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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
I am still slowly considering for my next digital cameras. It was
still either the high end point and shot camera, or a low end DSLR (which they are basically on the same price range). As some readers in these newsgroup suggested, I went to the photo shop and try the cameras in my hand. The following are my impressions. I welcome the comments from others. - Low end DSLR have a "cheap" plastic feeling. I know that this should not be a factor for photo qualities. However, I feel uncomfortable with the cheap plastic cameras. My old SLR cameras are all heavy and made of metal... including the lens' casing. - For P&S, I am still not comfortable for the fact that Nikon camera was not made in Japan (as compared to Canon G7 and Panasonic FZ50). Again, some readers already suggested that where the camera is manufactured should not effect the camera's quality). I am also sure that a lot of the components of the cameras were not made in Japan. - FZ50 is much bulky than G7. I am still not 100% sure whether this will affect my choice. I like to have the camera fit into my pocket. The Ultra compact does not have extra features as the high end P&S. - I tried couple of shots in the shop with the G7. If I am not mistaken, the quality in FZ50 seems sharper than the G7. - I do like the feel of the G7 - solid. Except for the protective shutter. If I handled roughly into my pocket, the shutter may be dislodged. I wish they have a sliding steel cover (like in smaller/ compact Sony or Olympus models). I recall that the Canon A series that I used for work had the cover shutter damaged during rugged uses and it does not close properly now - although the camera is still functioning. - I checked at DPReview for side by side comparison between G7 and P5000. They seem to have similar features across. However, someone in the newsgroup indicated that G7 has more manual features than P5000. P5000 is smaller and lighter... but I can feel that G7 seems to be built better and stronger. Picture quality that I tried in the shop was not that great, but it could be the lighting too. At the end of the day, I am still thinking either G7 or FZ50... and now tend to weight more on the G7 for its compactness.... unless Panasonic made one which comparable in features and price as G7. I am a little turn-off my plastic quality of low end DSLR. If I am going to that route (perhaps next time), I may think about higher end DSLR instead. |
#2
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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
wrote in message ups.com... I am still slowly considering for my next digital cameras. It was still either the high end point and shot camera, or a low end DSLR (which they are basically on the same price range). As some readers in these newsgroup suggested, I went to the photo shop and try the cameras in my hand. The following are my impressions. I welcome the comments from others. - Low end DSLR have a "cheap" plastic feeling. I know that this should not be a factor for photo qualities. However, I feel uncomfortable with the cheap plastic cameras. My old SLR cameras are all heavy and made of metal... including the lens' casing. - For P&S, I am still not comfortable for the fact that Nikon camera was not made in Japan (as compared to Canon G7 and Panasonic FZ50). Again, some readers already suggested that where the camera is manufactured should not effect the camera's quality). I am also sure that a lot of the components of the cameras were not made in Japan. - FZ50 is much bulky than G7. I am still not 100% sure whether this will affect my choice. I like to have the camera fit into my pocket. The Ultra compact does not have extra features as the high end P&S. - I tried couple of shots in the shop with the G7. If I am not mistaken, the quality in FZ50 seems sharper than the G7. - I do like the feel of the G7 - solid. Except for the protective shutter. If I handled roughly into my pocket, the shutter may be dislodged. I wish they have a sliding steel cover (like in smaller/ compact Sony or Olympus models). I recall that the Canon A series that I used for work had the cover shutter damaged during rugged uses and it does not close properly now - although the camera is still functioning. - I checked at DPReview for side by side comparison between G7 and P5000. They seem to have similar features across. However, someone in the newsgroup indicated that G7 has more manual features than P5000. P5000 is smaller and lighter... but I can feel that G7 seems to be built better and stronger. Picture quality that I tried in the shop was not that great, but it could be the lighting too. At the end of the day, I am still thinking either G7 or FZ50... and now tend to weight more on the G7 for its compactness.... unless Panasonic made one which comparable in features and price as G7. I am a little turn-off my plastic quality of low end DSLR. If I am going to that route (perhaps next time), I may think about higher end DSLR instead. Depends what you are looking at in the 'low-end' DSLR. There are many good buys in that area at the moment. The Canon EOS350 is good and comparable with a P&S. The EOS400 will be cheap soon as it will be superseded by the EOS410. The Nikon D50 is really quite cheap and almost as good as the D40 (avoid the D40X - lens compatibility issues.) I got the D70s - have been a Nikon user for years and still have an F501 and an F75 so my choice was somewhat made for me. OK it is now 18 months old and two generations behind current models (D80/D200) but it still takes damn good pictures and beats almost any compact. I also got a Canon Ixus60 - which is very cheap at the moment - and find that I use it more than the Nikon! Again the race for pixels should be avoided: unless you know you will need to crop severely, 5Mp or 6Mp is more than enough - above that you start to run into noise problems. The other current front runner in the compact area is the Fuji F30 which gets good comments about low noise levels and 3200ASA! The lens and your post-taking software are more important than the race for pixels. What is the point in having a 7Mp or 8Mp or more camera when the lens cannot match it (which certainly the Canon can?) As for facilities, I have long since learnt that most of my picture failures are when I override the camera - for exposure it usually knows best, and where it doesn't (like silhouettes) it is easy to achieve with a little movement of the focus/metering position. Much more important is the shutter lag - which you can ignore with DSLRs. Canon, Casio, and Fuji compacts are among the quickest, Nikon and Olympus the slowest IME. In the final analysis, it is the idiot behind the viewfinder that makes the picture, not the camera. -- Woody harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com |
#3
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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
On May 6, 4:39 pm, wrote:
I am still slowly considering for my next digital cameras. It was still either the high end point and shot camera, or a low end DSLR (which they are basically on the same price range). As some readers in these newsgroup suggested, I went to the photo shop and try the cameras in my hand. The following are my impressions. I welcome the comments from others. - Low end DSLR have a "cheap" plastic feeling. I know that this should not be a factor for photo qualities. However, I feel uncomfortable with the cheap plastic cameras. My old SLR cameras are all heavy and made of metal... including the lens' casing. - For P&S, I am still not comfortable for the fact that Nikon camera was not made in Japan (as compared toCanonG7and Panasonic FZ50). Again, some readers already suggested that where the camera is manufactured should not effect the camera's quality). I am also sure that a lot of the components of the cameras were not made in Japan. - FZ50 is much bulky thanG7. I am still not 100% sure whether this will affect my choice. I like to have the camera fit into my pocket. The Ultra compact does not have extra features as the high end P&S. - I tried couple of shots in the shop with theG7. If I am not mistaken, the quality in FZ50 seems sharper than theG7. - I do like the feel of theG7- solid. Except for the protective shutter. If I handled roughly into my pocket, the shutter may be dislodged. I wish they have a sliding steel cover (like in smaller/ compact Sony or Olympus models). I recall that theCanonA series that I used for work had the cover shutter damaged during rugged uses and it does not close properly now - although the camera is still functioning. - I checked at DPReview for side by side comparison betweenG7and P5000. They seem to have similar features across. However, someone in the newsgroup indicated thatG7has more manual features than P5000. P5000 is smaller and lighter... but I can feel thatG7seems to be built better and stronger. Picture quality that I tried in the shop was not that great, but it could be the lighting too. At the end of the day, I am still thinking eitherG7or FZ50... and now tend to weight more on theG7for its compactness.... unless Panasonic made one which comparable in features and price asG7. I am a little turn-off my plastic quality of low end DSLR. If I am going to that route (perhaps next time), I may think about higher end DSLR instead. I've got a G7 I carry in my pocket. It's on the heavy side, I've got a big pocket, but still I've finally got a camera in my pocket with better resolution my eyes. (The canon has 10MP and 6x optical zoom, that's 10x6x6=360. My eyes seem to be around 250. My previous pocket camera, a Fuji F10, weighed in at 6.3x3x3=57, really didn't cut it. Though it was smaller and lighter.) The G7, on macro and completely unzoomed, can focus close enough to the lens that I can't avoid casting a shadow. Great for flowers and ants and mushrooms, though I struggle with focusing on the right thing. Picking up craters on the moon, the digital zoom actually improves resolution, and the IS helps a lot. Images at 1/5 sec blur but 1/20 sec are OK. Normally I keep the camera in program mode, with digital zoom turned off, no flash, 10mpix images, lowest quality ("normal"). The G7 is interesting in that lowest quality results in images between .5MB and 2.5MB, depending on how much detail it picked up. Pictures with grass lawns tend to have high MB. Focus/motion is always more of an issue than than image compression artifacts, so the higher quality settings are pointless. I usually don't have a tripod handy (doesn't fit in my pocket). I've tried taking pictures of swallows flying by; even on manual focus it's pointless due to the delay between pressing the button and taking the picture. I've been reminding myself lately to take more story and cute-kid pictures -- even though they don't challenge the camera in any way, they're more often what people want to see than closeups of moss spores. |
#4
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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
On May 7, 8:39 am, wrote:
At the end of the day, I am still thinking either G7 or FZ50... and now tend to weight more on the G7 for its compactness.... unless Panasonic made one which comparable in features and price as G7. I am a little turn-off my plastic quality of low end DSLR. If I am going to that route (perhaps next time), I may think about higher end DSLR instead. Get Panasonic LX2. Or wait for Sigma DP1. |
#5
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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
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#6
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Canon G7, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon P5000 vs. low end DSLRs
Richard Polhill observed
wrote: I am still slowly considering for my next digital cameras. It was still either the high end point and shot camera, or a low end DSLR (which they are basically on the same price range). As some readers in these newsgroup suggested, I went to the photo shop and try the cameras in my hand. The following are my impressions. I welcome the comments from others. [snips] I have come to the same conclusions myself, having some seriously well built film kit (Canon T-90) and unable to afford any sort of dSLR with event 20% of the sturdiness. The EOS-350/400 are flimsy little toys that are too small for comfort yet far too big to fit in a pocket. I ended up choosing the G7 as it is a seriously well built camera with myriads of manual options, good controls and, particularly good for me as I have a Speedlight 420EX, a Canon system flash hotshoe. The only 3 minus points are 1: the small compact-camera sensor is rather noisy at high ISO settings, but it does offer a lower resolution ISO 3200 mode that'll get a picture that most can't. Desaturate it and the noise becomes grain... 2: It is a little bulky, especially when in a case. It will fit in a pocket however, which is more than can be said for any dSLR I've seen. 3: It does not capture in RAW; you're stuck with JPEG. You may not care; for what I use this camera for I don't. I recently got an FZ50 after very satisfactory three years with the smaller FZ3 & 5. (I'm keeping the FZ5 for its lower weight when backpacking.) The lens is gorgeous! I've just started playing with RAW, and the quality blows me over. (I am reminded of the quality I used to get from an Elmar 135mm f4 with my M3, which I used with bellows for infinity down to 1:1). But the noise problem is there, but with RAW one is free from the pre-programmed in camera processing. I haven't explored that yet. Mike [The reply-to address is valid for 30 days from this posting] -- Michael J Davis Some newsgroup contributors appear to have confused the meaning of "discussion" with "digression". |
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