Digital cameras great leaps forward

[KeithT]

It is over 3yrs since I bought or even looked at new digital camera.
I view them in the same way as computers, make your choice carefully and once you have bought don't look at specs or prices again until you absoutely have to because even the next day you will find something better/faster at the price.
My wife's camera has gone on the blink and probably not worth repairing so 2 days ago I 'invested' in a Panasonic Lumix DMC ZS3 which seems to combine straightforward Point and Shoot with quite alot of advanced 'trickery' - for me to use...
The results of even the first shot are startling, the one below is taken straight from the box on Auto and because of file size limitations has to be reduced from over 4.5Kb to just 104Kb but the shot in the next post shows the amount of detail available in the original and even that is degraded from the original.
No longer will I struggle to get close-ups of parts of a loco etc in fact, the original shows individual specs of dust!

 

[KeithT]

 

[Bredebahn]

'tis true that they get better by the year. A good lens is still the most important part in my view and worth spending the money on - Panasonic lenses are under the Leica licence, so should be no quality problems there. Only problem is that with the increased quality comes increased pixel count and hence increased storage space requirement - worth buying another hard drive (and an internal drive is both cheap and easy to install - an external drive may not have such a cost advantage but is usually plug in and go) and dedicating it to the storage of your photos. And back them up regularly.

 

[KeithT]

'tis true that they get better by the year. A good lens is still the most important part in my view and worth spending the money on - Panasonic lenses are under the Leica licence, so should be no quality problems there. Only problem is that with the increased quality comes increased pixel count and hence increased storage space requirement - worth buying another hard drive (and an internal drive is both cheap and easy to install - an external drive may not have such a cost advantage but is usually plug in and go) and dedicating it to the storage of your photos. And back them up regularly.

You are absolutely right about both size and backup.
I have at least 6 external HDDs in use 2 of which are used to backup what is on the others!
It is very tempting to buy just one massive mega Terrabyte drive but of course when that goes belly up you lose the lot!:crying:

 

[KeithT]

'tis true that they get better by the year. A good lens is still the most important part in my view and worth spending the money on - Panasonic lenses are under the Leica licence, so should be no quality problems there. Only problem is that with the increased quality comes increased pixel count and hence increased storage space requirement - worth buying another hard drive (and an internal drive is both cheap and easy to install - an external drive may not have such a cost advantage but is usually plug in and go) and dedicating it to the storage of your photos. And back them up regularly.

One reason for purchasing this camera was the Leica lens and it's extended optical zoom facility, 12x from 27mm-300mm (35mm equivalent).
Its only real drawback is the lack of an optical viewfinder.

 

[railwayman198]

That's very impressive. I'm currently looking to buy a decent compact camera and I've narrowed my choice to either the Panasonic LX3 or the Canon G11. They are both good but I like the swivel LCD screen on the Canon and the fast f2.0 lens on the Panasonic. Now if only they made the G11 with a faster lens or the Panasonic with a swivel screen it would be easy....but life's never that simple.

Your shot certainly shows what the Leica lenses are capable of.

 

[KeithT]

That's very impressive. I'm currently looking to buy a decent compact camera and I've narrowed my choice to either the Panasonic LX3 or the Canon G11. They are both good but I like the swivel LCD screen on the Canon and the fast f2.0 lens on the Panasonic. Now if only they made the G11 with a faster lens or the Panasonic with a swivel screen it would be easy....but life's never that simple.

Your shot certainly shows what the Leica lenses are capable of.

.. and I wasn't even trying with that shot!"
The swivel screen is very tempting especially if you are using it for ground level shots of a railway.
I don't know about the two cameras you mention but this is a very reliable Review site. I have used it for years.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/
Incidentally the Lumix also does a most impressive HD video. This is becoming more common on point and shoot cameras too.

 

[KeithT]

Yes the quality of digital photography is now excellent, but very few people need pictures of 12,000 pixels..............there's just no need !

I will settle for the 4.5K of this one and it is true pixels are not the be all and end all of digital photography. The size of the sensor receptors is very relevant.
Many high end digital SLRs have pixel counts of appreciably less than 10K but produce phenomenal results because they have larger receptor cells than pocket cameras.

Another case of a good big'un beats a good little'un.

 

[Bredebahn]

The benefit of a huge megapixel count is that you can take on maximum quality and then crop into your picture heavily without compromising the resolution to any serious degree. Selective enlargements are a cinch! But if you don't do this regularly (because you are able to frame properly in the first place) then you could be wasting storage space by taking best quality images (and I always do, just in case I accidentally manage a masterpiece). But hey, storage is cheap. In fact digital photography is ridiculously cheap compared to film - once you've bought the camera that is.

Incidentally I use a Canon DSLR and a Panasonic DMC FZ50 "bridge" camera. I've also got a tiny Fuji compact the size of a fag packet which I carry around with me "just in case".