The Cellar - My Canon went kaboom!

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Yeah, the size is a good point HLJ. I have a backpack for my camera and all its accoutrement (including a little Sony cybershot)... kind of a pain.

I bought mine because it's very portable and for the 10x optical zoom. Digital zoom sucks. I don't want to lug around big cameras or change lenses. You can keep it in your pocket. It's pretty sweet.

I've been working on my motorcycle carburetors this week and have been using the Canon to record each piece as I take it apart. The Nikon would be better for this job because it can be focused manually, but I'm concerned about getting it greasy or damaged. The smaller cameras seem more rugged.

For me, the only draw of an SLR over the SLR-like cameras like the PowerShot A720 IS is that the sensor's physical size is usually larger. A larger sensor will generally have less noise.

Griff, you probably never noticed the noise in your 3.2 megapixel camera, but as they are squeezing more pixels into CCDs without increasing the physical size of the chip, the noise has been going up dramatically. This is especially apparent in low light situations where high ISO settings are used. SLRs usually have physically larger chips, so all those pixels aren't squeezed together so tightly, and noise isn't so bad. Frankly, for a point and shoot, I don't see the point of having more than 5 megapixels. The noise trade off is too great. But manufacturers disagree with me.

Noise is a big deal these days in high megapixel cameras. I suggest looking very closely at examples of pictures taken in low light situations on the dpreview web site. I got a Panasonic DMC-FZ7 and love it except for all the noise. Check out this sample from the dpreview web site to see what I mean. Unfortunately, they didn't take any pictures with the PowerShot A720 IS at higher sensitivity, so you can't see the noise effect for that particular camera. You can go to flickr though, and see samples of pictures taken by various cameras.

Agreed, noise is bad.

There are cameras, that for nominally identical settings, one is noiser than the other. Some of this delta is due to the camera/sensor's sensitivity, and some of it is because there isn't a direct object conversion to digital, shared among manufacturers for the wet-film concept of ISO.

The answer, of course, is try it out for yourself.

I don't know how my camera compares to this one or that one wrt noise, but I do know how it compares to my standards for noise. And, I have found that lately I've become something of a noise snob. I don't like it. Since I have just the one camera, and I am otherwise pretty happy with it in toto, I have to take other steps to turn down the noise.

For me, that means shooting at the lowest possible "ISO" setting, and using my other options to compensate for the exposure. Finding a camera with a complete set of manual controls is necessary for this. I must say that I doubted (ever so briefly) HLJ's statement that his camera didn't have a manual focus mode (He was right, I was wrong, it does not). I would consider this kind of design choice unacceptable for my needs, and probably yours too.

While I'm on my high horse, I just want to say that 10x optical zoom is quite impressive and that "digital zoom" is no better than simply moving your head closer to the screen. Do not be mislead.

My Canon went Kaboom!
No! to Backyard Fireworks

pls redo.. link fubar.

Image stabilization. :thumb:

These photos were taken using the previous version of the camera that I have. This is the TZ3K.

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/panasonic/dmc-tz3

My TZ4K is the best portable point & shoot camera I've ever had. I can't speak highly enough about it.

I've got the A710 IS, but it has been replaced with the 720, more pixels.
here is a random shot, intentionally underexposed a half stop to preserve detail in the peaflower.

For a random shot, that's pretty nice.

My Canon went kaboom!

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 468056)

For a random shot, that's pretty nice.

I'm telling you it's the camera. Awesome.

(thanks)

It's a modest worker that credits the tool.