Why are so many here horned up over the canon A70? *UPDATE w/pic*

[alkemyst]

It looks more copper than nickel to me and I am at 9300F on my monitor instead of 6500K....

Some fill light may have helped but it may have killed details.

Macros are hard esp on metals.

Å

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
It looks more copper than nickel to me and I am at 9300F on my monitor instead of 6500K....

Some fill light may have helped but it may have killed details.

Macros are hard esp on metals.

Å

Ahh, yeah.. I see what you mean.

Interesting. That is with the white balance set to manual, too.. The nickel really took on a golden tint with AWB.

 

[alkemyst]

From dpreview.com:

There are so many fine digital camera offerings, that there really seems to be something (or tons of stuff) for everyone! I recently purchased, and subsequently returned, a Minolta Dimage Z1. It was full of useful and fun goodies, but I could not live with the 30 or so minute battery life.


Just reporting....don't kill the messenger.

Å

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
From dpreview.com:

There are so many fine digital camera offerings, that there really seems to be something (or tons of stuff) for everyone! I recently purchased, and subsequently returned, a Minolta Dimage Z1. It was full of useful and fun goodies, but I could not live with the 30 or so minute battery life.


Just reporting....don't kill the messenger.

Å

That has to be with alkalines..... :Q

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: alkemyst
From dpreview.com:

There are so many fine digital camera offerings, that there really seems to be something (or tons of stuff) for everyone! I recently purchased, and subsequently returned, a Minolta Dimage Z1. It was full of useful and fun goodies, but I could not live with the 30 or so minute battery life.


Just reporting....don't kill the messenger.

Å

That has to be with alkalines..... :Q

Probably. Steve says "The DiMAGE Z1 uses 4 standard AA batteries, and we recommend using rechargeable NiMH batteries. We found the battery life quite acceptable, capturing over 200 images from a single set of 2300mAh NiMH rechargables when using the cameras power-saving features. "

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: adlep

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Any other recommendations on a camera costing no more than $400 that has pretty good movie function?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes,
Minolta DiMAGE Z1, 10x zoom and unlimited movie mode at 640x480

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Minimum recording time is about 30 seconds at 640x480, 30 frames/second, but at all lesser combinations of image size and frame rate, recording time seems to be limited only by memory card space.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So at 640x480 at 15 fps the recording time is unlimited.
At 640x480 at 30 fps () the clips are 30 sec long but it is still better than A70 which makes 640x480 at 15 fps for 30 sec...
In addition it is not much more than the A70 -$321.75 at NewEgg, but you can pick it up even cheaper than that...
Overall a nice camera. I might be selling my A70 and getting this one....

ehmmm, A70 will record indefinatly if you have a card big enough.

it'll put more than 10 minutes of continuous video on a 256mb card, and, accrodingly, 4 times that on a 1 gb card.

 

[adlep]

[/quote]ehmmm, A70 will record indefinatly if you have a card big enough.[/quote]
No...
Not at 640x480 (the clips are only 30 sec long)..
And I know that there is a 3 minute limit on 320x240...
Edit: You suck at quotes

 

[StageLeft]

Well I finally bought a camera. It was a tossup between the Minolta Dimage z1 and the Fujipix S5000. The Fuji was available locally and Mrskoorb liked the look of it, so we went with it. Movie function is 320X240X30 unlimited (based on media card). I only opened it 30 min ago, so I'm still playing with it. The movie function is pretty neat from what I can tell, and so far I'm quite impressed with its night-shooting ability. Sure beats my 3-4 year old 1 megapixel olympus in night shots, overall quality, and speed. The old one would take 5 or so seconds to save a 1 megapixel image. It's done me well though as a first camera. I'll keep it in the car now.

Thanks for all the opinions and help!

 

[StageLeft]

EGADS! Just to the left of center on this picture there is a dead pixel. It's on all of them! Is this a common problem on digital cameras? Needless to say this camera is going back to Best buy tomorrow for a replacement.

 

[Phuz]

ISO is set a little high on that pic eh?

Dead pixels are a no-no on my cam. I'd take it back.

 

[Ornery]

Well, use it for a while before you take it back. You never know, you may decide to change to a different model camera altogether. I'm still not 100% certain we're sticking with the S50...

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Ornery
Well, use it for a while before you take it back. You never know, you may decide to change to a different model camera altogether. I'm still not 100% certain we're sticking with the S50...

I'm gonna play with it this morning, but definitely it's going back

I have not really done anything with settings. I did note that in dark situations a flash is barely needed, and when you do use it it spotlights the whole room. Could that sort of thing be changed? now that it's daylight I'll play around with it outside a bit

 

[BaboonGuy]

get a s50, they are sweet

 

[StageLeft]

OK, this: Distance Shot is a zero-zoom shot. And this: Zoom Shot is the same shot at 10X optical. Both were with me holding them as steady as I could without any extra support. Sucks that the weather is so nasty today! These were both at 3 megapixel, untouched.

 

[Ornery]

I KNOW that one's going back, but are you 100% sure it's being replaced with the same camera?

I'm going back and forth on the S50. I got closeup and indoor flash shots working OK, but for some reason, my landscape shots aren't up to snuff. After much trial and error, I got this shot in "Sports" mode. It's among the best of the bunch, that I shot from the S50:

• 2MB Landscape Image
  Check out the EXIF data and see if you can figure out why it's so crappy.
  
  Same image in full auto...
  Only 1MB file for some reason.

I pulled my F707 off the shelf and shot the same scene using full auto settings with the flash off. The slow shutter warning was blinking when I shot it, but this is what it did:

• 1.2MB Landscape Image
  Again, see the EXIF info for the details.

Any reason why the Canon shouldn't shoot that scene as well as the Sony?

Edit: Lookin' good there, Skoorb. Just goes to show, that zoom feature is worth a LOT!

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
EGADS! Just to the left of center on this picture there is a dead pixel. It's on all of them! Is this a common problem on digital cameras? Needless to say this camera is going back to Best buy tomorrow for a replacement.

man a horrible shot....make sure it's not a spec of dust on the lens. Sometimes you can't see them but your camera can.

Take another picture like that and I vote for no one to sell you another one EVAR!

Å

 

[StageLeft]

Not dust - because again this morning here is the shot again :Q macro.JPG

I've decided that I would LOVE a 5 megapixel camera, and although they can be had in this price range, unfortunately they mean no video feature and sadly I must have that.

I've not used it much but already the alkalines are about dead. I'll buy rechargables today.

 

[alkemyst]

I was referring to dust on the lens not in the air.

I have seen that before....I haven't seen a dead pixel yet on the 'picture ccd', I have seen them on the LCD panels though.

Which camera is this one?

 

[Ornery]

I figured it out. All I have to do is carry a tripod around with me.

• Same scene with camera on tripod.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Ornery
I figured it out. All I have to do is carry a tripod around with me.

• Same scene with camera on tripod.

I found drinking less helps mine.

 

[Ornery]

This is the trouble with these pocket size cameras. I gave it one more try, using shutter priority. This one was shot at 1/60, using ISO 100.

• 2.5MB Handheld Effort

I can live with that. Trouble is, this tiny glass is only capable of F4.5 at that zoom range. I also read that Canon's ISO 50-400, is closer to other manufacturers ISO 100 - 800, so essentially, that is more like ISO 200. I don't know why these files change so radically in size, either.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I was referring to dust on the lens not in the air.

I have seen that before....I haven't seen a dead pixel yet on the 'picture ccd', I have seen them on the LCD panels though.

Which camera is this one?

Fujipix S5000. I will try to wipe the lens gently, but I think it's a pixel! *EDIT* You're right - I can see behind the final layer of glass in the lens a tiny speck. I have no way of getting to it - it looks like poor quality control from the factory allowed it in there. I can't clean the behind of the lens, but that is what's causing this pixel issue.

Of note with the S5000, there are only megapixel settings (1,2,3, and fake 6) - not quality settings. The 3 megapixel images are generally around 850k jpegs. I wish they weren't compressed quite so much.

 

[oldfart]

Ornery
Look at your jpeg compression settings. Canon has 3 levels, normal, fine, super fine. Looking at your exif info, one is normal (2 bits/pixel), one is fine (3 bits/pixel). Superfine is 5 bits/pixel with is ~ the same quality as Tiff.

Kodak and (often) Fuji dont give you jpeg options. Only an aggressive setting, which is less than ideal for quality.

 

[Ornery]

Thanks, but I didn't knowingly change any of them. I'll doublecheck the settings in the camera. My F707 has been putting out 1.2MB images since I got it. Barely wavers from that size. This S50 has been all over the map for some reason.

 

[oldfart]

You can set different res and jpeg levels for each shooting mode. Max quality would be "L" res and "S" quality. This will be a fairly large size shot. Good for large prints or doing some big cropping. I always use superfine compression and adjust the res depending on what the pic is for. 2MP (or less) is fine for 4 x 6 prints.