Travelling quite a lot for work at the moment, taking in some interesting places, and regretting having nothing better than my iPhone or, if I ask nicely, Mrs Beest's Ixus 70 to record my visual impressions. So I'm in the market for something capable but small - not Ixus-tiny but not G12 bulky either: I want it to go in my laptop bag when my work gear is already in there, and preferably into a coat pocket if I'm out in the evening - I love taking pictures of cities at night.
It seems to be a swelling market. The only one I've handled so far is a Fuji X10 (in Currys, of all places, where the 'photo-knowledgeable' elf who was summoned to help me really had no idea what it was - he was far more set on selling me something with a whopping zoom ratio and pixel count.) The X10 is beautiful to hold - mechanical zoom ring feels fabulous - and look through, and seems to do well in low light, but it's right at the top end of the acceptable size range.
Canon's S100 appeals because I know and like the Canon user interface, and it's certainly small enough, but the penalty is in lens speed and so possibly low-light performance, and it may actually be too small for my Beestly hooves. The Olympus XZ-1 might be a good inbetween bet; anyone tried one, or got another suggestion?
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Mrs ManWithNoName has recently bought herself a Panasonic Lumix. Very neat and tidy with good features but nothing whacky or techy.
Tempted to get one meself when the DSLR is too big to lug around.
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Lumix tz series every time for me, although not light due to actually being made (in Japan) of metal.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Wed 19 Sep 12 at 19:36
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Love my Olympus pen to bits and it takes storming photos.
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I take it that the A640 is too large for the task?
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Thanks, Spammers, but the TZs are in a way the exact opposite of what I'm after: they have tiny sensors and tiny maximum apertures, which is how they extract impressive numbers from a small package. I don't need the tele end of the zoom - a 90mm equiv would be plenty - but a bigger sensor and a wide aperture would make a big difference to the kind of pictures I like to take.
Pen? Hmmm, nice idea - as is its Panasonic counterpart the GX1 - and answers the sensor size question, but I think it's too big for the bag, even with a little 17mm lens.
And TMWNN: which Lumix model is it? The LX5 looks nice, and goes out to 24mm equiv, which I like. But I'd have to convince myself I could live with the Panasonic controls, which I find hard work when I borrow a Beestling's FS.
Tyro, yes. I did take the A640 to South Africa last year, but I was there for a week and checked in a suitcase for the flight, so weight and space were less of a concern. It wouldn't do for most of my trips, much as I like it.
Finally (for now) have a look at the preview articles on the Fuji XF1. It's a bit restricted in the aperture department but I can forgive it that for looking like something pinched from the set of Mad Men. Given what I've written here about retro design - Roberts Revival, Rover 75 - this is perverse, I know. But just look at it! I may have to see about buying one for Mrs Beest - with matching case, of course - just so I can borrow it.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Wed 19 Sep 12 at 21:35
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How about the Nikon P7100?
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You know the XZ-1 is the one so why faff about.
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Recently bought a Canon sx230 hs.Nice chunky feel and weight with easily operated controls.Ususal canon excellent quality and battery life.Even got £30 cash back from Canon offer.
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>> But I'd have to convince myself I could live with the Panasonic controls
Except you don't need to. If you leave it on "Intelligent Auto" it'll take a far better picture than you ever will fiddling with the controls in normal use. Manual options are only required for effect work.
One of the best things about the Lumix series is that the Auto mode is the best in the business and capable of handling every lighting condition I've chucked at my FZ18. The image stabilisation is top notch too. I have pin-sharp pics that I took from the deck of a racing yacht in a choppy North Sea using the full zoom (a tad over 500mm in 35mm equivalence terms). Long tele is well worth having when it can be used handheld, you're probably still thinking old skool where such focal lengths were strictly for tripod and shutter release cable use.
Downside is that the flash sucks. Then again, I have an Olympus OM40 35mm film camera and an Olympus T32 flash unit for it. Every camera using inbuilt flash is utter rubbish by comparison to that, so I maybe just being too picky here.
The only thing I'd change about the FZ18 is to add a hot shoe for a real flashgun. Especially as I have a really good one sitting idle.
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If you already have a Micro Four Thirds camera I would look into getting an Olympus Pen or something similar. I love my G2 to bits, but with the lens, external flash etc I need a ruck sack to carry it!.
This is the sort of thing I can just randomly take with it, all shot in fully automatic mode in dusk lighting conditions. This should demonstrate how good the Intelligent Auto system actually is! I could have got better if I did all manually but by the time I messed about with ISO/shutter and aperture settings the moment would have been gone.
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/P1010714_zps8c320e51.jpg
Taken with my 45-200mm lens.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 13:53
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Nice clear pic Rattle, I can even read the Ryanair logo without me glasses.
Any more pics taken with your 45-200mm jobbie?
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Mrs TMWNN's is a Panasonic DMC (lots of numbers & letters). She got it from Comet and it was less than £100 (so she tells me) ;-).
It proved its worth at a visit to the Paralympics with its great lens and optical zoom.
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I took this with the new lens for some reason, it was just one of those accidental pictures which I thought worked out brilliantly.
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/P1010388.jpg
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/P1010560_zps27f29aab.jpg
A couple of good shots with the original lens.
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/P1010053_zps09478f1b.jpg
And a routemaster in Blackpool, the last place you would expect to see them in service!
i167.photobucket.com/albums/u141/amazingtrade/P1010186_zpsa9db48ba.jpg
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 13:56
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Ah! - the RM, always reminds me of my humble origins.
Good pics, great camera in low-light conditions, did you see these amazing photos:
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/picture-galleries/9551435/The-2012-Astronomy-Photographer-of-the-Year-competition-winners.html
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>> >> But I'd have to convince myself I could live with the Panasonic controls
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>> Except you don't need to. If you leave it on "Intelligent Auto" it'll take a
>> far better picture than you ever will fiddling with the controls in normal use.
That's always good to know. I've had my LX3 for almost 2 years, and sometimes feel a little guilty that there are 1001 things to fiddle with, but I just take all my pics with "Intelligent Auto".
I must say, by way, that the LX3 generally gets the lighting and focus right, which is more than can be said for my Samsung WB600.
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Sorry to bring this one up again, but I now find myself asking a similar question to Mr deBeest - except that I am just about prepared to put up with the size of a Canon G12, (or the G15 that has just replaced it). I've got an old Nikon D80 dslr, but I find it too bulky to take on flights and I'm looking for something smaller but reasonably capable.
I just wonder if anyone has any experience or opinions of the G12 or G15, and I am curious to know what Mr de Beest bought in the end.
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Well, nothing yet, Mr Wain. (May I call you Hay?) But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a Canon S100, which is the most pocketable of the bunch - and therefore the least likely to be left behind - while still having all the controllability and quality attributes I'm looking for, missing out only on lens speed at the tele end. I'm watching prices carefully at the moment, waiting for the new S110 model to push them down into the sub-£250 range I'm prepared to pay.
Last week I borrowed a Beestling's Lumix FS-15 to take to southeast Europe. That showed me two things: (1) I enjoy the trip more if I have a camera with me, and (2) the little Lumix isn't quite good enough to get the job full time, mostly because it's slow and too often struggles to focus. But it went everywhere I did, so I got pictures I'd have missed if I'd taken my A640 or a G12 instead.
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Yes, there are plenty of low prices advertised but the sites refer to taxes and import duties being taken care of, which makes me wonder where on earth the goods are coming from. (At least one I've checked out ships from Hong Kong.) Nothing dodgy - probably - but modern cameras are complex pieces of miniature engineering and not immune to quality and reliability problems, so I want mine to come from a traceable UK retailer who'll stand by it if it has a problem. Don't mind paying a little more for that.
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I've settled to what I think they call a travel zoom and it has overall been my best camera ever. Bought it after returning a rather poor Lumix bridge type camera under a 14 day swap offer. That was in July 2011 and subject to a long thread here.
It's a Sony HX5V 10mp with 10x zoom & 25mm at the wide end. Not as fast a lens as the Canon S100 at wide angle but otherwise similar. Full HD video, stereo sound, GPS tagging, panorama mode, 10fps burst mode and most important it does everything so well on auto 99% of the time that's where the dial stays. Very good in low light too which is important to me.
It's not a tiny camera but still passes the shirt pocket test and for that reason can be on hand all the time as you said with borrowing the FS-15.
In fact it's so good I've just bought my daughter the same model (from ebay) for a trip to Iceland as I know she will get stunning results from stills and video in that impressive landscape.
It's a discontinued model so not advising one for you, just supporting the travel zoom concept.
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Oh dear, now I can see that I have two problems; not only what camera do I get, but in addition - where do I get it from? The situation seems to have worsened in the 5 or 6 years since I was last looking for a camera.
I've just been checking out the price of the new Canon G15 and I would prefer to patronise the local branch of a large national camera specialist supplier where it is priced at £549. However, it appears that web suppliers have it for as low as £325. I don't mind paying, say, a £40 premium, but £200+ is a bit much.
I think I read that there had been a recall on the earlier S100 models, so goodness only knows where you would stand with a web supplier. I suppose, for a £200 difference, it might simply be worth the gamble.
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Just to bring this one up to date - I decided to buy a Nikon Coolpix P7100. It was £319 with a spare Nikon battery + case thrown in from Wex in Norwich. As you can normally expect with technology, the price had dropped by a further £20 4 days after I had bought it!
I came to my decision after checking out a friend's P7000 - the P7100 is very similar in appearance, but some features have been improved. So far, I am only at the 'playing about with it' stage but it looks very promising. My mate uses his alongside a Nikon D300 SLR and has found that, most of the time, it's the smaller one that he takes out with him.
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Looks like a good choice, Hay, and a good deal. The P7000 (as you know but the others may not) was Nikon's attempt at a rival for the Canon G-series but with a longer long end to the zoom. What I've read is that it was let down by poor response times, but that the P7100 has fixed that and is a pretty decent pocketful of camera. Hope you enjoy using it.
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"Hope you enjoy using it."
Thank you, Will. As you say, the P7100 has a longer zoom and it has been speeded up significantly. The 7.1x zoom is said to be equivalent to a 28-200mm 35mm (I still think in 35mm!); this is approaching the range of the 18-200mm that I use as a standard lens on the D80. I find that range covers almost everything I want to do; if I want a close-up of a bird, I'll use the BSA Airsporter rather than the Nikon to shoot it with ;-)
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Quick update: it took six months but the wait for the right deal on an S100 eventually paid off. Currys, as previously ridiculed, got hold of a batch of silver ones and priced them at £230. Decent rather than spectacular value, perhaps, until I realized that I could pay for the whole thing with vouchers from my points-mean-prizes credit card. So I did; picked it up this morning.
Impressed by how easy it is to use, at least for a Canon habitué like me, despite so much capability in a tiny package barely bigger than the Ixus 70. I intend to get into the habit of taking it everywhere, not just on trips. Best camera is the one you have with you and all that.
Hope Hay's enjoying his Nikon.
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"Hope Hay's enjoying his Nikon."
Thanks, Will, yes! It has become the camera that I grab if we're going anywhere; I only use the D80 when I haven't got to carry it far.
I like the fact that the P7100 has an optical viewfinder, though I find increasingly that I'm using the screen on the back and I appreciate the easy access to dials on the camera body rather than having to scroll through menu screens. I admit that I seem to learn something new about it every time I take it out.
I suppose I have never 'done video' so I thought I'd better have a go this afternoon before I replied on here. Certainly the video worked alright, but I'm not sure how good it was in comparison to other cameras. It looked a bit 'blue' to me when I played it back on the computer, so maybe I've got something set wrong; I need to consult the manual again!
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the price had gone down to (IIRC) £199, or maybe it was £219 - anyway, it was about £100 less than I had paid 4 months earlier. Then it appeared that Wex had dropped the model altogether (it's no longer on their website) so maybe it has been discontinued. There's a lot of competition in this sector of the market, and I see now that the Canon G15 has dropped considerably in price. Maybe that is because these cameras fall somewhere between shirt-pocket cameras and DSLRs and there isn't the demand for them?
Enjoy the S100!
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I have a Nikon D90 with the 18-105mm lens which matched my original Nikon film equivalent but, to be absolutely honest, my HTC One X (8Mp) is just as good both still and video wise and much more convenient to carry around...:-)
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Some compact cameras (with small sensors) seem to be more expensive than entry level DSLR cameras!
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Well I have eventually bought a new(to me) second hand from ebay one of these.. tinyurl.com/cgxuwbq
Nice and light and superb piccies.. and as simple as they can be for point and shoot.
(I never buy cameras new: the change in technology makes them depreciate faster than cars)
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>> (I never buy cameras new: the change in technology makes them depreciate faster than cars)
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Me too, I recently bought one of these in as new boxed condition for less than half its current new price from a high street pawnbroker. (Mine is black).
tinyurl.com/cywjn9v
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Ahh the value travel zoom club...
I mentioned my Sony HX5-V (similar spec/concept to both your cameras) on this thread in Oct and the fact I'd bought my teen daughter the identical model for a week in Iceland. She returned with some stunning shots and HD video all taken on auto. It only cost £62 on Ebay and operates as if new.
The more I use this camera type the more I conclude it is producing my best overall photography experience including the hobby Pentax SLR period.
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Travel camera: spoilt for choice - TheManWithNoName
