Quick advice: pocket camera

[msmemory_archive]

Based on the research I've had time to do, and my current (old) Nikon Coolpix camera, I'm thinking I want to upgrade to more megapixels, more memory, higher ISO, and AA batteries, which added together comes up with the Coolpix L12. (current street price $130-180).

Anybody got any better ideas? At this time I don't want a large SLR emulator digital camera - if I want to use SLR features I'll break out the perfectly usable 35mm film camera.

ETA: The more investigation I do, the less likely I am to go for an L12. CNet's review tells me I'll be frustrated with it:
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/nikon-coolpix-l12/4505-6501_7-32319122.html?ar=o&tag=pdtl-list
Grrr. I do want ISO control, and the ready refresh rate is one of the negative points on my current camera.

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I'll send metageek over here to comment; he's quite familiar with cameras. (Which is amusing, because I used to be the big camera buff, but then I had kids.)

[eclecticmagpie.livejournal.com]

Some of the LUMIX series have a lot going for them. Not all, but some of them have very well designed controls. They may be a little more expensive than you want.

Not familiar with Nikon, but...

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with Nikon; I tried one, three cameras ago (er, early 2004, I guess), but it had the unfortunate property of making bright colors come out extra garish—a problem when taking pictures of young kids with bright-colored toys and clothes. ;-)

So, a general braindump.

If you need to use the flash often, I recommend avoiding Kodak; their flashes are badly underpowered.

Olympus and Fuji use xD Picture Cards, which they invented themselves. xD cards (and readers) are generally more expensive than comparable models of Secure Digital and Compact Flash. They're also harder to find, which could be a problem if you're on vacation and need extra storage. That said, Olympus in particular makes some very good optics. My dad's got a C4040, from about 5 years ago, which had a really good lens for low-light situations, such as museums where you're not allowed to use flash. Unfortunately, they abandoned that lens after the 5050. Oh, and my mom's got a Fuji Lumix, with a 10x zoom lens that folds up inside the camera somehow, so that you get a, mmm, pursable camera (not really pocketable, unless you've got big pockets) with a nice long zoom. I think the tradeoff is that it's not as good in low-light conditions, though.

Then there's Canon, which is where I keep coming back. For a pocketable camera, I strongly recommend Canon's SD line. Very small, good optics, good flash, reasonable manual controls. Oh, and some of them have image stabilization, which is an amazingly useful feature. (Image stabilization is fairly common these days—but avoid any camera who offers "digital image stabilization", which just means they step down the resolution so you can't see the shake.) They don't use AAs, though. However, I think they're smaller than the Nikons, so you might like them.

My current camera is a Canon PowerShot S3 IS, which is not pocketable; it looks like a miniaturized SLR. Good optics, 6 megapixels, 12x zoom, great macro modes, great manual control, and it runs on AAs.

Slow cameras

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I do want ISO control, and the ready refresh rate is one of the negative points on my current camera.

Oh, yes. That and shutter lag are perennial problems with budget cameras. I think they always will be, too: if "budget" means "take 20% off the features and 50% off the price", then those features are going to have to run more slowly.

Whatever kind of camera you get, go into a store and take a few pictures first. Best Buy and Circuit City usually have power and memory for their display cameras. When I bought my previous camera (not that long ago, but it got banged up), I was able to test enough to see that Kodaks still had the weak flash problem, for example; and you'll certainly be able to spot shutter lag and slow refresh time.

Canon's cameras are generally nice and fast. Look for something that says "Digic II" or "Digic III", which refers to the image processing chip they use inside. Don't think you need to get the III, though—IIRC, it's better overall than the II, but not a lot; and it's a hair slower. The difference between the Digic and the Digic II was a lot bigger.

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

How sure are you that you want AA batteries? I tend to avoid them in digital cameras, preferring rechargeable lithium ion batteries. Some of the review sites complain about proprietary battery formats that only work with that camera, but charging is quick, and the time between charges is long, even on cameras that are a few years old. Battery life on many of them is excellent, too - far better than you'll get from AA. With my previous Canon, I ended up charging the battery anywhere from a few weeks to a few months apart. With my new Fuji camera, I can't comment on the battery life, because I charged it when I got it a few weeks ago, and I've taken hundreds of pictures since, but it's still showing a healthy charge. Also, you'll generally get faster performance from a Lithium Ion battery than you will from AA batteries. And you can get a smaller camera. I can't comment on any of the AA based cameras, since that disqualifies them from my consideration.

You say more megapixels and high ISO, but how high? Most pocket digital cameras have small photo sensors, and the more pixels they cram into them, the more noisy the tend to be, particularly at higher ISO settings. In most cases, the highest one or two ISO settings a camera claims to have is unusably noisy. Few of the pocket cameras give nice results at anything over ISO 400. One of the reasons I got my latest camera was because it has excellent ISO performance for a pocket camera - ISO 1600 isn't bad, though ISO 3200 is mostly too noisy.

My first stop when looking for camera info is dpreview.com.

For tiny and easily fitting in a purse, the Canon SD ELPHs are nice. I've had an SD-200 for the last few years. Three years ago, it was the low end of the line, and is now discontinued, but the current crop seem fairly decent, too. My current camera is a Fuji F31fd, and I got this for more manual control, more megapixels and much higher usable ISO settings. This camera is bulkier than the Canons, but still fits easily in my purse. Unfortunately, it's discontinued, and almost impossible to find. You might look at the Fuji F40fd, if you don't need manual control of shutter or aperture setting. It's closer in size to the Canons, and it reportedly not bad. It's the first of the Fuji cameras to also use the more common SD memory cards, rather than the xD format they'd previously used. The camera that Fuji just released to "replace" the F31fd, is the F50fd, and the reviews on it are mixed. They doubled the pixel count, and in the process lost a lot of the low light performance and image quality, in my opinion. Initial samples from that one were what prompted me to grab an F31fd while I still could, and most of the ones I've seen since leave me glad of that choice.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

The AA batteries point is negotiable. My current Coolpix takes a 245 battery, and those are expensive ($12 or so) and a nuisance to find; AAs at least I can buy a bulk pack at Costco. I do have one rechargable 245-size battery but the charger is cantakerous at times. The lighter weight of the little lithium batteries is a plus, you're right, but I hadn't realized the camera speed would depend on the type of battery in addition to its freshness.

I do want the ability to use ISO 1600. 3200 would be a nifty surprise bonus, and 800 is a minimum. I want to take court and A&S/museum pics without flash. Thus I need to be able to turn off the default flash, and want to specify the theoretical ISO setting.

Megapixel count I'm open to discussion on. I want web display resolution, and from time to time print ability but print sizes larger than 5x7 are probably unnecessary. I'm interested in megapixels primarily as a way to reduce graininess. Also the trend keeps going upwards, so like any good geek I want to buy as sophisticated a tool as I can afford, to avoid prompt obsolescence.

I don't do much if any art photography. I take snapshots on vacation and at events, lots of court/tourney/event pictures, some sports, garden, etc.

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

For my first Canon, I bought a spare rechargeable battery (it came one, and a charger). When the battery in the camera got low, I'd swap in the charged one, and stick the previous one on the charger, and then carry it as the spare. I didn't change batteries often. When I got the next Canon, with a different sized battery, I held off on buying a spare. With that one, I'd notice when it claimed the battery was getting low, and keep using it until it was next convenient to charge it. I think, in three years, I had one incident where I ran out of battery while shooting.

Usable ISO 1600 in a compact digital camera will be your toughest match. Many of the cameras won't even claim to support that. Some of the cameras on the market claim to support that, but reports are pretty grim. Look for sample images at that setting for cameras you're considering. I think this is pointing you back at the Fuji F series, but again, check sample images. That's what got me to switch from Canon, since I like low light photos, but didn't want to go to the bulk of a DSLR. A sample I've taken with the F31fd at high ISO settings is this ISO 3200 shot, where you can see the noise, particularly in the window frame at the right edge of the picture. Also, this ISO 1600 macro shot taken with ambient indirect light. The background is a leather blotter, and most of the texture you're seeing there is real, rather than noise. And there's this ISO 1600 shot taken at night, outdoors.

For 5x7 prints, without cropping, 3 megapixels will do. I think 6-8 is the practical limit for decent quality pictures in a compact digital, given the higher noise with the smaller pixels. This is a case where the marketing race for more megapixels, beyond that, is hurting the quality, I think.

I wish LJ would let me edit comments...

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

There's a bad link on the last of the three samples I mentioned. The picture is here.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Let me second this: we have a (now outdated) Fuji FinePix F10. It's easy to manually set the ISO as high as 1600, and you get remarkably good low-light performance.

[hungrytiger]

We take hundreds of pictures a month and swear by the Canon Elph series (the ones that start with SD).

Here's the new one that I just bought Marsy last month...
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/canon-powershot-sd750-silver/4505-6501_7-32314640.html?tag=sub