sony dsc h9b or Fuji finepix s8000fd

[delco007]

Help me decide which camera should i go for???
My budget is around the price of anyone of these cameras.I am a home user who doesnt know much about photography . This is going to be my first camera so help me decide which one is going to be a better buy.

Guru

 

[Basso]

Neither, get the Panasonic FZ18
This is the best ultrazoom camera according to DPReview.

 

[RedWolf]

Full Disclosure: I own an H9 and I'm selling it here. I will be buying an Olympus E-510 dSLR.

I think it comes down to if the features of the H9 are important. The H9 has some unique features that the FZ18 and S8000 do not. The H9 has a night shot mode for taking pictures in total darkness and has a 3" tiltable lcd. I have found the tiltable screen to be very useful for taking pictures over your head or low to the ground. I have two kids and it's nice to be able to get pictures of them at their level without spending the time to get down on the ground. It has also been helpful in taking pictures in a crowd (such as at football games, or races). It is good for 'stealth' pictures, too. The night shot is neat and can be useful for getting nocturnal animals but I don't use it much. The H9 performs a little faster than the FZ18.

The FZ18 has a longer zoom and the IQ is better than the H9. I have very little experience with the Fuji. It hasn't been reviewed by many sites but from what I've read, the Fuji is pretty good (though the FZ seems to be a little better). It is pretty close overall to the FZ18. If you are used to Fuji cameras or have XD cards, that might give it a bump up.

All of the recent super zoom cameras have difficulty with low light shots. If low light is important, I would look at a dSLR or the Fuji S6000/S9100.

 

[delco007]

Originally posted by: RedWolf
Full Disclosure: I own an H9 and I'm selling it here. I will be buying an Olympus E-510 dSLR.

I think it comes down to if the features of the H9 are important. The H9 has some unique features that the FZ18 and S8000 do not. The H9 has a night shot mode for taking pictures in total darkness and has a 3" tiltable lcd. I have found the tiltable screen to be very useful for taking pictures over your head or low to the ground. I have two kids and it's nice to be able to get pictures of them at their level without spending the time to get down on the ground. It has also been helpful in taking pictures in a crowd (such as at football games, or races). It is good for 'stealth' pictures, too. The night shot is neat and can be useful for getting nocturnal animals but I don't use it much. The H9 performs a little faster than the FZ18.

The FZ18 has a longer zoom and the IQ is better than the H9. I have very little experience with the Fuji. It hasn't been reviewed by many sites but from what I've read, the Fuji is pretty good (though the FZ seems to be a little better). It is pretty close overall to the FZ18. If you are used to Fuji cameras or have XD cards, that might give it a bump up.

All of the recent super zoom cameras have difficulty with low light shots. If low light is important, I would look at a dSLR or the Fuji S6000/S9100.

Is it really difficult to take pictures with a D SLR camera??? i can buy an olympus E-510 provided that its easy to use. why aren't the optical zoom specs not mentioned for a D SLR ? Is it because it comes along with multiple lenses with variable zoom or what ???
i am an amateur user and so far i am inclined H 9 because of the 3" tiltable lcd.

 

[Aharami]

i just looked thru the sample pics for the fuji s8000fd, sony h9, panasonic fz18, and canon s5. i seem to prefer the the fuji and canon pics, followed by the sony and finally panasonic. But if you're seriously considering the fuji s8000, get the fuji s6000 instead. the image quality is a lot better in the s6000 as seen here. This is mainly because the 8000 has 2 mpixels more in a smaller sensor. I think 6mp is the sweet spot for point and shoots unless you want giant poster sized prints.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: delco007

Is it really difficult to take pictures with a D SLR camera??? i can buy an olympus E-510 provided that its easy to use. why aren't the optical zoom specs not mentioned for a D SLR ? Is it because it comes along with multiple lenses with variable zoom or what ???
i am an amateur user and so far i am inclined H 9 because of the 3" tiltable lcd.

no. every digital SLR has a full auto mode where the camera does pretty much everything. an average joe oriented SLR like the E-510 even has scene modes where you tell the camera what it is looking at, just like a regular compact.

basically, the difference between a typical entry-SLR and a typical compact is that with an SLR you have easy access to full photographic controls if you want, whereas a compact typically has limited control or buries the controls in menus.

zoom specs aren't listed for SLRs because the zoom is dependent upon the lens. which you can change.

zoom really doesn't mean anything. its the ratio between the longest focal length of the lens and the shortest. so, you could have a 35-350 10x zoom lens or a 28-280 10x zoom lens.

in film camera parlance, 35 mm lens and shorter is considered wide angle (and a lot of people consider 28 mm the start of wide angle), and 85 mm and longer is telephoto. what is in between is considered 'normal.'

in the example above, the 28-280 would probably be a better lens for actual use, because the wide angle captures so much more. take a look about halfway down the page for a comparison between 28 mm and 35 mm. whereas on the long end you could crop (especially with a 10 megapixel camera) to get an equivalent image, you can't always back up to get the wider view.

also, lenses tend to be higher quality the lower the zoom ratio. there are just too many compromises involved to get a great lens with a 10x zoom ratio, but lenses with 2x or 3x zoom ratios can be fantastic.

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by: delco007
Is it really difficult to take pictures with a D SLR camera??? i can buy an olympus E-510 provided that its easy to use. why aren't the optical zoom specs not mentioned for a D SLR ? Is it because it comes along with multiple lenses with variable zoom or what ???
i am an amateur user and so far i am inclined H 9 because of the 3" tiltable lcd.

As already stated, dslrs have full auto modes. The generally work pretty well, too. dslrs refer to focal length as ElFenix mentioned. To compare focal lengths of a p&s to a dslr is somewhat difficult. Take, for example, the H9. It has a 15x optical zoom. The focal length is 31-465mm. The E-510 comes with a 2 lens kit. One lens is 14-42 and the other is 42-150mm. Seems like it has no range at all. Well, the Olympus doubles that focal length. So really, it is a 28-84 and 84-300mm range. Canon and Nikon are about 1.5x. So a canon with a 70-300 lens would be roughly 125-450mm. Anyway, comparing the two can be somewhat challenging but if you know the multiplier, it isn't too tough.

 

[NTB]

Another point to keep in mind: The sony and the Panasonics all use optical stabilization. The Fujis, meanwhile, just pump up the ISO setting to achieve a faster shutter speed, rather than using lens- or sensor-movement based stabilization. This is the one big thing that turned me off the Fuji S-series when I was helping a friend of mine look for a camera.

Nathan

 

[Basso]

The S8000fd has CCD image stabilization
But it's not as effective as the optical IS which the Panasonic, Canon and Sony are using.

 

[NTB]

Originally posted by: Basso
The S8000fd has CCD image stabilization
But it's not as effective as the optical IS which the Panasonic, Canon and Sony are using.

Oops, forgot about that. I guess it was just the 6000 that fudged on the stabilization.

Another camera to consider, if you want something fairly small, is Panasonic's DMC-TZ2 (6MP) and DMC-TZ-3 (7.2MP). 10x, stabilized optical zoom in a body not much bigger than most 'compacts'. Only problem is that it's strictly a point-n-shoot - no manual controls to fiddle with, other than white balance.

Nathan

 

[ElFenix]

s8000fd was reviewed at dpreview.com today