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Help girlfriend decide on a point and shoot

A

asiansgoweeee

Guest
Hello, my girlfriend is looking to spend >$400 on a digital point and shoot camera. She wants a decent zoom lens, less noise the better, raw (but not a must), relatively small, and decent shutter lag. i am not sure what to recommend her because the only experience i'd had with p+s is my grd2 which doesnt quite meet her requirements. I know panasonics and the canon g series are talked about a lot but i dont know much about either. any suggestions will help, we hope to then go to a local camera shop and see if they fit her well.

Thanks,
Tim
 

Lili

New member
Hello, my girlfriend is looking to spend >$400 on a digital point and shoot camera. She wants a decent zoom lens, less noise the better, raw (but not a must), relatively small, and decent shutter lag. i am not sure what to recommend her because the only experience i'd had with p+s is my grd2 which doesnt quite meet her requirements. I know panasonics and the canon g series are talked about a lot but i dont know much about either. any suggestions will help, we hope to then go to a local camera shop and see if they fit her well.

Thanks,
Tim
Tim,
Does she want a compact camera?
 

nostatic

New member
Have her check out the Panasonic LX-2 (equivalent to the Leica D-Lux 3). Incredible iq and bang for the buck imho. I just printed out some images at 16x20 and am going to go to 24x36 because they looked amazing.
 

Photon-hunter

New member
Hi there!!
After too much research, and being affected by "parallysis by anallysis" I purchased a Panasonic LX-2. I couldn´t be happier!!. Full control or full dummy programs. 16:9 aspect ratio and a lens that is so sharp that it HURTS. Small, quiet and a joy to use. Great image quality too. And best of all, easy to use, you (she) will be one with it in very little time.

Highly recomended!!

Cheers.
 

Brian Mosley

New member
I've still got my Panasonic LX1 and it's a little gem... very reliable and good quality manufacture. Rich Simpson has the Leica version of the LX2 and recently bought a GX100. Either are excellent.

Kind Regards

Brian
 

Lisa

New member
I've been looking for a better pocket digicam for awhile, and the LX2 looks great *except* (and it's a big "except") the images are very noisy, according to the review at DPReview (compared with many other small-sensor cameras - it's not comparing with DSLRs). Can the LX2 devotees here comment on the noise levels? Have you compared them with other digicams? How much of a problem is noise, and how do you deal with it?

Lisa

P.S. To the original poster, I currently have a Fujifilm F30. That line of Fujifilm's digicams (now up the F100, I believe) are reputed to have excellent (low-noise) sensors, but don't have raw (which is why I'm hoping to eventually find something better). Other than the lack of raw and histograms, I'm very happy with it.
 
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nostatic

New member
I don't find noise to be a problem...I do find dpreview to be...um..."challenged" sometimes.

I printed some of these images at 16x20 and they were beautiful (to my eyes, as well as others who have seen them). If it were as horribly noisy as DPR said, printing that large would suck, no?

http://nostatic.com/photos/hk08/
 

Terry

New member
I've been looking for a better pocket digicam for awhile, and the LX2 looks great *except* (and it's a big "except") the images are very noisy, according to the review at DPReview (compared with many other small-sensor cameras - it's not comparing with DSLRs). Can the LX2 devotees here comment on the noise levels? Have you compared them with other digicams? How much of a problem is noise, and how do you deal with it?

Lisa

P.S. To the original poster, I currently have a Fujifilm F30. That line of Fujifilm's digicams (now up the F100, I believe) are reputed to have excellent (low-noise) sensors, but don't have raw (which is why I'm hoping to eventually find something better). Other than the lack of raw and histograms, I'm very happy with it.
Lisa,
I have the D-lux3 if you want me to send you a couple of RAW files. I used to shoot the camera mainly as jpeg so it would take me a day or so to get some new files for you.
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Either the D-lux3 or the Panasonic equivalent(DMC-lx2), however it depends on your girlfriend's expected use of the camera. These cameras are throughly capable of producing images that can reasonably print to the 16x20 neighborhood. However, my wife Cynthia, for instance, finds the LX2 "too hard" and prefers a Canon 850 IX even though I hate the files, they are just the ticket for the 4x6 output she generally asks me to print for her.
-bob
 

Lisa

New member
Lisa,
I have the D-lux3 if you want me to send you a couple of RAW files. I used to shoot the camera mainly as jpeg so it would take me a day or so to get some new files for you.
Thank would be great, TEB, if it isn't too much of a problem. Heck, even a jpeg or two would give me some idea. How do you want to do it - do you have a place you can post them I can download them from, or email?

Thanks very much,
Lisa
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
Lisa, I could mail you one or two right now if you would like. PM me your address.
-bob
 
A

asiansgoweeee

Guest
yeah shes sure she wants a p+s she really wants something she can stick in her purse or pocket for snapshots and what not. My email is [email protected] so yeah any raw images anyone wants to send to me woudl be greatly appreciated so i can show sarah and see which cameras performance captures her eye.
 

Terry

New member
Thank would be great, TEB, if it isn't too much of a problem. Heck, even a jpeg or two would give me some idea. How do you want to do it - do you have a place you can post them I can download them from, or email?

Thanks very much,
Lisa
I will put them in my public folder on .mac and will PM you with the url
 
M

micampe

Guest
Thank would be great, TEB, if it isn't too much of a problem. Heck, even a jpeg or two would give me some idea. How do you want to do it - do you have a place you can post them I can download them from, or email?
Hi Lisa, I have the LX2 and I think noise is visible over 400ISO but not really a problem. In low light I find that the JPEGs from the camera are quite bad, but you can get nice results from the RAWs. See my Flickr stream for JPEG examples. Full size and EXIF are available, if you want me to send the RAWs for some of them just ask.

And to the original poster, I have another friend who is a P&S user and he quite likes his LX2 too.
 
V

VladimirV

Guest
If she does not need manual controlls or RAW then the Ricoh R8 or Panasonic TZ5 should do a great job and are the most versatile compact cameras you can find. Not a lot of noise but some smearing instead so it depends on your preference.
 
A

asiansgoweeee

Guest
Thanks for all the help everybody, i let her read this thread and she was surprised at all the input given. Just on specs alone she seems to be really interested in the lx2 and the g9 (or g7). I think the lack of an optical viewfinder on the lx2 is what worries her and on the canons she is unsure if image quality is on par with the lx2. Hopefully we'll be able to find both of them at a camera shop nearby and find out which one fits her better.

Thanks again
Tim
 
A

asiansgoweeee

Guest
looks like more questions just pop up as we narrow down the cameras she is interested in. Here is the rundown. she read that the lx2 has a 10-12 second raw write time for each shot, can someone with an lx2 tell me if this is correct? the gx100 seems to have a write time of about 8-10 seconds with a faster card once again clarification would be great and is the optional electronic viewfinder worth shelling out for (is it equivalent to an OVF?). Last, the G9 how is the image quality compared to the former cameras mentioned because i've read distortion problems and color smearing even when shooting raw as opposed to the other 2. Thanks everybody, hopefully she will make up her decsion soon enough and we will stop bugging everybody.

Thanks,
Tim
 
... she read that the lx2 has a 10-12 second raw write time for each shot, can someone with an lx2 tell me if this is correct?....
Oh no, it´s not nearly that bad... I´d say the write time to a 2 GB SanDisk Extreme III is around 3 sec, not more. Not even my old-but-great Digilux 2 takes more than 6 sec, except in low light, where some extra "black noise subtraction" kicks in.
 
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