Camera hunt

[lozina]

I currently use an Olympus C700 UZ and I have been really happy with it until recently when I bought a Sony TRV22 Digital Camcorder. The way the camcorder can handle low-light levels is AMAZING. I can shoot in darker rooms and the video looks just as it did with my own eyes. With my Digital Camera, you need an array of light towers in order to get decent results! Another annoyance is it's speed- I can't snap pictures very quickly- it feels like it takes forever. But the Zoom on this camera is great and I'll never be able to settle for anything lower.

So, in summary what I really need is a cerma that:

• handles low light well

• has 10x or greater optical zoom

• handles low light well

• Takes pictures quickly (faster focus, faster zoom and faster actual shot)

Any ideas of what can meet this needs? Price could be anywhere from 300-800 as far as I'm concerned... and I'm not too concerned about megapixels- they all have quite sufficient resolution nowadays

 

[Sid59]

very few cameras have 10x or more optical zoom.

i had the PC Photo that had a round up of 10x zoom digitals but i think i tossed it.

Olympus C-750 UltraZoom
Kodak EasyShare DX6490
Minolta DiMAGE Z1
Panasonic DMC-FZ10 -- 12x optical
Toshiba PDR-M700


5 cameras @ 10x or more. don't know how they handle low light and how fast the shutter lag is.

head over to dpreview with the above cameras.

 

[GroundZero]

go here to get the lowdown on digital cameras

 

[GroundZero]

for a 10x optical a good choice is the fujifilm finepics 7000s
6.3 megapixle with 10x optical zoom.

 

[Sketcher]

Sid's right. Head to dpreview.com and check the specs.

In particular, this Link and you can enter criteria 'till your eyes lose focus (pun intended).

 

[LS20]

what you are looking for is a digital slr camera

-there are very very few cameras with more than 5x zoom...with dslr and interchangeable lenses..you can get a 28mm-200mm (~7x)
-low light...stronger flash...etc external flash running on hotshoe. again, possible with dslr
-low light...better quality at higher iso... only dslr can do this and have relatively low noise... pretty much any consumer camera will be ueber grainy above iso400
-definate faster focusing... and you can manually zoom


isnt there a new nikon or canon d100 or something rather that is around 800 bux? otherwise, you really cant get improved performance with other consumer cams

 

[Sid59]

a nice quality lens that does 10x or 400mm+ would be really expensive for a DSLR or even an SLR.

plus there are some nice digitals that can carry a 2.8 apeture across the whole range of zoom. that's awesome. good luck finding an slr lens that does that for a pretty penny.

 

[lozina]

Thanks guys, I went on to dpreview- what a nice site! Unfortunately I don't understand 70% of the criteria I can compare cameras by 😀

What does the ISO rating range tell me about a camera?

And what determines how well a camera handles low-light- without a flash? I don't know what it is which makes my Sony camcorder have such a drastic difference in low-light capability than my digital camera, but some have suggested that CCD sizes is a major factor- larger CCD's have better light sensitivity- is this fair to say?

Otherwise I don't know what else to look at when comparing cameras to determine their low-light capability

 

[kyutip]

ISO rating is to show camera sensitivity to light. The higher it is the better it's ability to gather light but at a cost of higher noise, much less on DSLR.

But that is just half of the equation, you will also need high f stop lens (low number, such as F2 or to some extent F2.4/F2.8). A F2 lens will let in lights twice as much as a F2.8 lens, thus let you see better in low light.

There is no F2 10X zoom all in one digicam.
The best one in your criteria will be Panasonic 4MP DMC-FZ10 that has F2.8 on all zoom range with 12X optical IS zoom.
It should be around $600 or less.
Review here.

Other choice will be to get Sony DSC-F707/717 and teleconverter lens.
I have F707 with 1.7 Oly TC so I get around 8.5X top optical zoom with F2 lens (actually F2.4 at tele end).
Great low light cam though a bit bulky.

Other than that get a DSLR and sell your blood/plasma for those lenses.