Dead Men Walking

Forum Archive 2023 => dMw's Community Centre => Community Archive => Tablets, Mobiles, Cameras and Gadgets => Topic started by: peter90 on January 11, 2008, 09:36:18 PM

Title: Camera choice
Post by: peter90 on January 11, 2008, 09:36:18 PM
Which cameras do you think are the best: Canon or Sony?
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Anonymous on January 11, 2008, 09:36:37 PM
Nikon :)
Title: Camera choice
Post by: peter90 on January 11, 2008, 09:37:32 PM
at equivalent prices of course
Title: Camera choice
Post by: peter90 on January 11, 2008, 09:39:05 PM
Quote from: BlueBall;218557Nikon :)

nikon is usually more expensive ...
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Anonymous on January 11, 2008, 10:57:54 PM
Quote from: peter90;218559nikon is usually more expensive ...

On a purely monetary basis maybe they are, however, I wouldn't change my Nikon D80 for anything :)
Title: Camera choice
Post by: delanvital on January 12, 2008, 12:00:39 AM
Quote from: peter90;218556Which cameras do you think are the best: Canon or Sony?

Between those two, I'd presently say Canon.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: DuVeL on January 12, 2008, 12:02:02 AM
Pretty fond of Canon to be honoust.
A shop near my hometown says their the best for their money atm.
That's normally just for the powershots...
Title: Camera choice
Post by: T-Bag on January 12, 2008, 12:41:28 AM
Canon are generally better quality in the high price range....but Sony have Carl Zeis lenses and are very small. Depends what you want the camera for...small = sony, bigger high quality = canon.
(My observations anyway)
(The cheap Canons used to be chunky compared to Sonys)
Title: Camera choice
Post by: BigFatCat on January 12, 2008, 11:50:20 AM
very happy with my powershot s3, the wife's nikon s10 is useful but not as flexible. take a look at the panasonics with leica lenses, 15x optical zoom which is nice (500mm equivalent).
Title: Camera choice
Post by: T-Bag on January 12, 2008, 12:27:00 PM
Quote from: BigFatCat;218593very happy with my powershot s3, the wife's nikon s10 is useful but not as flexible. take a look at the panasonics with leica lenses, 15x optical zoom which is nice (500mm equivalent).

Panasonics are looking good, the Lumix are stylish.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Rabbi Bob on January 12, 2008, 01:01:19 PM
Quote from: BigFatCat;218593very happy with my powershot s3, the wife's nikon s10 is useful but not as flexible. take a look at the panasonics with leica lenses, 15x optical zoom which is nice (500mm equivalent).

I'm extremely happy with my Canon PowerShot S3 (http://www.rabbibob.com/index.php/Photography_shtuff).  The only downsides I could find were that it does not shoot in RAW (however a firmware hack does unlock this on the DigicII chip and I've used that) and it has no hot shoe.  I've just ordered an S5 for work and that has a hot shoe, so they've corrected that.  I haven't yet tried any add on lenses, but I may be picking some up for the S5 in the near future.   Also, the ISO has been raised to 1600 for the S5 from 800.  A full review at DPreview.com (a good site to look at camera info) is here (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons5is/).

IIRC, all my Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rabbibob/) pictures are done with the S3.

P.S.  I realized I never blogged about it and I should, but I did post that my Canon Powershot A60 had died, which prompted the S3 buy.  A bit later, someone pointed out that Canon had stated that there was a problem with the CCD and listed the symptoms, which were what my A60 was doing.  They also put out that they would examine the camera and if the CCD was the issue, they would fix the camera for free regardless of warranty status.  Shipping was free in both directions.  Two weeks later, I had a working A60 which is now my carry along camera.  So ++ to Canon on product support.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: TeaLeaf on January 12, 2008, 02:43:18 PM
You ought to send a PM to tugs on these forums - he is a bit of a budding camera guru too and heavily into his digital photography.  He might evne post his Flikr link too :P

Tl.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: peter90 on January 12, 2008, 07:34:36 PM
I'm especially interested in cameras with about 10x optical zoom and good quality at auto settings (I'm not a professional).
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Luminance on January 12, 2008, 07:39:32 PM
I'm thinking of buying a Canon 400D, but i don't know what price range you want.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Rabbi Bob on January 12, 2008, 08:04:36 PM
Quote from: peter90;218636I'm especially interested in cameras with about 10x optical zoom and good quality at auto settings (I'm not a professional).

Covered.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: peter90 on January 13, 2008, 07:14:04 PM
Quote from: Luminance;218638I'm thinking of buying a Canon 400D, but i don't know what price range you want.

I was thinking about somewhere under £300
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Luminance on January 13, 2008, 08:25:58 PM
Then you could go with the previous model (Canon 350D) its pretty good (ask Marduk, he has one). At this moment its about 350-400 euros
Title: Camera choice
Post by: BigFatCat on January 14, 2008, 08:47:27 AM
Is this (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK) the RAW thingy?
Title: Camera choice
Post by: DuVeL on January 14, 2008, 09:15:03 AM
Lumi, if you'd buy one, buy it here;
http://www.koopdigitaal.nl/
 
A really good shop and cheap.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Rabbi Bob on January 14, 2008, 09:29:20 AM
Quote from: BigFatCat;218762Is this (http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK) the RAW thingy?

Yes.  The page has moved, but there is a list of supported cameras.  Last I checked, the S5 was not supported (yet, someone was working on the firmware dump).

Ah, here it is: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Downloads
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Cadaver on January 14, 2008, 09:48:12 AM
Quote from: Luminance;218638I'm thinking of buying a Canon 400D, but i don't know what price range you want.

IMHO I'd hold off for a wee while if you can.  If you'd have bought one between 01/Oct/07 - 31/Dec/07, then Canon were doing a cashback offer.  I got £50 off mine when I bought it in November.
 
You'll be paying the full RRP for a 400D just now.  The 400D was released back in August 2006, and a replacement is widely expected to be announced this year.  Once that happens the 400D prices will drop, and you should be able to pick one up for a decent price.
 
Unless you have to have the very latest of everything that is... :)
Title: Camera choice
Post by: Cadaver on January 14, 2008, 09:58:27 AM
FWIW my first digital camera was a Sony point-and-shoot DSC-V1 before I bought my 400D. It was a great little camera, but in the end I started to feel limited by it and wanted to go SLR to improve my photography.
 
There's a whole heap of decent P&S cameras for under £300 these days. Don't restrict yourself to just Canon or Sony - e.g. the Panasonic Lumix range get excellent reviews also. Check out http://www.dpreview.com for some unbiased reviews.
 
Work out what you personally want from a camera, and buy the one that offers the features to meet your needs - that's really the best advice I can give.
Title: Camera choice
Post by: BigFatCat on January 14, 2008, 05:23:36 PM
I just tried setting my S3 up with the pseudo-firmware hack as listed earlier.

Got a spare SanDisk Extreme III 2GB SD card, so I copied the stuff and found the ALT menu and made the card bootable, etc. Restarted the camera with the locked SD card in it, loaded the new FW automatically and allowed me to shoot a RAW pic to the card.

Installed dng4ps2 (http://dng4ps2.chat.ru/index_en.html) and did the conversion voodoo. Double-clicked the resulting DNG and PhotoShop popped with it's RAW tool, and then opened it in the main window, complete with EXIF data from the usual JPG the camera would save.

Like, er, wow, dude.:blink:
Title: Camera choice
Post by: ArithonUK on December 08, 2011, 08:31:45 AM
The Panasonic G series are a good starting point (on price vs quality) but if you want something great, you'll need to spend £400-500. The Canon EOS 1100D (Rebel) or the Nikon D3100 are both good starter DSLR's and have great built-in guides. Handy for photo noobs!

You can also pick up some good camera bodies and lens second hand. Most photographers are religious about keeping equipment in good condition and often sell lens when they buy newer or better models. Don't be afraid to look on eBay. Just do your homework first.