Small cameras getting too small?

My wife has been using a Canon S400 for the past couple of years and it had
just a great balance of size and function. Took great snapshots and even had
a very nice fitted soft leather case. Very easy to hold/use. Well, last year
the camera was lost on a vacation which put us in the market for a
replacement. The S400 is gone and replaced by the SD400, a thinner model
that uses SD (ugh) instead of CF media. Since we have other cameras that use
CF and have lots of CF cards, I'm not thrilled about getting one that uses
SD.

I looked in Best Buy, Staples, and Office Max and on-line for alternatives.
What I'm finding is that the manufacturers seem to have gone over the top
with pocket camera miniaturization. They are making them so thin, in
particular, that they are hard to hold except with finger-tips...and even
then... The optical view-finders are also getting smaller or, even worse,
disappearing entirely. I almost never shoot with the LCD on as I think it a
waste of battery. We just use the screen to view images already taken.
Looking over the SD400's competitors from pretty much all brands, and there
are loads of them, none was any better in terms of feel in the hand and some
were too plastic in construction. The Canon Elphs all have a great metal
body design. CF was in none of them, too. If one wants something that is a
bit larger and easier to hold, you have to go into another class of camera
that tend to have a molded-look grip (good), but they are made of plastic,
are a bit TOO thick with their larger lenses and have a cheap feel. (There
are exceptions, like the Canon S60/70/80 line - I have an S70 that I carry
when I use my big Sony camcorder, but these are a bit above the $250 I want
to spend and, for that matter, are a bit wide for easy pocket carry vs. the
S400.)

Fortunately, the son-of-S400, S500, while not manufactured, is still to be
found at a few places and I picked one up at NewEgg for $245 plus ship. So
we still end up with the excellent balance of size and performance (and CF
use) that the Canon Sxxx digital Elph series offers.

I do think that the camera makers are creating a market hole, though, in
their pursuit of smaller and smaller, less handleable, pocket cameras with
near-useless, in some cases, view-finders...or no view-finder at all.

Anyone agree/disagree?

In article ,
says...

Anyone agree/disagree?

There is nothing wrong with SD cards and in fact they are better for
freqent insertions/removals than CF cards, because the connector doesn't
have so many pins (which might break).

As for the size and weight, I guess it's a matter of taste, but at the
moment there seems to be a strong market demand for compact cameras,
judging from the number of compact models launched. By the way, those
flat compact cameras with big LCD screens look cool in my opinion.
Obviously they can't compete with DSLR cameras, but probably they
deliver results good enough for the casual user who does not make big
enlargements.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330 and E500 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E500 resource - http://myolympus.org/E500/

I think consumer digicams are irreversably abandoning CF. I'm told
the reason is the number of warranty repairs from CF contact pins
inside the cameras getting bent up when the cards are inserted
incorrectly. This is much rarer with SD.

IMO if you're willing to put up with the S400's limited battery
capacity and general fiddliness, it's because you want a small,
take-everywhere camera, so an smaller one fills those desires even
more. If you're willing to deal with a bigger camera, there's lots of
possibilities, like the A610 or whatever.

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
...
I think consumer digicams are irreversably abandoning CF. I'm told
the reason is the number of warranty repairs from CF contact pins
inside the cameras getting bent up when the cards are inserted
incorrectly.

CF cards are toast! The bent pin issues (alone) have done them in.

"Charles Schuler" writes:
CF cards are toast! The bent pin issues (alone) have done them in.

One thing I can't understand is why cameras don't also work as USB
card readers. That is, you should be able to just plug the camera
into a computer and read the card like a drive, maybe without even
turning the camera on. Cameras instead generally require a huge
amount of battery power when connected to a computer, and (even when
they act like a USB drive) still insert their own software layer which
is frequently buggy and confuses the computer. They should have a
setting to completely get out of the way and just let the computer see
the card. That would avoid a lot of card removals/insertions.

Similarly with wifi: some professional cameras have wifi interfaces
that let you transfer files to the computer through ftp or http or
some similar standard way. That's great. Consumer wifi cameras,
though, insist on crazy nonstandard interfaces that only work through
special PC software supplied with the camera, that's usually designed
by idiots. Again, the solution is for the camera to just stay out of
the way and let the computer get the files with the user's choice of
software. Camera makers just don't seem capable of grasping that
concept.

One thing I can't understand is why cameras don't also work as USB
card readers. That is, you should be able to just plug the camera
into a computer and read the card like a drive, maybe without even
turning the camera on.

I don't see any reasonable (affordable) way to do that. My Epson printer
does that but must be turned on.

Cameras instead generally require a huge
amount of battery power when connected to a computer, and (even when
they act like a USB drive) still insert their own software layer which
is frequently buggy and confuses the computer. They should have a
setting to completely get out of the way and just let the computer see
the card. That would avoid a lot of card removals/insertions.

That will soon come. Operating systems such as XP are almost there.

Similarly with wifi: some professional cameras have wifi interfaces
that let you transfer files to the computer through ftp or http or
some similar standard way. That's great. Consumer wifi cameras,
though, insist on crazy nonstandard interfaces that only work through
special PC software supplied with the camera, that's usually designed
by idiots. Again, the solution is for the camera to just stay out of
the way and let the computer get the files with the user's choice of
software. Camera makers just don't seem capable of grasping that
concept.

It's called the bleeding edge. Getting all of this stuff talking to one
another is a major effort when the technology is evolving so fast. It's a
modern version of the Tower of Babble. You and I know how we would like it
to work, but to actually accomplish that is fairly complicated.

"Charles Schuler" writes:
One thing I can't understand is why cameras don't also work as USB
card readers.
I don't see any reasonable (affordable) way to do that. My Epson printer
does that but must be turned on.

Huh? Seven dollar card readers do it. All the camera should do is
expose the card directly to the computer instead of interposing its
own bogosity between them. That would be simpler than what the
cameras do now, not more complicated.

Consumer wifi cameras, though, insist on crazy nonstandard interfaces

It's called the bleeding edge. Getting all of this stuff talking to one
another is a major effort when the technology is evolving so fast.

Nah, FTP has been around since the 1970's before anyone ever heard of
digicams. Professional cameras do the obvious, simple,
straightforward thing, which is transfer the files using the same file
transfer protocol that computer networks have used for the last 30
years and which can be downloaded (code and specifications) for free.
It's about as bleeding edge as an ox-cart. The complexity and
difficulty comes when manufacturers of computer cameras ignore what's
been shown to already work well, and instead needlessly inject their
own bizarre protocols that don't interoperate with anything else. If
they just stopped doing that, everything would be fine.

"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

Anyone agree/disagree?

There is nothing wrong with SD cards and in fact they are better for
freqent insertions/removals than CF cards, because the connector doesn't
have so many pins (which might break).

As for the size and weight, I guess it's a matter of taste, but at the
moment there seems to be a strong market demand for compact cameras,
judging from the number of compact models launched. By the way, those
flat compact cameras with big LCD screens look cool in my opinion.
Obviously they can't compete with DSLR cameras, but probably they
deliver results good enough for the casual user who does not make big
enlargements.
--


Or good enough results for the guy who sees something cool at the side of
the road when on vacation, but doesn't want to root out the 5D, 24-70, take
a photo and put it all back again, just to email to his friends at home.
(Casio EX-Z50...)

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

"Charles Schuler" wrote in message
. ..

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
...
I think consumer digicams are irreversably abandoning CF. I'm told
the reason is the number of warranty repairs from CF contact pins
inside the cameras getting bent up when the cards are inserted
incorrectly.

CF cards are toast! The bent pin issues (alone) have done them in.

I've used CF cards since my D30 nearly 4 years ago, and never had a problem.
But, then, I treat my equipment with respect.

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

The Pentax Optio S is already right at the practical limits in
shrinking the size of digicams. I've got small hands - and some of its
controls are hard to handle for me; it's also somewhat hard to hold in
some situations (like longer exposures).

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