Topic: Pocket Camera Recommendations (Read 57532 times)

boku · « **Reply #40 on:** April 12, 2006, 08:42:44 pm »

I've been lurking on this thread since Jonathan started it. Seems we both wanted the same animal.

I just ordered the LX-1. I'm OK with ISO100. It's an all-day pocket camera. I can work with the noise and lens distortion where needed.

You people are draining my bank account.

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #41 on:** April 12, 2006, 09:27:04 pm »

Bank account? What's that...................

Jonathan Wienke · « **Reply #42 on:** April 12, 2006, 09:29:54 pm »

I haven't made any decision yet; I went off on a tangent and got a Samsung SC-X105L Sport Camcorder, which does a surprisingly good job of shooting video from a unit about the size of a pack of cigarettes. I got it for $200 at Best Buy (it was a returned item and discontinued so I got a double discount) so I've blown my discretionary income for a while. It has 512MB of internal memory and a Memory Stick slot, and is truly small enough to carry in a pocket anywhere. But I still want to get a decent compact still camera some day...

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #43 on:** April 12, 2006, 10:13:47 pm »

Use it well Jonathan - and thanks for starting this interesting thread. It was interesting to see how many people with relatively expensive gear were of the same mindset having bought or intending to buy one of these new generation shirt-pocket digicams.

DiaAzul · « **Reply #44 on:** April 13, 2006, 02:57:27 am »

Quote

I've been lurking on this thread since Jonathan started it. Seems we both wanted the same animal.

I just ordered the LX-1. I'm OK with ISO100. It's an all-day pocket camera. I can work with the noise and lens distortion where needed.

You people are draining my bank account.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62442\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Can you let us know how you get on with the LX-1? It is one of the few pocketables that I would consider. I am particularly interested in how you get on with the 28mm lens and widescreen - does it provide a good step up from 35mm equivalent lens on a typical P&S? Plus the usual handling, speed, and noise/quality issues - would be nice to get another opinion on this camera.

Craig Arnold · « **Reply #45 on:** April 13, 2006, 04:20:35 am »

Another Panasonic/Leica pocket camera has just caught my eye.

Panasonic DMC-FX01 or Leica C-LUX1.

It has an image stabilized 28-105mm (EFL) f2.8-5.6 ISO up to 1600, and a 6Mp sensor.

It's very small and (in Leica livery at least) looks fantastic.

I've been thinking of getting a small camera to keep in my pocket for "decisive moment" stuff, mostly on the underground and streets of London.

Sure it seems fairly noisy at higher ISO, but for street photography I'd mostly be shooting at the wide angle where it gives f2.8 plus the OIS and the ability to boost the ISO if necessary.

Better to have noise than lose the shot, right? Also for street photography I really don't see myself needing prints over A4 size, and often smaller will do just fine. So with a bit of noise reduction I reckon it might be OK as a low-light option.

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #46 on:** April 13, 2006, 08:24:58 am »

David, I know you addressed this to Bob, but on one of the factors you raised I'll re-iterate one point I made about this camera in several posts above. The combination of the 16:9 aspect ratio and the 28mm lens gives a truly remarkable sweep of content. I believe it is as close to panoramic as you'll get in any camera that isn't a pano camera. At 28mm I do notice a bit of distortion at the far edges, but it is liveable.

When speaking of noise, you also need to factor-in that it provides a RAW file - as you well know that makes a huge difference to what you can do with the image in post-processing, which helps not only the noise issue but everything else you may want to tweak. (By the way the DMC FX-01 does not provide a RAW file format, and in fact there are VERY few digicams that do.)

Bernard's photos have tempted me to take my LX-1 to downtown Toronto one evening soon and try some night snaps. We can't replicate the colour and glitter of Tokyo at night here - different kind of place - but there will be enough to test the photographic quality especially below the mid-tones.

Lisa Nikodym · « **Reply #47 on:** April 13, 2006, 12:23:08 pm »

Re the F30 / LX1 comparison:

It's true the LX1 has RAW and the F30 doesn't, but that's more or less balanced out for me by the fact that the F30 has *much* less noise (you can check out the comparisons in DPReview's reviews). I pretty frequently have to crank up the ISO to 400 or 800 because of low light (redwood forests, rainy days, etc.), and the LX1 looks awful at high ISO, while the F30 looks far better than anything else in its class (according to DPReview, and evident in their sample images). The F30 is also a smidgen smaller and lighter, and I'm trying to keep the size and weight to an absolute minimum so that it will fit in my purse all the time (after all, for serious stuff, I have a D200, but I'm not always carrying it around with me).

The LX1's 28mm end could be nice, but it only works at the 16:9 aspect ratio. Me, 99% of the time I work at 1.5/1 aspect ratio, and, cropped to that aspect ratio, the two cameras have pretty much the same number of pixels.

The only reason I'm dithering at all is the LX1's RAW capability. But, right now, I give it an 80% probability I'll go with the F30 when it comes out here, and learn to live with high-quality JPG instead of RAW. If ISO 100 were usually enough for me, however, I would probably go with the LX1 instead.

Lisa

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #48 on:** April 13, 2006, 12:45:49 pm »

I guess all of us who bought LX-1's recently would regret not waiting just in case Panasonic hears all the noise and comes out with a cleaner sensor at Photokina this Fall.

Anyhow Lisa, that makes sense - if you need ISOs beyond the 200s, nothing I've read or seen suggests the LX-1 would be the best way to go, though Michael's review suggests that up to 400 Noise Ninja can handle it OK. I should do some tests at 400 to see for myself, eventhough I seldom use high ISO.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #49 on:** April 13, 2006, 02:12:12 pm »

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The combination of the 16:9 aspect ratio and the 28mm lens gives a truly remarkable sweep of content. I believe it is as close to panoramic as you'll get in any camera that isn't a pano camera.
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I'll say. I'm used to a 28[a href=\"http://www.oaktree-imaging.com/glossary#mme]mm-e[/url] lens due to my G3, but this is something else. I keep surprising myself with the LX1 as the aspect ratio makes it seem allot wider than expected.

Noise is of course very subjective and how the LX1 stacks up depends heavily on what you are photographing and your attitude about it. I have some ISO 400 shots that look like monkey-butt and others that are more than acceptable with no noise reduction. In either case, a little Noise Ninja treatment cleans things up very well.

For me, I came into this fully expecting to have to deal with noise. These are P&S cameras after all. So far I have used the LX1 at all ISOs without reservation (particularly since it wants to keep ISO down and lower shutter speed a tad too much when set to Auto ISO). If I don't want noise, I'll use a DSLR. The camera's size and coverage of the lens more than makes up for any noise "problem" in my opinion.

boku · « **Reply #50 on:** April 13, 2006, 08:44:26 pm »

Quote

Can you let us know how you get on with the LX-1? It is one of the few pocketables that I would consider. I am particularly interested in how you get on with the 28mm lens and widescreen - does it provide a good step up from 35mm equivalent lens on a typical P&S? Plus the usual handling, speed, and noise/quality issues - would be nice to get another opinion on this camera.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62450\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'll be back with some first impressions next week likely.

DaveLon · « **Reply #51 on:** April 14, 2006, 05:25:49 pm »

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I'll be back with some first impressions next week likely.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62515\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I need reading glasses but have no need for bi-focals. How does one use a LCD screen to take pictures without the hassel of putting on glasses to see the screen and taking them off to see beyond 3 feet ( 1 meter)

Thanks

Dave

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #52 on:** April 14, 2006, 06:09:01 pm »

Ask your optometrist to write a prescription for a pair of progressives that go from your reading prescription to no prescription; progressives have no line breaks; after quite a few hundred dollars you will have glasses that you wear but don't need to remove. You just look a very small bit up or down as needed. Depending on how your brain and eyes coordinate it can take a day or more to get used to, but after that it's second nature. Lindberg Air Titaniums are almost weightless and invisible (and so will be your wallet after buying them, but.................)

Chris_T · « **Reply #53 on:** April 17, 2006, 08:01:16 am »

Other than black/silver, are there different versions of LX-1 available to the US? One eBay vendor is selling brand new in box LX-1 for less than $400. That is quite low compared to the other online prices.

61Dynamic · « **Reply #54 on:** April 17, 2006, 12:27:28 pm »

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Other than black/silver, are there different versions of LX-1 available to the US? One eBay vendor is selling brand new in box LX-1 for less than $400. That is quite low compared to the other online prices.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62780\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The LX1 only comes in the two versions. I got my black version for $430 via 6ave.com. Personally I am a bit skeptical about buying things marked as new from eBay when they sell for less than the typical going rate.

Just so people considering this camera know, it eats up memory fast when shooting Raw. Each raw file is about 18mb in size and each comes with a full sized Jpeg. My 2GB card filled up after only 107 photos.

I doubt it'll happen but I hope Panasonic releases a firmware update to compress the raw files and at the least use small jpegs from preview. The camera would perform quite a bit better if it didn't have to write so much data to the card with each shot.

boku · « **Reply #55 on:** April 17, 2006, 12:38:25 pm »

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The LX1 only comes in the two versions. I got my black version for $430 via 6ave.com. Personally I am a bit skeptical about buying things marked as new from eBay when they sell for less than the typical going rate.
Just so people considering this camera know, it eats up memory fast when shooting Raw. Each raw file is about 18mb in size and each comes with a full sized Jpeg. My 2GB card filled up after only 107 photos.

I doubt it'll happen but I hope Panasonic releases a firmware update to compress the raw files and at the least use small jpegs from preview. The camera would perform quite a bit better if it didn't have to write so much data to the card with each shot.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62805\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Indeed, my 1 GB cards hold 53 raw! Funny, since changing the aspect ratio still saves the entire 16:9 vista, only hides it, what's the point? I'd like to get smaller images when shooting 4:3.

I know I said I would give this camera a first look feedback report, but I had little opportunity to use it over the weekend. Four immediate observations:

1) To me, it is very tiny - more than I expected. I have small hands and still need to squish my fingers to hold it. No big deal. On the other hand, because of its diminutive size it is very portable.

2) I profiled it for Noise Ninja and Neat Image from ISO 80-400. I can't imagine using this thing without one of those programs. Again, no big deal.

3) Lots of barrel distortion at the wide extreme. I expected this.

4) I will have a hard time dealing with the lack of a viewfinder - I expected this tradeoff.

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #56 on:** April 17, 2006, 01:41:31 pm »

Bob, my experience with this camera so far suggests (using Noise Ninja) it is best to profile each image, because the Luminance and Chroma values vary substantially depending on the subject matter and settings. I have profiled values ranging from a Total low of 15 to a high of 24 (on ISO 80). Because at this low ISO setting noise that is visible when pumped-up on the monitor is hardly visible in the print, sometimes I forgo it altogether to preserve maximum sharpness. Another approach I use is to duplicate the background layer, apply NN to the duplicated layer, hide it with a Hide All layer mask, and then paint-in the noise reduction very selectively. It all happens much faster than it sounds.

Lack of viewfinder - yes indeed - I keep putting this little "toy" up to my face and then realise there is nothing to see through. That will pass.

combatcamera · « **Reply #57 on:** April 17, 2006, 01:45:03 pm »

Hi Jonathan:

I used to use a Canon G2, and now use a Canon A620. Both have a flip-screen, which is very useful in the field, and they fit into your pocket and are very light. I use these point-and-shoots all the time wherever I'm working - alongside a D2X. They are especially great for candids.

Sgt Frank Hudec
Canadian Forces Combat Camera
www.combatcamera.forces.gc.ca
www.frankhudec.ca

Mark D Segal · « **Reply #58 on:** April 17, 2006, 02:18:45 pm »

Sgd Hudec, I just visited your website and looked at the DART photos. They are excellent - gives a real perspective on the tragedies you help to overcome and the role DART is playing. These images deserve wider circulation - especially for the next inevitable debate (whenever) here in Canada about whether the cost of DART is "worth it". Keep up the great work!

boku · « **Reply #59 on:** April 17, 2006, 02:50:07 pm »

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Bob, my experience with this camera so far suggests (using Noise Ninja) it is best to profile each image, because the Luminance and Chroma values vary substantially depending on the subject matter and settings. I have profiled values ranging from a Total low of 15 to a high of 24 (on ISO 80). Because at this low ISO setting noise that is visible when pumped-up on the monitor is hardly visible in the print, sometimes I forgo it altogether to preserve maximum sharpness. Another approach I use is to duplicate the background layer, apply NN to the duplicated layer, hide it with a Hide All layer mask, and then paint-in the noise reduction very selectively. It all happens much faster than it sounds.

Thanks for the tip - I'll look into it.

Author Topic: Pocket Camera Recommendations (Read 57532 times)