "industry people I respect" does not mean that he actually knows,
or has talked to, anyone remotely connected to the industry in question.

That's actually you, Steven.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)