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#1
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
I'd like to consider a newer purse sized Coolpix. I have the 4500 which is
nice, but not exactly purse sized. I like to do a bit of low-light shooting without flash, so it looks like the S8000 isnt up to that, though the 10x optical zoom sounds nice. I enjoy mostly scenery and non-flash shots of our shoulder pet birds. My purse cam is now a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S750 but the image quality isnt as nice as the Coolpix. I suspect Nikon makes better quality lenses? So suggestions? I need to keep this in the under $300 street price range. |
#2
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
"Jane Galt" wrote in message . .. I'd like to consider a newer purse sized Coolpix. I have the 4500 which is nice, but not exactly purse sized. I like to do a bit of low-light shooting without flash, so it looks like the S8000 isnt up to that, though the 10x optical zoom sounds nice. I enjoy mostly scenery and non-flash shots of our shoulder pet birds. My purse cam is now a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S750 but the image quality isnt as nice as the Coolpix. I suspect Nikon makes better quality lenses? So suggestions? I need to keep this in the under $300 street price range. Of the current crop of Coolpixes, the S640 looks about the best for your purposes. Its lens is a relatively fast f/2.7 at the short end and it also has Nikon's "4-way VR" -- both of which will help in low-light shooting. The "4-way VR" is actually a combination of optional features and includes Nikon's exclusive Best Shot Selector feature, by itself a big help in low-light shooting (BSS lets you hold the shutter release down for up to 10 shots, then saves the sharpest one; since slow-shutter-speed shots usually vary a lot in sharpness, this helps a great deal). Also part of the "4-way VR" is the camera's offering auto ISO settings up to 6400 -- great for low light, though at the cost of increased noise. I have found high-ISO settings very useful in Coolpixes despite the increased noise, but I may be more tolerant of noise in photos than some other people. I don't have that particular model myself so can't speak about it from experience, but I do have a gaggle of other relatively recent Coolpixes and have consistently fine results from them all. The S640 has a MSRP of $219.95, so street price should certainly be no more than that. And it is very compact -- no problem at all for your purse, you could carry two or three there if you wanted to. |
#3
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
"Neil Harrington" wrote :
"Jane Galt" wrote in message . .. I'd like to consider a newer purse sized Coolpix. I have the 4500 which is nice, but not exactly purse sized. I like to do a bit of low-light shooting without flash, so it looks like the S8000 isnt up to that, though the 10x optical zoom sounds nice. I enjoy mostly scenery and non-flash shots of our shoulder pet birds. My purse cam is now a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S750 but the image quality isnt as nice as the Coolpix. I suspect Nikon makes better quality lenses? So suggestions? I need to keep this in the under $300 street price range. Of the current crop of Coolpixes, the S640 looks about the best for your purposes. Its lens is a relatively fast f/2.7 at the short end and it also has Nikon's "4-way VR" -- both of which will help in low-light shooting. The "4-way VR" is actually a combination of optional features and includes Nikon's exclusive Best Shot Selector feature, by itself a big help in low-light shooting (BSS lets you hold the shutter release down for up to 10 shots, then saves the sharpest one; since slow-shutter-speed shots usually vary a lot in sharpness, this helps a great deal). Also part of the "4-way VR" is the camera's offering auto ISO settings up to 6400 -- great for low light, though at the cost of increased noise. I have found high-ISO settings very useful in Coolpixes despite the increased noise, but I may be more tolerant of noise in photos than some other people. I don't have that particular model myself so can't speak about it from experience, but I do have a gaggle of other relatively recent Coolpixes and have consistently fine results from them all. The S640 has a MSRP of $219.95, so street price should certainly be no more than that. And it is very compact -- no problem at all for your purse, you could carry two or three there if you wanted to. Before coming back here to see this, I've been loking around, and am very tempted by the Powershot SD4000IS now, except for the price. Whew. Then the Coolpix S8000 is PHAT too. sigh What to do, what to do.... -- - Jane Galt |
#4
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
Looking some more, the S90 is also tempting, so it's between the
S90 $350 S8000 $250 and SD4000IS $350 It would stretch the budget for the more expensive two ( $350 street price ) if it would bring $100 more joy to my shooting, but what's a credit card for? -- - Jane Galt |
#5
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
"Jane Galt" wrote in message
. .. Looking some more, the S90 is also tempting, so it's between the S90 $350 S8000 $250 and SD4000IS $350 It would stretch the budget for the more expensive two ( $350 street price ) if it would bring $100 more joy to my shooting, but what's a credit card for? -- - Jane Galt If you're paying that much you might as well get a DSLR - the larger sensor will make for better low-light performance. David |
#6
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:50:08 +0100, "David J Taylor"
wrote: "Jane Galt" wrote in message ... Looking some more, the S90 is also tempting, so it's between the S90 $350 S8000 $250 and SD4000IS $350 It would stretch the budget for the more expensive two ( $350 street price ) if it would bring $100 more joy to my shooting, but what's a credit card for? -- - Jane Galt If you're paying that much you might as well get a DSLR - the larger sensor will make for better low-light performance. Jane specified in her first post that she wanted a "purse-sized" camera. No dslr is truly purse-sized. I can see why someone wants a pocket-sized or purse-sized camera to carry around. There are times you want to have a camera available but not carry around a large dslr. Ideally, you should have a good dslr and a good p&s and take whichever one that suits the situation. -- Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida |
#7
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:50:08 +0100, "David J Taylor"
wrote: "Jane Galt" wrote in message ... Looking some more, the S90 is also tempting, so it's between the S90 $350 S8000 $250 and SD4000IS $350 It would stretch the budget for the more expensive two ( $350 street price ) if it would bring $100 more joy to my shooting, but what's a credit card for? -- - Jane Galt If you're paying that much you might as well get a DSLR - the larger sensor will make for better low-light performance. David Now add in the $1,500 to $15,000 needed for lenses to make it the least bit functionally equivalent in image quality to P&S cameras. Why do you DSLR-Trolls always forget that important bit of information? |
#8
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
Jane specified in her first post that she wanted a "purse-sized"
camera. No dslr is truly purse-sized. Agreed. Interesting to see how the higher-price small-sensor cameras can be similar in price to the lower-end DSLRs, though. I can see why someone wants a pocket-sized or purse-sized camera to carry around. There are times you want to have a camera available but not carry around a large dslr. Ideally, you should have a good dslr and a good p&s and take whichever one that suits the situation. -- Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida Yes, I take around either a DSLR (with one, two or thee lenses), or a purse-sized (105 x 59.2 x 36.7 mm) compact camera, and sometimes both. Cheers, David |
#9
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
"Jane Galt" wrote in message . .. "Neil Harrington" wrote : "Jane Galt" wrote in message . .. I'd like to consider a newer purse sized Coolpix. I have the 4500 which is nice, but not exactly purse sized. I like to do a bit of low-light shooting without flash, so it looks like the S8000 isnt up to that, though the 10x optical zoom sounds nice. I enjoy mostly scenery and non-flash shots of our shoulder pet birds. My purse cam is now a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S750 but the image quality isnt as nice as the Coolpix. I suspect Nikon makes better quality lenses? So suggestions? I need to keep this in the under $300 street price range. Of the current crop of Coolpixes, the S640 looks about the best for your purposes. Its lens is a relatively fast f/2.7 at the short end and it also has Nikon's "4-way VR" -- both of which will help in low-light shooting. The "4-way VR" is actually a combination of optional features and includes Nikon's exclusive Best Shot Selector feature, by itself a big help in low-light shooting (BSS lets you hold the shutter release down for up to 10 shots, then saves the sharpest one; since slow-shutter-speed shots usually vary a lot in sharpness, this helps a great deal). Also part of the "4-way VR" is the camera's offering auto ISO settings up to 6400 -- great for low light, though at the cost of increased noise. I have found high-ISO settings very useful in Coolpixes despite the increased noise, but I may be more tolerant of noise in photos than some other people. I don't have that particular model myself so can't speak about it from experience, but I do have a gaggle of other relatively recent Coolpixes and have consistently fine results from them all. The S640 has a MSRP of $219.95, so street price should certainly be no more than that. And it is very compact -- no problem at all for your purse, you could carry two or three there if you wanted to. Before coming back here to see this, I've been loking around, and am very tempted by the Powershot SD4000IS now, except for the price. Whew. Then the Coolpix S8000 is PHAT too. sigh What to do, what to do.... Buy one of each? :-) The S8000's lens is just over 2/3 stop slower (f/3.5 vs f/2.7 of the S640), which gives the S640 a slight advantage in low-light shooting, all else being equal. Also the S8000 does not have quite the wide-angle capability of the S640 (30mm equiv. vs 28mm), which might be of some importance to you since you've mentioned your interest in scenery. These are reasons I suggested the S640 as being perhaps the best choice for your purposes. Yes, the 10x zoom is nice, provided it works well. I had (very briefly) a Coolpix S10 which also had a 10x zoom, nice lens except for its horribly unreliable autofocus at the longer focal lengths, which made it practically useless. I promptly returned it for that reason, the only Coolpix I have ever returned. Of course that doesn't mean the S8000 has a similar problem, but it did tend to make me leery of superzoom lenses in very small cameras. Other than that, the S8000 has what advantages? It's a 14-megapixel camera instead of the S640's 12, but the 12 is already cramming far too many pixels into such a tiny sensor as far as I'm concerned. I have Coolpixes in 8, 10, 12 and 14 megapixels -- and I routinely set them all to 5 megapixels. The Great Megapixel Race serves no purpose as far as I can see except to help manufacturers sell more cameras to people who think their pictures aren't sharp because they don't have enough megapixels. |
#10
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Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
"Jane Galt" wrote in message . .. Looking some more, the S90 is also tempting, so it's between the S90 $350 S8000 $250 and SD4000IS $350 It would stretch the budget for the more expensive two ( $350 street price ) if it would bring $100 more joy to my shooting, but what's a credit card for? The two Canons you mention look sort of interesting, though if I were buying a Powershot I'd go the extra $100 for a G11. I don't know if you'd consider the G11 purse sized, however. |
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