I am looking for the perfect pocket camera that a pro would be happy with. It must have a lens that is wide (28mm equivilant), be some what small, and be good with noise. This sounds simple, but I am having a heck of a time finding a decent camera. I bought a Panasonic DMC-LX1, which is with out a doubt the perfect camera for me, except the noise is unbarable and I am sending it back. I really love the retro look and feel and simplicity. I am now looking at the Canon S70, which seems pretty good. Any other recommendations? Also, CF would be nice and I would like to stay under $600.
Mark, although the Canon S70 has a wide angle lens it isn't really that good (surprise surprise) and I don't consider it very pocketable either. I work part time in a camera shop and see all sorts whizz by and we try out the interesting ones. The S70 is pretty bad at the 28mm setting.
On the wide side of things it seems we'll have to wait awhile.
The Ricoh GR1D could have been a nice camera had they not chosen an extremely noisy and small sensor. They should have stopped at 5MP to keep noise down. Also it has too much distortion for my liking and severe CA.
Fujis cameras are very good in terms of noise, the E900 is maybe not wide enough (32.5mm) but handles well and delivers good photos, though it is even larger than the S70. I myself is waiting for something like the Fuji F10 with a wider lens. The Fuji F10 (6.3MP) is probably the best pocket digital at ISO 800 and handles well with good battery life and fast positive action.
The lens is very good as well. The new F11, looks the same and adds some features like aperture priority but unfortunately not a wider lens.
The old Fuji E550 is one of the best handling and well thought out digital pocket cameras I've encountered and was fairly good at ISO 400, though the E900 looks better at ISO 800 than the E550 at ISO 400 despite having 9MP over the E550's 6.3MP.
I too had some hopes for the Panasonic LX-1 but for the same reasons as you I passed.
At the moment I'd have to say there is no Pro grade digital pocket camera.
regards, Henrik
Thank you Henrik, you seem to be confirming my findings as well. I guess we both are looking for things that do not exist yet. Thank you for your detailed response!
All digicam are noisy compared to DSLR due to their small sensor size.
It is hard to find a wide angle like 28mm on a digicam and RAW format is only limited to a few models. A good cam with good lens is even hard to come by. LX1 is one of the rare model around.
Since u're asking for RAW, the noise level of the LX1 shouldn't be an issue.
Others have said that, but I have tried the LX1 out with Raw, converted to TIFF and it is still really bad. Am I doing something wrong? Also, when you shoot Raw or TIFF with this camera, it takes a year and a day for it to down load the shot. It makes it unreasonable to do normal snap shots when it takes 30 seconds between shots.
Sorry maybe it is not ultra compact (But still compact) : the new Fuji F11 is the best pocket camera around (At least for me).It is the 'only' pocket camera that gives you a really good iso 800 performance (Noise wise It is better than my ex Nikon D70&Canon 300D),very,very good battery life (Around 400-450 shots w/o problem)Very good video mode (vga 30 fps)
I want my P&S cameras to have 28mm equiv wide angle.
People still look at my 13by19 shots taken with the S40 and ask which camera I used. The S70 is an improvement on that camera.
If you are taking pictures in decent light, the s70 can blow your socks off. Yeah, a bit of barrel distortion, etc., but that is correctable when necessary.
One other thing to remember with P&S cameras. The very wide DOF makes up partially for lower ISO, when shooting landscapes with people in the foreground, like you typically do on vacation. A P&S, with the lens on 28mmm equiv, has most everything in focus at f4.
I paid less than $300 for my s70 on the b&s forum.
I'm still looking for a single camera to replace these all, !
Mark.. I just got a Leica Lux2. It is the same camera as the Panasonic LX-1. . I too had issues with the noise. However, it is not as big as a problem as some think. First of all, it can really give great images. Iso400 is not a choice if you want to print anything bigger than 4x6. However, I have made prints 13.5x24 inches iso 100 and 200 prints. When i upsized the files, they not look good on my monitor but great in print. I was truly impressed. I am now using Noise Ninja for the noisy files and it really does a great job on the noise without loosing much in the way of detail. It is also very small and light. I sold my S70. It was not an option for me. I did not like the images. If i were doing it again, I would buy the panasonic and save 300. THey are the same camera http://forums.robgalbraith.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=388318&an=0&page=0#388318
One more thing. i am using sandisk extreme and even with the flash, I only have to wait a few seconds between shots. Ridata 150X work well too. I think part of the inbetween times are related to the SD cards. The shutter lag is very good for a compact PandS.
Yes, it is indeed very noisy at ISO400. But to me, it is the picture, rather than the noise level, that makes the picture.
Run it through noise ninja and it is acceptable to me in A3 size prints.
I've 2 Kingston SD card. One is a normal speed while the other is 50X. I can really feel the difference in the dag inbetween shots. So get yourself a fast SD card and the problem will be solved.
My only problem with shooting RAW with LX1 is that it will not allow u to shoot continuosly like what u can do if u shoot in JPG. Hope it can be fixed with a firmware upgrade or in future versions of this digicam.
If you want something wide I would go for the Ricoh GR-D. It has a little less noise than LX1 but it's still noisy. However you get a camera with a brilliant lens with very little distortion and DNG format. And it probably won't have more noise than 35mm film has anyway... You also have the option to buy that excellent external viewfinder..
If you're looking for a camera with very little noise, that's fast with RAW, compact and so on you won't find it yet. Image quality wise I would say that Fuji F10/F11 is the best out there but they don't have a lot of controls and can't shoot RAW..
I am a fan of the old film Gr1s and V and enjoyed both - excellent lens and camera (but sketchy build) in a small package.
I was very disappointed when we printed out enlargements from the GR1D, it is nowhere near the quality of the Gr1 series and quite noisy too. I had some hopes for it, which were somewhat subdued by the fact they were going to throw in that noisy 8MP sensor and the end results were no surprise, though I had hoped for better.
i like the shark tank image... See that would bug me.. May want to make a large print..but the noise. Honestly though the noise on the prints are not as bad as on the computer monitor
i like the shark tank image... See that would bug me.. May want to make a large print..but the noise. Honestly though the noise on the prints are not as bad as on the computer monitor
I just bought the LX1 and while it is surprisingly noisy (coming from dslr) and bulky, it is still better and more convenient than the xpan and tvs I just sold and leagues ahead of the Nikon coolpix 5000 which was my last attempt at a wideangle point and shoot.
If its a matter of getting the shot because I was able to bring the camera along rather than no shot at all I would rather have the picture with the noise.
It seems most buyers of point and shoot digital care more about portability and whiz bang features than picture quality so the manufacturers seem to be in no hurry to come out with better sensors. I am sure a better sensor will materialize soon.
No, I have not tried GR-D and I'm very disappointed in the imagequality but if someone want a compact camera with a good wideangle lens it's maybe one of the very few options out there. + The GR-D lens is a half stop faster than the GR1.
The Swedish magazine Kamera & Bild gave it 7/10 for imagequality and I can't understand why..
Except for less distortion at the wideangle the LX1 is probably a bit better. The images are sharper, you have a lot more options and you have IS which is a big plus! If you're shooting mostly at wideangle maybe the GR-D is the better camera though..
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