Need Help for the Physically Disabled

[Goldilocks]

Hi everyone,
   I'm new to this forum but love your website. I have been searching for the "perfect" ultra-comapct or compact digital camera with manual overrides, 28mm lens minimum to about 100mm equivalent for years, with 3x optical zoom. I shoot mostly landscapes and since I hurt my back 8 years ago (disabled, former art teacher) I can barely walk to see nature and can't carry more than 12 ounces tops, 1/2 lb is more accurate. (Don't advise those wonderful DSLR's. I have a beautiful Nikon F3 with lenses that I haven't used in years because of the weight).
   Your website motivates me, yet makes me jealous of what I could do before my injury. I use to paint plain air landscapes, but the days of hiking, mountain bike riding, taking long trips and carrying around 50 lbs. of art supplies and camera equipment are over. I've been using my boyfriends Sony Cybershot DSC-P1 3 mega pixels and I'm frustrated over trying to stitch large landscapes when I have no manual control over the exposure and the widest angle is about 38mm equivalent. (I use to cut and paste before they made digital because I didn't like the distortion of super wide angles for cut and paste panoramic views. – Not quite professional, but captured what I wanted at an affordable price)  I've been using Adobe Photoshop Elements, play with controls to try to get the photo color and clarity information that I want. Trial and Error basically. And it doesn't always  seems to be quite what I want. I've never used RAW format, but if someone could direct me to a place that I can download some images in RAW format, understood the circumstances that they were shot in and then played around with the software on my computer I might be able to decide if RAW format is what I would like and am missing (among other things). I do have access to Adobe Photshop 6.0.
   Although, I'm not a professional photographer, I expect quality. I also like the higher quality video mode on the S80, cause I can take figures in action and find the one poise that I like best to save the image to paint people from or play creatively digitally. I'm also much more into natural light, than straight front flash for artistic reasons. Some good advice and direction would be appreciated, because living on a low paying disability check and affording medical insurance and prescriptions, I can't keep buying a lot of cameras and softwares. I don't think a difference of 7 or 8 mega pixels will make it or break it for me, but I definitely don't want to go below 5.
 Also, is there a way to set up the controls on the Canon s80 and a software program that can convert it to RAW? Or something like that. You’re probably all LOL. But sometimes, I believe a technology doesn’t exist, expect an LOL and told I'm wrong, that it does exist. (I did understand your explanation of RAW format).
  If there is another camera out there, that I missed (remember can’t really carry more than ½ lb., 12 ounces tops, then tell me. I’ve been experimenting with digital software on that (yuck Sony), so I don’t know if I can get just as good results with Canon Powershot s80 as s70. I hate losing too much information in highlights or shadows. Tell me if what I really need is RAW or just learn a method (other than trial and error) to adjust with histograms, gamma controls, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, unsharp mask, mask, etc. You get the idea, quit laughing at me and please help me. I’m about to buy the s80, but it might be out of ignorance of never using RAW and listening to people that say you don’t need RAW. (In fact I was printing out the entire advance manual for the s80 while reading your entire website but I didn’t get to download anything from your website. That’ll be another night.) By now you have figured out I’m one of those neurotic, artistic types. Hope you'll still talk to me.
Goldilocks (real name Linda)

 

[Frere Jacques]

Salut, Goldilocks!

May I point you in the direction of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1? It checks in at just under half a pound, has a Leica lens, shoots RAW and was very well reviewed by the proprietor of this site. ( http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/lx1.shtml ) Plus you get to shoot wide and in 16x9 without cropping or lugging around a huge camera!

I have one ofthe smaller Panasonics as a 'take everywhere' camera & the image quality produced continually surprises me. IMHO, Panasonic has done an excellent job differentiating their products in a very crowded space.

Happy shooting!

[BernardLanguillier]

Two other compacts worth consideration are the Fuji F11 and E900.

I used to own a F10 that died in a rain storm a few month ago, but the image quality at all ISO was great.

The F11 further improves on that, while the E900 is the 9 MP version with more controls and a slightly wider zoom (down to 32 mm equivalent).

Best regards,
Bernard

[Dale_Cotton]

> can’t really carry more than ½ lb., 12 ounces tops

The Lumix DMC-LX1 may be the way to go; but if the aspect ratio rules it out for you, I can recommend the Fuji E550 at 9.2 ounces and 32-130mm equiv; review here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilme550/

I first bought the Fuji F10 but found I was having two problems with it: I couldn't always see the LCD clearly enough to compose and there was no exposure control beyond program mode.

The E550 has a tiny and less-than-full-frame optical finder, but that's better than nothing; plus it has usable aperture and shutter priority modes. I doubt if there is a camera with better image quality that meets your weight requirements; it certainly supports A3 landscape printing. Dynamic range is excellent for a compact.

> Tell me if what I really need is RAW

Technically, the E550 has a RAW output option, the problem is finding a 3rd party converter that supports it. The only one I know is VueScan. RAW can rescue another stop from the highlights, gives you control of the tone curve, etc., but the E550's JPEG output is going to get the job done for most shots.

> I've been using Adobe Photoshop Elements, play with controls to try to get the photo color and clarity information that I want. Trial and Error basically. And it doesn't always seems to be quite what I want.

Whatever camera you buy I urge you to load up your copy of Photoshop 6 and work your way through the manual and any tutorials you can find. Take it from a fellow painter+photographer: you'll never look back.

[Goldilocks]

> can’t really carry more than ½ lb., 12 ounces tops

The Lumix DMC-LX1 may be the way to go; but if the aspect ratio rules it out for you, I can recommend the Fuji E550 at 9.2 ounces and 32-130mm equiv; review here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilme550/

I first bought the Fuji F10 but found I was having two problems with it: I couldn't always see the LCD clearly enough to compose and there was no exposure control beyond program mode.

The E550 has a tiny and less-than-full-frame optical finder, but that's better than nothing; plus it has usable aperture and shutter priority modes. I doubt if there is a camera with better image quality that meets your weight requirements; it certainly supports A3 landscape printing. Dynamic range is excellent for a compact.

> Tell me if what I really need is RAW

Technically, the E550 has a RAW output option, the problem is finding a 3rd party converter that supports it. The only one I know is VueScan. RAW can rescue another stop from the highlights, gives you control of the tone curve, etc., but the E550's JPEG output is going to get the job done for most shots.

> I've been using Adobe Photoshop Elements, play with controls to try to get the photo color and clarity information that I want. Trial and Error basically. And it doesn't always seems to be quite what I want.

Whatever camera you buy I urge you to load up your copy of Photoshop 6 and work your way through the manual and any tutorials you can find. Take it from a fellow painter+photographer: you'll never look back.
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[Goldilocks]

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Thanks everyone. Does anyone have any experience and comments on stitching with the Fuji 550 in multiple directions. And does anyone have any opinons on Fuji 550 jpeg vs Canon s80 jpegs ? (at the tradeoff of giving up raw and getting a wider angle lens?) All the posted photos are usually at the lowest ISO's for that camera. Does anyone know of a place to go to see higher ISO's on compact cameras with wide angle lens built in? I'm sure most cameras look good at ISO 80 or 50 when there is a lot of light.

[BernardLanguillier]

Hi there,

The only 2 compact cameras having a significant lead in terms of high ISO image quality are the afford mentioned Fuji F11 and Fuji E900.

None of these go very wide though, since the E900 is only an equivalent 32 mm wide.

I have never tried stitching with compact digital, but I believe that the main difficulty will be in finding the nodal point of the zoom lens since:

- there is no accurate control of the level of zooming -> you probably end up having to stitch using only the widest zoom position (which is probably OK),
- a given absolue positioning inaccuracy (say you are 1 mm away from the actual nodal point) will result in a larger impact in terms of parallax compared to a DSLR for instance,

Besides, there are no L type brackets for compacts cameras, which means that it will be difficult to take panorama in portrait mode on tripod.

-> you will probably have to shoot hand held at the widest zoom setting, and you will therefore only be able to get accurate stitches for distant subjects since parallax will affect closer subject.

Regards,
Bernard

[HiltonP]

Goldilocks,

I am a quadraplegic, and have been permanently confined to a wheelchair for the past 31 years. I therefore have an understanding of your limitations, plus a heap more that you will not know!  I've always enjoyed photography, but the advent of digital has opened up whole new opportunities for those of us with limited strength or mobility, particularly post-processing and printing.

Now, to your enquiry. The weight limit you're placing on yourself (for the camera) sounds a bit harsh. Yes, a Canon 1Ds MkII around your neck isn't going to work, but a Canon XT at only 485g must be a possibility for you. How you carry the camera is more important for your back, rather than the actual weight itself. Around your neck isn't good, but on your hips, or in a day-pack is going to be far better.

As for RAW, well Canon abandoned RAW in their new S80, but it is available in the older 7.1 megapixel S70 (along with a reasonably wide angle lens). Canon's new A620 is another worthwhile model to look at. Both offer good quality, affordability, high megapixel counts, and the option of manual controls.

Your later question re. higher ISO performance is a little confusing. Earlier you mainly discussed outdoor / landscape photography (hense the lighter camera). This would call for low ISO's to achieve the best results. There isn't much need for high ISO's for landscape work. Are you therefore asking for a camera which will handle indoor (lower light) AND outdoor work?

[Dale_Cotton]

> stitching with the Fuji 550 in multiple directions

It sounds as though wide-angle is extremely important to you. In that case, the S80 may be your best bet. There is some corner softness at 28mm but the E550 has some corner softness at 32.5mm.

> see higher ISO's on compact cameras with wide angle lens built in?

All the reviews on dpreview.com have extensive ISO 400 analysis. In addition, there is an ISO 400 shot on Steve's Digicams: Steve's S80 review samples (fouth pic).

To cut to the quick: I don't think you're going to find substantially better image quality from a compact camera than that of either the S80 or E550.

[jimhuber]

My main camera is a Rebel XT and my backup is an S70. The S70 is a wonderful little "digicam" that shoots RAW (as mentioned, the newer S80 doesn't) and has a 28 to 100mm "equivalent" zoom. I've been pleased with it's panoramic stitches out of AutoStitch, too.

The Rebel XT is pretty darn light with the 10-22 or 17-85 zoom, and very light with primes (relevant  ones I have are the 35mm f/2.0, 50mm f/1.4, and 85mm f/1.. The Rebel XT body alone weighs a bit over a pound, though.

[jimhuber]

Reading through your post again made me imagine what I would buy for an absolute minimum cost, minimum weight landscape photography system:

$400 Canon PowerShot S70
$70 1 GB CompactFlash card
$20 carrying case
$20 basic aluminum tripod
$385 Canon i9900 printer (after rebate)
$100 RawShooter Premium

That's all the essentials for just under $1,000 USD that will let you make prints up to 13x19.
(obviously it doesn't include a computer to run RawShooter on)

[Dale_Cotton]

Jim: Just read through the dpreview on the S70: I think you've really got something there. Only 8 ounces and very impressive image quality combined with Raw Shooter support.

I would guess a tripod, no matter how light, is not an option; so the question in my mind is whether the S70's 400 ISO is usable and when combined with f/2.8 at the wide end and Noise Ninja or Neat Image would permit handheld in relatively low light.

Linda: I can upload a RAW file to my web site of a contrasty landscape from my Pentax DS. If you download that and Raw Shooter from pixmantec.com you can see what RAW is all about. An S70 RAW file would be better of course; you might be able to get some by visiting a local camera store that sells the S70.

[Goldilocks]

Jim: Just read through the dpreview on the S70: I think you've really got something there. Only 8 ounces and very impressive image quality combined with Raw Shooter support.

I would guess a tripod, no matter how light, is not an option; so the question in my mind is whether the S70's 400 ISO is usable and when combined with f/2.8 at the wide end and Noise Ninja or Neat Image would permit handheld in relatively low light.

Linda: I can upload a RAW file to my web site of a contrasty landscape from my Pentax DS. If you download that and Raw Shooter from pixmantec.com you can see what RAW is all about. An S70 RAW file would be better of course; you might be able to get some by visiting a local camera store that sells the S70.
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[Goldilocks]

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Thanks everyone,
  I have a hard enough doing exercises with 1 lb. weights, that's on a good day.
  I can't carry 1 lb, for long walks (my long is your short to average), walking nature uneven pavement or even slight inclines on smooth pavement  (I usually walk backwards on inclines) and that's with drugs, cane, back braces, tens unit, lidocaine patches etc.. A wider angle lens 28mm equiv. would eliminate some stitching. Since I need all of the above, (except the cane) to work at the computer I plan on doing some indoor nude self-portraits in moving mode (since I can't see what I'm doing as model and photographer)and a wider angle lens would eliminate a lot of unwanted missing body parts.  The higher ISO quality is for using creative indoor lighting (hate front flash) for artistic work, and nature work at twilight.
   I don't like cameras that wash out the highlights and make darks so dark you lose the detail. (I believe that and the wider angle lens only worked on the 16:9 format, was a turn-off for me on Panasonic LX1, -based on dpreview post production review)
   As far as stitching on zoom compacts, can't you hold the focal lenght?. Yeah, most of the  time I'll be doing this hand held. Tripods are extra weight.
   I've also been reading your sites stitching software. Can I pick a not too expensive software, and do I stich in JPEG only? And if I shot in RAW originally (or even JPEG) is there a trick to keeping details in highlights and shadows so that when you stitch them the colors and contrast flow from one shot to the other?
   Also, I thought I read about a compact camera that went to ISO 2400, but I could't find it on the web today. (I believe it only went to 35 or 38 mm equivelent thought it was Olympus. It's not what I'm looking for now but its a consideration for down the road if it uses the same storage media as a sendond camera.  I believe it was in the 300 USD range.  If anyone remembers the name and model number of it please tell me.
  Maybe the Fuji E900 would be good, but I haven't seen reviews yet. I''ve seen SugerHill's? personal review of the FujiE900. Does anyone know when another professional review will be released on the Fuji E900? Also, I don't want to buy something with the assumption, that a decent raw converter will come out for that camera.
  DALE, YES, I would be VERY APPRECIATIVE if you could send me some RAW format files, tell me what the general lighting situation was (if you remember) so I can try this RAW thing out.  I only have Adobe PS 6.0, Adobe Elements 2.0. Arc Soft Photo Studio 5.5 and Coral  with Coral Photo Paint 8. Any advice, or direction would be appreciative from all.
Linda (Goldilocks)

[Dale_Cotton]

I've uploaded two Pentax RAW files that look like this:





These weigh in at 10 megabytes each - hope you have a fast connection. ;) 1622 is a good example of an image shot in high contrast light. The exposure favours the shadows so the highlights are blown as a JPEG but recoverable from the RAW. 1702 is also high contrast but exposed more in the middle so the shadows are on the dark side and only a relatively small part of the clouds are over-exposed. The lighting should be obvious in both; they were taken within an hour of each other in the same vicinity.

Download Rawshooter Essentials or the Rawshooter Premium trial version to work with these:

IMGP1622.PEF

IMGP1702.PEF

The As Shot colour temp for 1702 is 5100 K but should be up around 7000 or 8000. You'll see what that means as soon as you start playing with Rawshooter.

Enjoy.

[BernardLanguillier]

   As far as stitching on zoom compacts, can't you hold the focal lenght?. Yeah, most of the  time I'll be doing this hand held. Tripods are extra weight.
   I've also been reading your sites stitching software. Can I pick a not too expensive software, and do I stich in JPEG only? And if I shot in RAW originally (or even JPEG) is there a trick to keeping details in highlights and shadows so that when you stitch them the colors and contrast flow from one shot to the other?
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Hi Linda,

Some answers for you:

- the problem is that the nodal point of a zoom lens is a function of the focal lenght used. If you want to stitch accurately, then you need to rotate around the nodal point, which means that you need to know the focal lenght you are using. With many compacts cameras, you have only an electrical zoom capability, and it is difficult to figure out what exact focal lenght you are using, and therefore where the focal point is located, and therefore around which point you should rotate the camera.

This is why I advised you to use only the widest focal lenght, which is repeatable.

The again, if you shoot without a tripod, it is difficult to rotate accurately around the nodal point anyway so that it is probably less important. Still, knowing if you should rotate around a point located under the camera, or around a point located in front of the camera will help getting more accurate results. The farther you rotate from the nodal point, the more parallax problem you introduce, and the lesser the quality of the stitch for closer objects.

There are documents on the web explaining how to located the nodal point of a lens at a given focal lenght. Basically, you position yourself so as to see 2 tall objects nearly aligned (poles for instance). Then you take a first image with these 2 located near the left edge of the frame, you rotate the camera around what you believe is the nodal point, and take a second image with the 2 tall objects near the right edge of the frame. If the relative positioning of the 2 tall objects has remained constant, then you have indeed rotated around the nodal point. If the relative positioning has changed, then you have rotated either in front, or behind the nodal point. Try once more by rotatting around a different point until you converge to a point where the rotation doesn't introduce any relative position shift. That is the nodal point.

- Another thing which is important for best possible stitching is to shoot in M mode, so as to avoid modification of exposure from frame to frame.

I am not sure whether the E900 does feature a completely manual mode by the way, this is probably an important point to check.

- There is no problem with shooting/stitching in jpg as long as you took the images in manual mode as explained above.

Most stitching softwares are able to correct to some extend un-even exposures, but you expose yourself to more potential problems in the skies etc... where discontinuities become likely to appear where frames overlap.

I have been using the very expensive Stitcher 5.0 mostly, but others have commented positively about other stitching packages like PTGui and panorama factory that are a lot cheaper. These are probably the way to go.

Regards,
Bernard

[Goldilocks]

Hi Linda,

Some answers for you:

- the problem is that the nodal point of a zoom lens is a function of the focal lenght used. If you want to stitch accurately, then you need to rotate around the nodal point, which means that you need to know the focal lenght you are using. With many compacts cameras, you have only an electrical zoom capability, and it is difficult to figure out what exact focal lenght you are using, and therefore where the focal point is located, and therefore around which point you should rotate the camera.

This is why I advised you to use only the widest focal lenght, which is repeatable.

The again, if you shoot without a tripod, it is difficult to rotate accurately around the nodal point anyway so that it is probably less important. Still, knowing if you should rotate around a point located under the camera, or around a point located in front of the camera will help getting more accurate results. The farther you rotate from the nodal point, the more parallax problem you introduce, and the lesser the quality of the stitch for closer objects.

There are documents on the web explaining how to located the nodal point of a lens at a given focal lenght. Basically, you position yourself so as to see 2 tall objects nearly aligned (poles for instance). Then you take a first image with these 2 located near the left edge of the frame, you rotate the camera around what you believe is the nodal point, and take a second image with the 2 tall objects near the right edge of the frame. If the relative positioning of the 2 tall objects has remained constant, then you have indeed rotated around the nodal point. If the relative positioning has changed, then you have rotated either in front, or behind the nodal point. Try once more by rotatting around a different point until you converge to a point where the rotation doesn't introduce any relative position shift. That is the nodal point.

- Another thing which is important for best possible stitching is to shoot in M mode, so as to avoid modification of exposure from frame to frame.

I am not sure whether the E900 does feature a completely manual mode by the way, this is probably an important point to check.

- There is no problem with shooting/stitching in jpg as long as you took the images in manual mode as explained above.

Most stitching softwares are able to correct to some extend un-even exposures, but you expose yourself to more potential problems in the skies etc... where discontinuities become likely to appear where frames overlap.

I have been using the very expensive Stitcher 5.0 mostly, but others have commented positively about other stitching packages like PTGui and panorama factory that are a lot cheaper. These are probably the way to go.

Regards,
Bernard
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[Goldilocks]

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Thanks for all your help. Your right the Fuji E900 only goes to 32mm. (bummer) I was able to download your pictures Dale, but I can't open them up using Adobe Photoshop 6.0. I used the Raw Shooter essentials that you mentioned (more trial and error, just glanced at the documentation.) Seemed pretty impressive, so far. Is there a way that I can take your RAW pictures convert them to JPEG's (as if they were shot that way from the camera) and play with other software to see how different the results would be? I haven't put your pictures into Adobe Photoshop 6.0, I must be missing a step that I don't understand. As much as I am a pain, I really appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Linda

 
Things are starting to look up. It'd be great if Canon kept the RAW (but they didn't). The s80 has some features that are suppose to make stitching easier.  Maybe I should investigate in an inexpensive ultra-compact camera with decent picture quality that can handle RAW, uses the same storage media (if there is such an animal- haven't really been looking for 2 cameras) get the s80 now and keep the other one on my wish list. The ultra compact I should be able to carry no matter how bad I feel (as long as I can get out of the house). Any ideas? Your probably thinking I'm mentally challenged as well as physically challenged. You might be right.
Thanks again,
Linda (Goldilocks)

  It's people like you that make this world a happy place.

[Dale_Cotton]

> I was able to download your pictures Dale, but I can't open them up using Adobe Photoshop 6.0.

Right. Photoshop doesn't know how to interpret the PEF file format, which is a proprietary variant of the generic RAW file format.

> Is there a way that I can take your RAW pictures convert them to JPEG's

Yep: that's the whole idea of a RAW converter. In Rawshooter there are two tabs upper right that change the right panel from image adjustment controls to image save controls. JPEG, 8-bit TIFF, and 16-bit TIFF are options. By default the conversion file is saved to a new folder called Converted inside the folder the RAW file is in. Now you have a JPEG or TIFF version that Photoshop 6 can handle.

If you simply save 1622 as a JPEG without doing any image adjustments, you will be getting something like the JPEG you would have got if you had shot JPEG instead of RAW in the first place. If you open it up in Photoshop you'll see there is no way to recover the blown highlights, so the entire portion of the walkway in sunlight is blown. But if you go back to Rawshooter and change the exposure to -1.5 stops you'll see detail in the walkway appear. If you look at the histogram as you move the exposure slider, you'll see the tone curve that is bunched up at 255 unravel itself as you move the exposure slider to the left.

This is heap big magic and just one of several advantages of using RAW capture combined with a first rate raw converter.

> The s80 has some features that are suppose to make stitching easier

If you have a camera you can use now, you might want to experiment stitching handheld shots together. I didn't realize it could be done at all but Bernard's informative post seems to be saying otherwise.

> ... get the s80 now and keep the other one on my wish list.

Bottom line is yes - you can take first class pix with a JPEG-only compact; it's just that RAW allows you to use a greater fraction of the pix you take. It really hurts when a potential Mona Lisa or Last Supper shot is unusable due to some technical deficiency such as blown highlights. But if you are doing pre-meditated work, such as a posed portrait or a landscape in which everything, including the light, is holding still for five or ten minutes, this isn't an issue.

> Your probably thinking I'm mentally challenged ...

Why should you be any different from the rest of us? ;)

[Goldilocks]

> I was able to download your pictures Dale, but I can't open them up using Adobe Photoshop 6.0.

Right. Photoshop doesn't know how to interpret the PEF file format, which is a proprietary variant of the generic RAW file format.

> Is there a way that I can take your RAW pictures convert them to JPEG's

Yep: that's the whole idea of a RAW converter. In Rawshooter there are two tabs upper right that change the right panel from image adjustment controls to image save controls. JPEG, 8-bit TIFF, and 16-bit TIFF are options. By default the conversion file is saved to a new folder called Converted inside the folder the RAW file is in. Now you have a JPEG or TIFF version that Photoshop 6 can handle.

If you simply save 1622 as a JPEG without doing any image adjustments, you will be getting something like the JPEG you would have got if you had shot JPEG instead of RAW in the first place. If you open it up in Photoshop you'll see there is no way to recover the blown highlights, so the entire portion of the walkway in sunlight is blown. But if you go back to Rawshooter and change the exposure to -1.5 stops you'll see detail in the walkway appear. If you look at the histogram as you move the exposure slider, you'll see the tone curve that is bunched up at 255 unravel itself as you move the exposure slider to the left.

This is heap big magic and just one of several advantages of using RAW capture combined with a first rate raw converter.

> The s80 has some features that are suppose to make stitching easier

If you have a camera you can use now, you might want to experiment stitching handheld shots together. I didn't realize it could be done at all but Bernard's informative post seems to be saying otherwise.

> ... get the s80 now and keep the other one on my wish list.

Bottom line is yes - you can take first class pix with a JPEG-only compact; it's just that RAW allows you to use a greater fraction of the pix you take. It really hurts when a potential Mona Lisa or Last Supper shot is unusable due to some technical deficiency such as blown highlights. But if you are doing pre-meditated work, such as a posed portrait or a landscape in which everything, including the light, is holding still for five or ten minutes, this isn't an issue.

> Your probably thinking I'm mentally challenged ...

Why should you be any different from the rest of us?
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