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Post by kiev4a on Apr 18, 2007 12:18:23 GMT -5
On our European trip I shot with my Nikon 6.1 mp D100 while my mate shot with our 4 mp Canon A80. Between us we shot more than 1000 photos.
When we got home and pulled everything onto the computer I compared the shots from the two cameras. Both produced well-exposed, sharp photos. The one thing I noticed was the Canon shots taken at the same place at the same time were more colorful than the shots from the D100. That's not to say the colors were more accurate--just more colorful. Reminds me of back when video tape first came out and when compared to film--everything looked just a little too bright. The D100 photos looked more like film--with lower contrast and more muted (life-like) colors. And, because there are more megapixels to work with, the photos can be enlarged more, although up to about 8x10 it probably would be tough to tell the difference.
I suspect I could have adjusted the Canon to come closer colorwise but that can be done in post processing, anyway.
The biggest difference between the two cameras was the Canon fit in Sara's pocket while I had to lug the D100 abound in a small case. Still not as heavy or bulky and most film SLRs but most certainly bigger than any P & S. On the other hand, I had a lot more control over the various exposure setting. The Canon can be adjusted manually through the menu but it's very time consuming. The other difference was battery life. The D100 is famous for long battery life. I could have shot all 800 of my photos on the two rechargeable batteries I took along but I recharged a couple of times just to be safe. We put three sets of four AA batteries in the A80 to shoot less than 300 pictures!
Everyone else on the tour had digital P&Ss--most even smaller than the A80. The way some were blasting away is was obvious they had resolution reduced to get more photos on their memory cards (one guy bragged he shot 1,500 pictures on one card the first two days!). But since most will never printed larger than 4x6 anyway it probably doesn't matter.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Apr 18, 2007 13:24:53 GMT -5
Wayne,
You can probably adjust the colour saturation on your D100 to match or even exceed film.
Mickey
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Post by nikonbob on Apr 18, 2007 13:58:06 GMT -5
We did a month long trip to South Africa in Jan/Feb this year and it was all digital. The result is that I was seriously thinking of getting a D200 but the Panasonic FZ50 will do instead. It is smaller, lighter, no lenses to change has image stabilization and at highest quality JPEG gives acceptable 12X18 inch prints. Now I am not saying it gives museum/gallery quality prints but good enough that most people viewing them in your home will not complain. Did I mention that it has enough manual controls to keep me happy too. I think I might have quit chasing the magic bullet for a while. I like saturated colours so that is where I leave the camera colour set at. I had two batteries for the FZ50 and one lasted all day partially because I am a film shooter originally so don't tend to machine gun images to memory card. Old habits etc. There are things about the FZ50 that I don't like but I can live with them until something better comes along. Yeah, sold on digital for personal travel photos and not in the DSLR form either.
Bob
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Post by kiev4a on Apr 18, 2007 14:29:34 GMT -5
Mickey. You are correct. I have experimented with cranking up the color in Nikon Capture NX but then the photos don't look--well--natural.
Like Bob I think I might be happy with a point and shoot if it had manual controls that could be adjusted quickly. That would be a lot handier for travel.
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Post by herron on Apr 18, 2007 15:05:10 GMT -5
Wayne: With your dSLR are you shooting high jpeg, or raw images? I've found the ability to manipulate the raw file in PhotoShop CS is a real neat option. I get less shots per card, but I apparently tend to shoot like nikonBob...(same old film background) no machine-gun-rapid-fire-hope-I-get-something. I like to compose in the viewfinder...........
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Post by kiev4a on Apr 18, 2007 15:13:19 GMT -5
I shoot everthing RAW--can get 102 images on a 1 gig card. I use Nikon Capture NX to process which is a really neat program. Shooting RAW and using capture it's almost impossible to have a picture that is totally unusable because of bad exposure. I've noticed color saturation is higher shooting jpegs but I can adjust the color on RAW files to just about any level I want. I never "machine gun" I guess old manual film advance habits are hard to break.
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Post by Dan Vincent on May 28, 2007 22:06:15 GMT -5
I carry my little Canon SD-900 with 10MP in my shirt pocket for that "Quick" shot at my grand daughters stables or one of her horse shows. The small cameras are also great for short range group gatherings or around the house.
I also have a Nikon 5700 with 8X zoom so I can reach out a little at zoos and other "Behind the Fence" things that are bit further than normal camera situations. I keep my shutter speed up to 250 or better to eliminate blur.
For my Grand-son's T-Ball little league stuff I use a Nikon D-100 with fast shutter and a big zoom. A digital SLR is best for sporting events but they are bulky for tight situations. Action shots with the D-100 are pretty sharp.
I don't think there is any one digital camera that will do for every situation. That's why we carried that big, heavy bag full of lenses for our film old SLR's.
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Post by kiev4a on May 31, 2007 12:20:59 GMT -5
Dan:
The digital camera may spell the end of the prime lens. Only a few years ago folks were saying no zoom could equal the sharpness of a prime. Now on the Nikon forum you hear people saying the 18-200 zoom is the thing to have, even though it has some distortion and is soft at the telephoto end. The argument is that with the 18-200 then never have to change lenses. If that's the case why don't they just get a top of the line P&S?
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Post by nikonbob on May 31, 2007 15:09:20 GMT -5
I think that for traveling and taking photos as a companion to your travels makes a good zoom the only way to go as you do not have the time to leg zoom with a prime or wait for the right light/time of day. This is especially true of family holidays and group tours where you have to balance others wishes with your own needs. When I am doing photography for it's own sake then I enjoy the added constraints of a prime. Yes, I agree that most would be as well served with a top of the line P&S with a long good zoom, starting at 28/35mm equivalent and going up, and image stab. No real need to carry a DSLR unless your prime reason for traveling is to do commercial photgraphy for a living.
Bob
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Post by Dan Vincent on Jun 1, 2007 7:32:51 GMT -5
I think most people simply have 4" X 6" photos printed or simply file them in the computer.
My 5mp Nikon takes pictures at 25MP wide and my Canon 10MP takes pictures at 32MP or so.
These are monster photographs and can easily be made into posters. When I email a picture I have to resize it down to 640MP wide so you can see it on the screen.
My preference for digital cameras when travelling is one of practicality. Airport detectors can fog film, no problem with digital.
A 2GB memory card gives hundreds of pictures at the "Fine" quality. I'd have to carry a lot of film to match that.
I also like the instant advantage of seeing exactly what I just took a picture of. With a film camera I have to wait until it's developed and hope everything went well.
I went to Arizona last year and Mexico this spring and took many pictues with my Nikon 5700 and Canon SD-900. If I took a bad pictrure it was simply deleted at the time and I could adjust for any mistake I might have made.
The only drawback I have with the little Canon is that I usually carry it in my shirt pocket and worry about the possibility of losing it.
Most of the small digitals have a wrist strap which I view as useless. They need to make a "U" bracket that would enable us to carry our cameras around our necks.
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Post by GeneW on Jun 1, 2007 9:01:25 GMT -5
Dan, I picked up a very small belt pouch for my Canon SD700 IS, which I think is about the same size as your SD900. It has a velcro flap over the top that keeps the camera secure, and there's just enough room in the tiny front pouch for my spare battery.
Bob, I agree. A good superzoom P&S makes a fantastic travel camera. Very lightweight and mine shoots in a range between about 35mm and 420mm. Great in macro mode too. And, the bonus, it's got an excellent movie mode, including stabilization and zoom during movie capture. I'm using the Canon S3 IS and get very decent quality from it. There's a new model, the S5 IS, hitting the market soon. It jumps the cam from 6 to 10 megapixels.
Gene
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Post by kiev4a on Dec 13, 2007 17:07:12 GMT -5
I'm beginning to have some second thoughts about upgrading to a fancier DSLR.
We're going to do some traveling next year--probably China, and I have to admit I'm not looking forward to lugging a DSLR--even a little larger than my old Nikon D100. I have been doing a lot of studying of P&S digitals with wide zooms. I figure I want something with at least the 35mm equiv. of 28mm. Kodak produced the P880 (just discontinued) that had a 24-140mm f2.8 lens I may go that route or something smillar.
On our Europe trip I remember my companions whipping out their pocket-sized digitals while I was fiddling with the D100 and carrying it in a separate case. Now granted I was probably getting better photos that most of them but there are some pocket-sized cameras capable of producing photos comparable to some DSLRs. The only thing I don't like is a lot of the pocket-sized digitals don't have any sort of viewfinder and you must compose on the lcd screen--tough to do in bright sunlight.
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SidW
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Posts: 1,107
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Post by SidW on Dec 13, 2007 19:40:23 GMT -5
... Like Bob I think I might be happy with a point and shoot if it had manual controls that could be adjusted quickly. That would be a lot handier for travel.... Wayne, I'd like to suggest the Canon Powershot G9 - raw format, takes external flash, real old fashioned viewfinder. Full set of exposure modes including manual. Nice size, feels like a 1950s rangefinder. The G series have always been highly regarded, but for the G9 Canon have now dropped the f:2 standard zoom in favour of a wider range zoom with smaller aperture. Or in secondhanded look for a G6 (can't remember if there was a G7, there was no G8), that still has the f:2 lens but a better sensor and less noise than my G5.
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Post by kiev4a on Dec 13, 2007 20:26:44 GMT -5
Sid. Thanks for the tip. Only problem is a 35mm lens at the wide end of the zoom. I would rather have at least 28mm.
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Post by GeneW on Dec 13, 2007 21:49:30 GMT -5
Sid. Thanks for the tip. Only problem is a 35mm lens at the wide end of the zoom. I would rather have at least 28mm. It's for this reason that the latest digital peashooter that I carry everywhere, a Canon SD800 IS, is 28-105mm equiv. I'm really enjoying the wider view. Gene
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