So you set the front ring to something you hardly use? Essentially rendering it pointless? What about using the lens ring for FL (even if it's not faster than using the lever for zooming, but I wouldn't have to hold it so long when going from wide to tele...) and using the rear dial to adjust metering? Since it's liveview all the way don't you get a pretty good preview making you aware of any accidental change? I frequently adjust metering to make sure I don't blow highlights (excessively).

You can set the front ring to whatever you want. I prefer not to inadvertantly spin the wheel on the way out of my pocket and have it under or overexpose. If the f-stop moves the auto feature of P, AV, TV it will still give you a "normal" exposure. You can easily adjust the exposure with the O ring in the front for any plus or minus (histogram) if is set to + or -. If you actually have an S90 in your hands it is fairly easy to work. All settings are on the screen. You just have to look, but if you need to take a quick shot, messing with exposure because the dial turned by mistake kind of kills the moment.

I think the question was if you can limit the upper ISO in AutoISO mode? I.e., will the camera choose the best ISO from 80 up to say 400 (rather than going all the way to 3200). Is this what you're doing here, or do you set a fixed ISO?

I don't see how you can set the upper limit, or give a specific range of ISOs. Can you do that with a DSLR? If you don't select a specific ISO, then the camera will select one for you so your exposure will be correct even if the picture is noisy. Those are the only two options I've ever heard about. I mean use a tripod, put it in manual, whatever.

Barry Pehlman wrote:
I think the question was if you can limit the upper ISO in AutoISO mode? I.e., will the camera choose the best ISO from 80 up to say 400 (rather than going all the way to 3200). Is this what you're doing here, or do you set a fixed ISO?

I don't see how you can set the upper limit, or give a specific range of ISOs. Can you do that with a DSLR? If you don't select a specific ISO, then the camera will select one for you so your exposure will be correct even if the picture is noisy. Those are the only two options I've ever heard about. I mean use a tripod, put it in manual, whatever.

The G10, for example has Auto ISO and Auto High ISO so you can ensure it doesn't go right up to the highest speeds without you realising.

The G10, for example has Auto ISO and Auto High ISO so you can ensure it doesn't go right up to the highest speeds without you realising.


I must have missed that feature when I had the G10. All S90 ISO info is on page 76 of the manual. There it explains auto ISO, and shows a range from high to low ISO. It seems these are simply explanations of the ISO quality - low, medium, and high, like Low ISO 80 -200 fine weather conditions, outdoor shooting. I don't see how you can set it, nor does it mention that you can. I must really be old school as I used to pick up a film based on the shooting I would be doing and work within that range. Today you only have to turn a dial to change the ISO. Is this tough? I would pick the max ISO a camera is capable of before becoming too noisy. That method would "ensure it doesn't go right up to the highest speeds without you realising".

I think all the tricky little features are spoiling everybody.... and this is a $429 P&S camera. Better to ask Leica why the X1 only has half the screen brightness, 1/3rd the S90 features, no IS, and a slower, single FL lens for $2K.

Auto ISO on a high quality camera (like the 5DII) can be very useful indeed because regardless of the ISO you can get the shot and be sure it will be 'good enough'. Good for mixed lighting, reportage etc.

On a small p&s being able to limit the ISO to say 200 or 400 would be very useful for the same reason, but you wouldn't want it to go out of the range you're happy with for image quality.

Ah, sorry, so you did, and I missed it.....



jotdeh wrote:
wtlloyd wrote:
The above mentioned review at Luminous Landscape:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/s90.shtml

I had that link in my post, too, sorry if it wasn't obvious.

does anyone have the minimum f stop values at each focal length: 28 / 35 / 50 / 85 / 105? obviously f/2 at 28 and f/4.9 at 105, but what about the intermediates?

Barry Pehlman wrote:

I think all the tricky little features are spoiling everybody.... and this is a $429 P&S camera. Better to ask Leica why the X1 only has half the screen brightness, 1/3rd the S90 features, no IS, and a slower, single FL lens for $2K.

Be careful Barry, that sort of talk if read on the Alternate Gear forum, could see you visited my masked assassin's when you least expect it.

Daan B wrote:
jerrykur wrote:
I am not unhappy that Amazon botched my pre-order and I did not take them up on their offer to sell me the camera at a discount.


I smell a little profit here (depending on the size of the discount of course)


Daan,

For holding you hostage while they diddled around for a month and then canceled the pre-order Amazon provides a whopping 5% discount (approx $20 USD).

Until Canon cameras can match the m4/3rd's I think I am done with Canon compacts for a while.

The histogram doesn't show the color channels. So I had a few shots with one or two blown channels even though the histogram looked fine. The jpegs were ruined but the RAWs were fixable. That's one reason why this a such a great little camera.

So you have to bracket to get perfect exposure. You can't rely on the metering or the histogram for complex scenes. However, I have a memory card that can hold 1,000 RAW files. So I can bracket my brains out and not worry about filling the card.

I also consider it to be an SLR. It has a viewfinder that shows you what the sensor sees. Isn't what what an SLR does? It has the same controls as an SLR. So what if it does that without a mirror and prism? It's still the same result.

The only drawback that I see to the small sensor size is purple fringing. Tree branches in the distance tend to be purple. So it takes an Photoshop step to eliminate the purple. Big deal.

I also consider it to be an SLR. It has a viewfinder that shows you what the sensor sees. Isn't that what an SLR does? It has the same controls as an SLR. So what if it does that without a mirror and prism? It's still the same result.

Not really, unless a rangefinder camera can also be called an SLR because it makes a picture too.

The only drawback that I see to the small sensor size is purple fringing.

That, and the small sensor size.

I own a S90. As I recently said on the Alternative Gear forum, it's a nice little P&S camera, that's about it.

I actually don't think that the lens control ring (front) is too hard to change, but the rear ring is definitely too easy, forcing me to move EC to the front ring. After shooting some sunsets a few nights ago, I instantly became enamored of the functionality of this new, physical control ring. It's almost impossible for a P&S camera to get a proper exposure of a sunset (especially at 28mm-equivalent), and using EC via menus was just too much of a pain. I'm sold on the new feature.

The popup flash is indeed a bit flaky, but for me, any image that the flash would be used for wouldn't be a big deal if the camera decided not to use it. The Function Set center button is pretty quick to access settings, and I think you can assign 'Flash' to the assignable button. Not a big deal either way, for me at least.

What I'm not fond of is the lack of a setting to show overexposed areas (in concert with no RGB histogram). It's curious on a RAW camera not to have the 'blinkies' to guide you, not sure what they were thinking there. I keep hoping I missed the setting somewhere, but I'm not finding it.

Other than the barrel distortion and purple fringing noted in the many reviews, the file quality is quite good (400 and below). Hopefully LR will be updated with a camera profile soon, as the colors are a bit off in v2.5. Haven't tried the v3.0b to see if there's any difference.

The camera will definitely work for what I bought it for: one-handed aerial images. The SD880 IS just wasn't cutting it; way too much in-camera NR and smearing of detail.

it costs $400 bucks. No Starbucks for a month or two and you own it. wait six months and it will cost about two weeks of starbucks...but still take a good pic.

The images have "blinkies." You just have to be in the right display mode. The flashing is gray, and very hard to see, but it is there.

Jeff wrote:
I actually don't think that the lens control ring (front) is too hard to change, but the rear ring is definitely too easy, forcing me to move EC to the front ring. After shooting some sunsets a few nights ago, I instantly became enamored of the functionality of this new, physical control ring. It's almost impossible for a P&S camera to get a proper exposure of a sunset (especially at 28mm-equivalent), and using EC via menus was just too much of a pain. I'm sold on the new feature.

The popup flash is indeed a bit flaky, but for me, any image that the flash would be used for wouldn't be a big deal if the camera decided not to use it. The Function Set center button is pretty quick to access settings, and I think you can assign 'Flash' to the assignable button. Not a big deal either way, for me at least.

Maybe EC on the lens ring isn't so bad after all. And you're right, it's not too hard to turn for that purpose (I tried again today). I still find it too hard when MFing zoomed, but then I don't think I'll actually be using it much in that mode, even if it was smoother.

As for assigning Flash to the S-button, that didn't seem to be possible, not in the standard menu anyway...

Pixel Perfect wrote:
Barry Pehlman wrote:

I think all the tricky little features are spoiling everybody.... and this is a $429 P&S camera. Better to ask Leica why the X1 only has half the screen brightness, 1/3rd the S90 features, no IS, and a slower, single FL lens for $2K.

Be careful Barry, that sort of talk if read on the Alternate Gear forum, could see you visited my masked assassin's when you least expect it.

nailed the nail on the head on this one!

I am seriously considering getting one, as I need a small carry-everywhere PS with manual control and decent higher ISO.

Barry, I also had the G10. How does the S90 fare against that from ISO400 and up?
And how is the responsiveness of it in terms of real world point-press-shoot, again, comparing it to say the G10?


And as a general question, given I don't know too much about video: capture between VGA and HD, is that hardware bound, or can a firmware update change a camera's capabilities given that the sensor can certainly handle the extra pixels?

dasrocket wrote:
And as a general question, given I don't know too much about video: capture between VGA and HD, is that hardware bound, or can a firmware update change a camera's capabilities given that the sensor can certainly handle the extra pixels?


Sorry, the Sony sensor in the camera cannot provide HD video output. The spec sheet from Sony is posted on DPReview.