Looking For Superior Quality Digital P/S Camera For Wife

[carbonman]

I'm aware that "superior quality" and "point and shoot" tend to come from opposing ends of the spectrum.
I have a Nikon CoolPix 4300. It takes great pictures, but has horrific lag between depressing the release and the exposure actually being taken. I can live with this most of the time because I usually photograph stationary objects. My wife likes to shoot pictures of people and event happening, and the time lag really irks her.
I want to buy her a really good, fast, bright LCD display (even in sunlight) easy to use digital camera that she can put in a pocket or purse. Price isn't really a consideration. I'd like to have it use SD cards. Image quality needs to be very good, though she won't be doing huge enlargements or shooting professionally. My wife is literally a P/S kind of photographer, so simplicity of operation is important.
One camera I'm considering is the Panasonic DMC-FX7 (with vibration/camera shake damping built in), or one of the Canons. I'm just starting my search and have 3 weeks before her birthday. Suggestions from users, including drawbacks is much appreciated.
Thanks very much. I'd do lots of research on my own, but I have a night course to get up and running in less than 3 weeks and life is chaotic right now.

 

[ProAc_Fan]

Sorry to say but if lack of lag time is a major concern you really are forced to look at a digital SLR camera. All other digital camera's have a fairly substantial lag time. I see nothing wrong with your choice of the Panasonic though. The Leica lens is supposed to be pretty nice. I prefer a camera from a camera manufacturer like Nikon or Canon personally.

Good Luck

BTW my digital is a few years old Canon G3 and its always done the job for me. A bit too big to fit in ones pocket but no camera that tiny is worth it to me. IMHO

Mike

 

[zobsky]

I see nothing wrong with your choice of the Panasonic though. The Leica lens is supposed to be pretty nice. I prefer a camera from a camera manufacturer like Nikon or Canon personally.

Mike

I own the panasonic fz10 (see my vacation photo thread) so can't comment directly on the panasonic you were looking at. that said, shutter lag is negligable BUT the focussing is a bit on the slow side (not too bad, ..but wanted to mention it, since response seems to be a concern of yours). there are 2 workarounds i can think about on my camera

a. pre-focus (there is a useful lever on the lens which can be toggled between auto focus, manual focus and temporary auto over-ride for manual focus)
b. the camera also has a continuous auto focus mode which might work (never tried this one out)

Just my $0.02

 

[styler]

Canon

i have a canon powershot and it works quite well. yet, it too is not the fastest gun in the west. from what i remember reading, the Nikon and Olympus have faster pic speed and recovery times.
tyler

 

[jasoncauthron]

As mentioned above, the shutter lag and slow response time seem to be something you have to live with in P&S digital cameras right now. I don't understand exactly why it's so hard to make them more responsive--.
That's one of the factors that drove me to a DSLR, though I was headed in that direction anyway.

The Panasonic DMC-FX7 does seem to be a good choice at its price-point and its physical size. From looking briefly at reviews, it seems to be one of the fastest small P&S cameras. I think it gives up a little image quality to some of the other "camera manufacturer" cameras like Canon (I've always liked the A-series P&S's), Nikon, Olympus, etc., but that doesn't mean anything if you miss the shot because the camera is too slow. If you just print 4x6's, you'll never see the difference.

I don't think you mentioned a budget, but Sony's DSC-V3 is also a very well-reviewed camera. It's substantially larger and more expensive. I've not been a big fan of Sony cameras, but it's another one that comes to mind when you mention "fast P&S". It's also 7Mp. The best thing about more megapixels is being able to crop for better compostion and still maintain good dpi for printing. I find I do this a lot when taking pictures of kids: Capture the shot (wider angles) then crop for effect.

dpreview.com is my favorite digital camera review site. The forums there can also be pretty helpful.

Jason

 

[Photobitstream]

The shortest lag time you're going to find on any digital point and shoot is about three-quarters of a second. Most of them are around one second, and a few even longer. This seems like an eternity when trying to catch a fleeting smile.

I'm a professional photographer. I went digital four years ago and will never go back to film. I've worn out four Canon digital SLRs. The image quality spanks 35mm film in every way. The Canon EOS 20D is approaching medium format quality. However, as much as I love digital, it is not yet the right solution for everyone.

The least expensive digital cameras that do not suffer from painfully long shutter delay are the Canon Digital Rebel and the Nikon D70, but your wife would need a very large purse for either of those. What she needs is a small film camera. Go to keh.com and look for a good used Yashica T3 or something similar.

The image quality on the P&S digitals is nothing close to the quality of larger DLSRs, because the pixels are packed so tightly on the smaller sensors' leading to light scatter bleeding among adjacent pixels. A small 35mm film camera with a good lens will beat any P&S digital camera in image quality, assuming good film and proper printing, and will not have the annoying shutter lag that will make your wife miss shots.

If she argues that she wants the convenience of digital tell her she can have her images scanned onto CD when she gets the film developed. And remind her that convenience is useless if she misses the moment because of the shutter delay.

 

[danj]

I bought a Sony Cybershot. I tried several brands before I settled on the Sony. The main reason I picked it was because it has a very short shutter lag. It seems to be on a par - or even a tad faster - than my AF 35 P&S cameras and was faster than any other camera in its price range (about $300 street).

The Sonys have a great metering system and some even have spot-metering and spot-focus capability (great for macro shots) and very good lenses. The only problem area is in flash strength, which seems a bit weak. It's fine for normal distance but is pretty much useless over about 12 feet.

My Cybershot with f3.5 lens has a shorter flash distance than my f3.5 Olympus P&S film camera with 100 ISO film, despite the Olympus flash being about 1/2 the physical size of the Sony flash. However, the Sony flash has minimal rollof with wider angle shots so I guess the trade-off is acceptable.

The Cybershot styling is a bit different. Not everyone likes it but I find they fit my hand better than most other small digitals.

Oh yeah, the color quality is great and battery life is very good.

I'm quite pleased with my Sony. :thmbsp: