Dimage A2 or Coolpix 8800?

I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

I liked the feel of the Dimage A2 marginally better, the slightly more
compact size, and I like being able to zoom by spinning the lens,
which I'm used to doing. With the Nikon, I like the idea of being
able to use my Nikon speedlights, and I like the slightly longer zoom
length. In both cases, I love the idea of vibration
reduction/anti-shake, which I think is the best invention since the
shutter. My one concern, with both cameras, is noise level.

I'm getting an Epson 4000 printer, and I sometimes make enlargements
up to 16x20 or thereabouts, so I really want good image quality.
Mostly I'll still be using my SLR for "serious" work, but part of the
idea of a "walking around" camera is that I might catch worthwhile
shots when I'm not expecting it. If I do, I want to be able to go
big.

Any thoughts?
--

Pete McCutchen

"Pete McCutchen" wrote in message
...

I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

I liked the feel of the Dimage A2 marginally better, the slightly more
compact size, and I like being able to zoom by spinning the lens,
which I'm used to doing. With the Nikon, I like the idea of being
able to use my Nikon speedlights, and I like the slightly longer zoom
length. In both cases, I love the idea of vibration
reduction/anti-shake, which I think is the best invention since the
shutter. My one concern, with both cameras, is noise level.

I'm getting an Epson 4000 printer, and I sometimes make enlargements
up to 16x20 or thereabouts, so I really want good image quality.
Mostly I'll still be using my SLR for "serious" work, but part of the
idea of a "walking around" camera is that I might catch worthwhile
shots when I'm not expecting it. If I do, I want to be able to go
big.

Any thoughts?
--

Pete McCutchen

The Dimage A2 for the lovely manual zoom control. Also, the zoom goes down
to 28mm equiv, which I think is a lot more useful that the 35-350mm on the
Nikon.
I've not tried the Nikon's anti-shake, but with the A2 I was able to take
perfectly sharp pictures hand held at 1/25th sec and 200mm zoom.

--
Cliff Smith
www.cliffsmith.co.uk

"Pete McCutchen" wrote in message
...

I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

I liked the feel of the Dimage A2 marginally better, the slightly more
compact size, and I like being able to zoom by spinning the lens,
which I'm used to doing. With the Nikon, I like the idea of being
able to use my Nikon speedlights, and I like the slightly longer zoom
length. In both cases, I love the idea of vibration
reduction/anti-shake, which I think is the best invention since the
shutter. My one concern, with both cameras, is noise level.

I'm getting an Epson 4000 printer, and I sometimes make enlargements
up to 16x20 or thereabouts, so I really want good image quality.
Mostly I'll still be using my SLR for "serious" work, but part of the
idea of a "walking around" camera is that I might catch worthwhile
shots when I'm not expecting it. If I do, I want to be able to go
big.

Any thoughts?
--

Pete McCutchen

The Dimage A2 for the lovely manual zoom control. Also, the zoom goes down
to 28mm equiv, which I think is a lot more useful that the 35-350mm on the
Nikon.
I've not tried the Nikon's anti-shake, but with the A2 I was able to take
perfectly sharp pictures hand held at 1/25th sec and 200mm zoom.

--
Cliff Smith
www.cliffsmith.co.uk

I have Diamage A1, but I am not too impressed. This is my most expensive
camera and 5th digital one.The camera is loaded with a lot of features, it
has perfect reviews, but the picture quality and results are not very
consistent. I can make consistently much better pictures with my FinePix
2600 than with this one. I am not beginner, so I know a lot about
photography and cameras. I tried time laps photos every 5 min during the
night with flash. The conditions were absolutely identical, but the pictures
show different exposure. This is very visible when run as a movie. You could
see darker and lighter pictures.

Sometimes it totally shifts colors, to let say to green. I have to turn it
off and on to reset it. Display shows several vertical pink lines when
looking towards a brighter object, like snow. I newer saw this before.

It is almost impossible to take picture of a moving object, especially
random moving, like small kid. You aim, press the trigger and the picture
disappears for a fraction of sec, perhaps even sec. You cannot follow that
moving object, because you cannot see it. The resulting picture shows the
kid walking out of picture.

Automatic object focus tracking is, I would say, useless. It supposed to be
used to focus on moving objects, but it never works. I aimed it on well lit
and very distinctive features, but it almost instantly moves to some random
spot and wanders around.

The bottom line is that, I would be very hesitant to buy A2, because I
believe it is mechanically and optically identical, just the sensor has
higher resolution. A1 is 5 Mp, but I have it set to 3 Mp, which is plenty
for 8 x 11 pictures printed on HP DeskJet 970 Cse.

Jan

"Cliff Smith" wrote in message
...
"Pete McCutchen" wrote in message
...

I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

I liked the feel of the Dimage A2 marginally better, the slightly more
compact size, and I like being able to zoom by spinning the lens,
which I'm used to doing. With the Nikon, I like the idea of being
able to use my Nikon speedlights, and I like the slightly longer zoom
length. In both cases, I love the idea of vibration
reduction/anti-shake, which I think is the best invention since the
shutter. My one concern, with both cameras, is noise level.

I'm getting an Epson 4000 printer, and I sometimes make enlargements
up to 16x20 or thereabouts, so I really want good image quality.
Mostly I'll still be using my SLR for "serious" work, but part of the
idea of a "walking around" camera is that I might catch worthwhile
shots when I'm not expecting it. If I do, I want to be able to go
big.

Any thoughts?
--

Pete McCutchen

The Dimage A2 for the lovely manual zoom control. Also, the zoom goes down
to 28mm equiv, which I think is a lot more useful that the 35-350mm on the
Nikon.
I've not tried the Nikon's anti-shake, but with the A2 I was able to take
perfectly sharp pictures hand held at 1/25th sec and 200mm zoom.

--
Cliff Smith
www.cliffsmith.co.uk

I have Diamage A1, but I am not too impressed. This is my most expensive
camera and 5th digital one.The camera is loaded with a lot of features, it
has perfect reviews, but the picture quality and results are not very
consistent. I can make consistently much better pictures with my FinePix
2600 than with this one. I am not beginner, so I know a lot about
photography and cameras. I tried time laps photos every 5 min during the
night with flash. The conditions were absolutely identical, but the pictures
show different exposure. This is very visible when run as a movie. You could
see darker and lighter pictures.

Sometimes it totally shifts colors, to let say to green. I have to turn it
off and on to reset it. Display shows several vertical pink lines when
looking towards a brighter object, like snow. I newer saw this before.

It is almost impossible to take picture of a moving object, especially
random moving, like small kid. You aim, press the trigger and the picture
disappears for a fraction of sec, perhaps even sec. You cannot follow that
moving object, because you cannot see it. The resulting picture shows the
kid walking out of picture.

Automatic object focus tracking is, I would say, useless. It supposed to be
used to focus on moving objects, but it never works. I aimed it on well lit
and very distinctive features, but it almost instantly moves to some random
spot and wanders around.

The bottom line is that, I would be very hesitant to buy A2, because I
believe it is mechanically and optically identical, just the sensor has
higher resolution. A1 is 5 Mp, but I have it set to 3 Mp, which is plenty
for 8 x 11 pictures printed on HP DeskJet 970 Cse.

Jan

"Cliff Smith" wrote in message
...
"Pete McCutchen" wrote in message
...

I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

I liked the feel of the Dimage A2 marginally better, the slightly more
compact size, and I like being able to zoom by spinning the lens,
which I'm used to doing. With the Nikon, I like the idea of being
able to use my Nikon speedlights, and I like the slightly longer zoom
length. In both cases, I love the idea of vibration
reduction/anti-shake, which I think is the best invention since the
shutter. My one concern, with both cameras, is noise level.

I'm getting an Epson 4000 printer, and I sometimes make enlargements
up to 16x20 or thereabouts, so I really want good image quality.
Mostly I'll still be using my SLR for "serious" work, but part of the
idea of a "walking around" camera is that I might catch worthwhile
shots when I'm not expecting it. If I do, I want to be able to go
big.

Any thoughts?
--

Pete McCutchen

The Dimage A2 for the lovely manual zoom control. Also, the zoom goes down
to 28mm equiv, which I think is a lot more useful that the 35-350mm on the
Nikon.
I've not tried the Nikon's anti-shake, but with the A2 I was able to take
perfectly sharp pictures hand held at 1/25th sec and 200mm zoom.

--
Cliff Smith
www.cliffsmith.co.uk

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 05:33:30 GMT, "Jan Nademlejnsky"
wrote:

I have Diamage A1, but I am not too impressed. This is my most expensive
camera and 5th digital one.The camera is loaded with a lot of features, it
has perfect reviews, but the picture quality and results are not very
consistent. I can make consistently much better pictures with my FinePix
2600 than with this one. I am not beginner, so I know a lot about
photography and cameras. I tried time laps photos every 5 min during the
night with flash. The conditions were absolutely identical, but the pictures
show different exposure. This is very visible when run as a movie. You could
see darker and lighter pictures.

Sometimes it totally shifts colors, to let say to green. I have to turn it
off and on to reset it. Display shows several vertical pink lines when
looking towards a brighter object, like snow. I newer saw this before.

My A1 replaced a CP950. I've taken thousands of pictures with my A1
and have seen neither colour shifting nor "pink lines". Particularly
in snow (which we get a lot of here).

It is almost impossible to take picture of a moving object, especially
random moving, like small kid. You aim, press the trigger and the picture
disappears for a fraction of sec, perhaps even sec. You cannot follow that
moving object, because you cannot see it. The resulting picture shows the
kid walking out of picture.

Automatic object focus tracking is, I would say, useless. It supposed to be
used to focus on moving objects, but it never works. I aimed it on well lit
and very distinctive features, but it almost instantly moves to some random
spot and wanders around.

I have had good results with this feature, both on lively kids and on
aircraft. I do get the random mis-focus about one shot in ten, which
is acceptable to me.

The bottom line is that, I would be very hesitant to buy A2, because I
believe it is mechanically and optically identical, just the sensor has
higher resolution. A1 is 5 Mp, but I have it set to 3 Mp, which is plenty
for 8 x 11 pictures printed on HP DeskJet 970 Cse.

Jan

--
Terry
Geneva

Pete McCutchen wrote:
I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

Unless you absolutely require the 8MP (and perhaps you do for 16 x 20), I
would consider the lower-cost Panasonic FZ20 which doesn't have the poor
JPEG image quality of the Minolta A2 nor the limiting f/5.2 aperture at
maximum zoom of the Nikon 8800 - it has an f/2.8 aperture throughout the
range.

With the A2 you /must/ use RAW mode to get the quality you need.

David

Pete McCutchen wrote:
I'm looking for a nice "walking around" digital camera for travel and
use when I don't feel like lugging the SLR and a bag of lenses. I
tend to dither a fair amount, but I'm seriously considering either the
Konica Minolta Dimage A2 or the Nikon Coolpix 8800.

Unless you absolutely require the 8MP (and perhaps you do for 16 x 20), I
would consider the lower-cost Panasonic FZ20 which doesn't have the poor
JPEG image quality of the Minolta A2 nor the limiting f/5.2 aperture at
maximum zoom of the Nikon 8800 - it has an f/2.8 aperture throughout the
range.

With the A2 you /must/ use RAW mode to get the quality you need.

David

"Jan Nademlejnsky" wrote in message
news:KYzod.314459$%k.18172@pd7tw2no...
I have Diamage A1, but I am not too impressed.

I have to agree, but the A2 is a different camera entirely. It has little in
common with the A1 other than the general body shape.

"Cliff Smith" wrote in message
...
The Dimage A2 for the lovely manual zoom control. Also, the zoom goes down
to 28mm equiv, which I think is a lot more useful that the 35-350mm on the
Nikon.
I've not tried the Nikon's anti-shake, but with the A2 I was able to take
perfectly sharp pictures hand held at 1/25th sec and 200mm zoom.

I have exactly the same thoughts / experience

Marc