LarryBerman
Reged: 03/07/05
Posts: 1239
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I sold a few items earlier this year with the intention of purchasing either the Nikon CoolPix P6000 or the Canon G10. But after reading reviews and seeing images posted to the forums, I'm going to wait a year hoping the megapixel race is over in the point and shoot arena. I'm happily shooting away with my 8 megapixel Ricoh GRD.
So, what am I looking for in a point and shoot? Wide angle to 28mm minimum, the option to turn off noise reduction (think grain) and excellent image quality at base ISO. All the other features can be work arounds. I'm still using the 2004 CoolPix 8400, the last of the great Nikon CoolPix cameras which also includes the 8800. But the Ricoh GRD with it's 28mm lens is something else. I regularly shoot in black and white mode at ISO 1600 (above picture) and find the minimally processed noise looks like pushed Tri-X. I love shooting black and white now like I did 35 years ago.
I considered the Sigma DP1 but after using the GRD for a year, I'd be happier with even a 2X zoom.
So, what is everyone else looking for in a compact camera?
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Larry Berman
BermanGraphics.com
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David_B_Brooks
Reged: 03/04/05
Posts: 1590
Loc: Santa Barbara County, CA
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Either the Canon G10 or the Sigma DP-1 would suit me fine if I really wanted something lighter and smaller than my Canon 5D to lug around. I really don't comprehend what it is that is not satisfying. Do you really think specification competition will ever end - it never did for all of the years of film cameras during my lifetime, and that is a pretty long time.
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David B. Brooks
Contributor, Shutterbug Magazine
Blog: http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/
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LarryBerman
Reged: 03/07/05
Posts: 1239
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Eliminating the Sigma from the equation, there is hardly, if any improvement in image quality from four year old cameras. All we're seeing is more megapixels. In fact, when I reviewed the five megapixel CoolPix 5000 for Shutterbug in 2002, I was making 12x18 prints that were regularly mistaken for medium format film by photographers seeing them hanging in my booth at art shows.
Since this is a wish list forum, I want to see manufacturers give us a way to turn off noise processing. There was nothing wrong with grain when we shot film and there should be nothing wrong with noise which looks more natural then the smearing that the manufacturers do to minimize noise.
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Either the Canon G10 or the Sigma DP-1 would suit me fine if I really wanted something lighter and smaller than my Canon 5D to lug around. I really don't comprehend what it is that is not satisfying. Do you really think specification competition will ever end - it never did for all of the years of film cameras during my lifetime, and that is a pretty long time.
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Larry Berman
BermanGraphics.com
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David_B_Brooks
Reged: 03/04/05
Posts: 1590
Loc: Santa Barbara County, CA
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Larry,
Your describing the situation on the assumption more image resolution does not contribute to more image quality. On that I have to disagree vehemently that given any print size chosen 8x10 or 11x14 a picture made from my old 8MPX dSLR compared to one made with my current 13MPX dSLR makes a dramatic difference in better quality you should definitely see unless you are legally blind. And, I sure wouldn't depend on the judgement of hooples at a local fair as any useful criteria, just walk into most of their living rooms and see how badly adjusted most people TV's are, even green skinned newscasters, and popular opinion's value goes down to the floor.
I don't know what all the options are on the menu of a Canon G10, but my Canon dSLR does support turning off virtually all chip post exposure processing, although some of the noise reduction is not part of the post exposure processing, so cannot be eliminated entirely as it is selected by the ISO and other setting factors that may induce noise. And why do you call noise grain? It's a digital, not a film camera. What looks like grain, not just in shadows, is pixelation usually resulting from too much sharpening.
And also I found very little difference other than optical in the Images I made with a $400 12MPX Sony cigarette package size P&S and my dSLR, that cost another $2500 without a lens!
Sorry I am not being contentious just to be a pain you know where, we really see things very differently. But from my perspective wouldn't life be a bore if we didn't.
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David B. Brooks
Contributor, Shutterbug Magazine
Blog: http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/
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LarryBerman
Reged: 03/07/05
Posts: 1239
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I'm talking about small sensor point and shoot cameras, not DSLR's where the quality of the pixels is better. With the small cameras, there reaches a point of diminishing returns on how many megapixels squeezed into a small sensor will produce a good image.
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Your describing the situation on the assumption more image resolution does not contribute to more image quality. On that I have to disagree vehemently that given any print size chosen 8x10 or 11x14 a picture made from my old 8MPX dSLR compared to one made with my current 13MPX dSLR makes a dramatic difference in better quality you should definitely see unless you are legally blind.
You sound like the article on Michael Reichmann's web site where they wrote that you couldn't see the difference between a print from the Canon G10 and the 39 megapixel Hasselblad
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And also I found very little difference other than optical in the Images I made with a $400 12MPX Sony cigarette package size P&S and my dSLR, that cost another $2500 without a lens!
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Larry Berman
BermanGraphics.com
Edited by LarryBerman (11/11/08 06:37 AM)
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David_B_Brooks
Reged: 03/04/05
Posts: 1590
Loc: Santa Barbara County, CA
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Larry,
I am not saying you are wrong in applying the criteria that you do. Those principle do apply, as size of each sensor site is reduced there is less light to generate a current from the site to trigger an acurate reading and pixel data output.
However, of all the technology venues chip R&D is maybe the fastest moving, most competitive and rapidly advancing. Just last year new silicon materials were developed which have a much higher light response -they are more efficient. Also this year new micro lenses that are on a layer sandwiched with the sensor layer that concentrate the light to focus it at the center of the sensor cell were introduced.
What I am saying is this technology is advancing at a very rapid rate and is far from static as your argument implies.
My e-mail box is full of development news every day in the chip technology industry. And unlike hardware like a camera body or lens, new chip designs apparently can be put into manufacture very rapidly once the design is completed. The new sensor chips show up in camera's very soon after a new technology breakthrough is public news.
With much lower sales volume the larger prosumer and professional dSLR chips evolve much slower from what my observations of the industry indicate. So they are likely to be much further behind in efficiency using the newest materials and design. This I think contributes to so little difference in output pixel data quality factors. These little P&S chips you deride may be years ahead in technology and efficiency of the low production volume big chips that MF and full-frame cameras are using.
PS Sigma just announced today a new DP2 that will be out early 2009. There are a few more details in my Shutterbug blog that I will post today.
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David B. Brooks
Contributor, Shutterbug Magazine
Blog: http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/
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LarryBerman
Reged: 03/07/05
Posts: 1239
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I read about the DP2 last month. I also read that they will be lowering the price of the DP1 by $100 which will probably speed up the snails pace of it's sales. I had thought about getting one when I purchased the Ricoh GRD. I think that the longer I wait for my next point and shoot, the better chances of seeing a real breakthrough in image quality.
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Sigma just announced today a new DP2 that will be out early 2009. There are a few more details in my Shutterbug blog that I will post today.
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Larry Berman
BermanGraphics.com
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TimothyHughes
Reged: 08/11/07
Posts: 6
Loc: Madison
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So, what is everyone else looking for in a compact camera?
I think it would be nice to have a fast 35mm (equivalent) prime on a sensor with extremely low noise at ISOs up to 1600 (and beyond someday). The micro four thirds system might just deliver in the next year or two. May as well throw in shake reduction technology since it's standard in compacts now.
My current compact, a Fuji F30, does a decent job at 800 ISO but there is certainly room for improvement.
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Madison photographer blog
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David_B_Brooks
Reged: 03/04/05
Posts: 1590
Loc: Santa Barbara County, CA
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If you don't ignore physics, the only way to get what you are wishing for is to use a 24x36mm sensor, like that in the Canon 5D Mark II, and an equivalent lens like a 45mm as a prime, but then it wouldn't be very compact, would it. The only REAL compromise is the Sigma DP-2, as its sensor is 3 stacked layers, one sandwiched on top of the other two to obtain an output of 14MPX.
But as Larry suggested it does not sell all that well, probably because compact customers also want cheap, and cheap is what cheap gets, neither anything very good in performance or worth having for any other reason.
In other words people dream about impossible cameras they cannot afford at any price.
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David B. Brooks
Contributor, Shutterbug Magazine
Blog: http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/
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