Point-and-shoot, large LCD, decent in low light: Canon SD800IS/850IS. The optical image stabilizer makes the low-light thing a lot better.
C has a Fuji FinePix F30 and reckons you can't get much better to satisfy your requirements, Becks. I know 3 other people with them too and they all seem to like it.
Examples of its use here.
Yeah. The SD line is really rock-solid. Don't fall for the cheaper point-and-shoot line from Canon; they can't handle low-light situations very well at all.
I currently have a PowerShot S110 from like 2000. Do you know if the batteries and stuff are interchangeable from the older Canon models?
4: Sure, the lower numbers on the SD line can handle low light. You just have to know how to handle the manual settings and kill your flash.
While I was in Flint, my camera died, too. I'm hoping people have different advice for Catherine and for me.
Probably? You'll be able to tell if they're not by the exploding that will result.
No, they aren't. I think the discontinuity is between the Sxxx line (with CompactFlash cards) and the SDxxx line (with SD cards). The SDxxx are smaller and take a thinner battery.
(I have an S230, my girlfriend has a SD700IS, which has already been replaced by the SD800IS in price)
7: No, I agree -- the low-number SD?\d+ are fine in low light (you and I have the same camera, remember?). The Axxx aren't so hot at it, though.
My camera before last was a Fuji FinePix E550. I can't say enough good things about the FinePix. The image quality was fantastic--Fuji uses Zeiss lenses for its cameras.
I want to have to fiddle with the least manual settings necessary. I want it to totally think for me to the biggest extent possible.
Whatever you are looking for, the comparison features at dpreview (and the `full reviews', when they have them) are really useful to compare your options.
Point and shoots:
Really the only point and shoots that are decent in low light are some of the fuji's, so if that's important to you I'd look at something like an F30. Other than those, it's pretty much a wash across a lot of brands. Buy something with image stabilization if you can, and a lens that will do 2.8 at the wide end, if not everywhere. A lot of them advertize a `wide' of 35mm equivalent, but this is basically a normal geometry. If you want to take wide-ish shots, really try for something that will do 28 or 24. Beyond that, a lot depends how much you are likely to want to use manual feature. Some of these won't let you set much of anything manually. Others, like the panasonic L2 (same as the leica dlux but rebranded an much cheaper) allow a ton of control. The panasonic sensor isn't very good, though, so forget low light. Be aware that pretty much all point and shoots do badly with shutter response (i.e. the time between when you push the button and when a picture is taken). A lot of people find this very frustrating for `action' type shots. You can learn the lag of your camera, and some settings will help, but it will be slow.
Don't worry much about megapixels unless you know you are printing larger prints (i.e. bigger than 8x10's) . Anything of 4mp is fine for what most people use a point and shoot for. At this point, megapixels is pretty much a marketing number, and more is not necc better (because they will be noisier).
About SLR's: Probably the best bang for buck out there right now is the nikon D40, which is tiny. The main downside abou this camera is there is no autofocus motor in the body, which limits the lenses you can put on it. The 400D isn't a bad camera either: I find the entry level canons to be overpriced for what you get, so you may want to consider a 3rd brand. Any entry level SLR is going to involve hard trade-offs, so you should think about what you value most. Another thing to consider is that a lot of the `kit' lenses really aren't very good. Consider buying a body alone and then a lens or two. On a budget, buying a sigma or tamron might get you much better optics for similar price, etc.
Let me advise against the Olympus I have. Eats batteries for breakfast. Takes good pictures, but can't take it anywhere. Takes rechargeable (or regular) AA's, no plug-in recharger.
Wow, a lot of people have seconded the SD line from canon. They are well built, their ergonomics are ok, and they take pretty good pictures. I have one as a pocked cam when I'm not dragging my SLR's around, and like it. But they are not good in low light. They are merely not *terrible* in low light, which many point and shoots are.
Becks: If you aren't really crunched for budget, only look a cameras with some sort of stabilization, that will help a lot. Also, since you said you want the least amount of manual possible -- be aware that these cameras are almost universally bad at low light on automagical settings, you'll have to tweak things a bit.
One of the Canon SD series with IS. IMO the most comprehensive and solid reviews are at dpreview. I'm almost always carrying an SD700 IS on my belt in case Elvis shows up.
15: True. In low light I have to go to manual settings and increase the exposure. And forget about hand-held shots...
I'd be happy with being able to fiddle a bit in low light and using someone's shoulder as a tripod. If I can get away with not-fiddling just during the day, that would make me happy. I felt like when I was in Vegas I had to do everything manually to correct for the light there and even then I had to adjust a lot of photos later in Picasa because the white balance was so off.
What everyone else said: Canon SD with IS. It's what I got for my cousin with the Amazon gift certificate y'all got me (thanks, y'all!). Canon's pictures just look better than everyone else's, unless you're on crack, like soubz, in which case you see pretty colors everywhere.
17: But the manual settings perform reliably and are easy to grasp. Some of the manual settings are bundled, too ("Sunny" or "Tungsten Lighting") and these will work fine for someone who doesn't want a lot of to-do (but isn't that person going to simply use the flash anyway?). I've taken many a decent low-light photo on my SD400 and I more or less leave it on one setting, changing it only when it's sunny out.
You could also carry one of these around.
When did Canon introduce IS? I don't know whether mine has (had) it. But needing the occasional impromptu tripod isn't a problem.
Becks: how important is size for you? Have you looked at any of the dpreview reviews? I would seriously consider one of the Fuji's, have a read through the review of the most recent one, for example (not that you'd have to buy that model, an older one would be good to.
They are simply better sensor technology than any of the Canons. On the other hand, that isn't the only thing to consider --- but do look around.
22: With the SD700IS, about a year ago. The models with it are SD700IS, SD800IS, and SD850IS.
Becks: how important is size for you?
Aww, Soubz. I'm sorry. I'm sure your personality makes up for it, though.
19: You're just wrong. I shoot every day with an SLR, and tend to not be happy with the output of any P&S. And, like I said, I *have* a canon SD, which I use regularly. Those fuji's have best-of class sensors, no question about it. Every other p&s ranges from bad to horrible in low light (because the sensors are too small).
*But* there are other factors, so I'm not going to tell Becks she shouldn't buy a canon. especially with IS.
24/25: Guys, I'm not trolling. And I know quite a lot about cameras, and really a lot about images....
27: set myself up there!
29.1: okay, then I am.
Less than on topic, but can I recommend a camera phone?
I'm just waiting for you to post some of your pictures, soubz, so we can tell you how bad they look.
I walked into Best Buy three weeks ago, not only expecting to walk out with a Canon, but biased against Sony.
Of course I ended up with a Sony DSC-T100 as a result of sitting there and working with them in the store.
It's faster to become ready, the controls were easier to figure out sans manual, it was smaller, had better optical zoom and the zoom toggle on the Canon (upper right of the front) seemed intended to be impossible to work while holding the camera at the ready.
There is still no love lost between me and Sony, but they make good cameras. YMMV, of course.
31: Ach, I never claimed to be a good photographer! It's just something I do every day for fun. Nonetheless, here are a few recent ones . You can tell me whatever you want.
I do have to know a fair bit about images though, via my job.
You can take care of many lighting problems with this rig.this rig.
Listen to soubz, folks, he knows what he's talking about.
What camera are they with then soubz? The ducklings one is lovely.
Some F30 pics, all without flash - one, two, three.
What did you take the duck picture with, soubz? If your Canon, I'm willing to say that you're on something softer than crack, because the colors in that look dull to me in precisely the way I think non-Canon colors look dull.
Dull? What do you want, fluorescent ducklings?
You can tell me whatever you want.
I killed a hobo this one time.
I took this with an SD400 in extremely low light, and it seems to have worked ok. This too, though with better light on that one.
the Amazon gift certificate y'all got me (thanks, y'all!)
You were supposed to use that for yourself, you selfless twit.
37/38: I'd have to check, but these were most likely from a D200 (nikon). The colors in the color ones have very little to do with the sensor on these, though. The were probably all shot raw and processed through a few steps.
as for the color thing, ogged. You really have to be careful. There is something people call `canon color' in reference to the way they oversaturate a bit on jpeg defaults, but there are many confounding factors like: all higher capability cameras let you adjust the defaults, comparisons like this make some sense on out-of-camera jpg's, but not really on post processsed raw files (where the tone curve can be doing anything to the inputs) and most importantly --- color really isn't that meaningful when viewed on a non-calibrated monitor, and even if you have one of those it's the prints that matter more. Beyond all that, different models within a brand (canon included) have different characteristics.
ogged, I'm pretty sure you can get those kinds of colors on a Fuji F30 (which I use and recommend). You just have to set the saturation to "cheesetastic".
I'm so glad the urbane Slol offered 42, because I didn't have the guts to say it myself.
Snob it up, canon haters. I knew you'd canon oversaturates, but the fact remains: the canon photos look better out of the camera. Suck it!
41: FWIW, both of those are really pretty noisy. This isn't the end of the world, and doesn't ruin those photos. You should realize that unless you are posting 1:1 crops you are also probably denoising via the resizing process and this will not give a good feel for how a print would look, for example.
I'm pretty sure you can get those kinds of colors on a Fuji F30
And seriously, I don't think this is true. Yes, you can crank the saturation, but that just looks, what's the word, cheesetastic; canon has mastered classy saturation.
49: Yeah, I guess that explains the lack of judgment about colour, too.
the canon photos look better out of the camera.
What I'm saying is, the F30 has an in-camera Canon-color setting. It's like having a Canon with a good sensor.
50: Again seriously, you're just wrong. Or at least, this may be true in the out-of-camera jpg, but any sort of capable post processing (even picassa/iphoto level, I'm not talking $$$ programs) can do that and more --- much better than what any underpowered camera processor can do. It's also ok if another p&s can't do it in camera, 'cause you really want to tone that down on your canons, too. It looks like ass.
You're probably right that it is partly canons fault that flickr is full of so many nasty oversaturated over contrasty snaps, though.
Snob it up, canon haters.
People who root for the Camera Yankees don't like pictures, they like winning.
I don't understand 45.
Then again, I don't understand a lot of things.
I bought an SLR just this week, Samsung GX-10 (which is basically the Pentax K10D with slightly different firmware). The Pentax and Samsung models have built in stabilisation, as does the Sony A100. The Samsung/Pentax is really quite heavy, though. Which may matter to you.
I've never really seen a digital point and shoot that genuinely performs very well in low-light, but my experience of digital compacts is quite limited.
However, if shooting in low light one key thing that no-one mentions is, you want an optical viewfinder.* The difference between shooting properly, with the camera held to your eye and shooting with it held out in front of you looking at the LCD is several stops worth of speed/stability.
* or a shit-hot anti-shake/stabilisation system.
Becks said she doesn't want to do any post-processing. If you're going to do a lot of post-processing, why bother with a p&s?
I don't understand 45.
I was acknowledging that you'd made the same point I did at roughly the same time. An alternative to "pwned".
I love that hyper-saturated Canon color. What kind of lowly wretch settles for realistic imagery?
I love that hyper-saturated Canon color
As does everyone who's not a color snob. "Oh, that picture looks so ripe for some creative post-processing!" is not something you hear very often.
I prefer LSD - makes the whole *world* prettier!
What ttaM said about optical viewfinders. I actually find one of the more annoying things about the SD700IS compared to my S230 is that the optical viewfinder is smaller (to make room for the huge LCD), and I like to turn the LCD off and just use the viewfinder. It looks like the F30 doesn't have a viewfinder at all, which would drive me nuts. This probably says that I'd be a good candidate for a SLR more than it says anything about what Becks should get.
As does everyone who's not a color snob. "Oh, that picture looks so ripe for some creative post-processing!" is not something you hear very often.
Maybe not in your line of work.
Hey, I like Photoshop as much as the next guy, but if I'm using a point-and-shoot, I prefer my memories to be upgraded real time.
In above, I'm not talking about any kind of significant post-processing. I'm talking about stuff like the `auto' button on iPhoto or picassa. You've got to import your photos with something, and they do a better job of this than your camera does.
Pretty much all cameras let you amp up the saturation in your defaults. Some of them look better than canons, some of them look worse. It really isn't a big deal.
57 is a good point. I wouldn't worry about the fuji's F30's lack of an optical viewfinder, it really is that much better at low light than the other compacts. But anything else, it will be crucial. Unless you are on a tripod or something, of course.
62: no doubt, no doubt. Can be hard to hold the camera steady, though.
Also, soubzriquet is right. Most off-camera software -- Picasa, iPhoto, Photoshop, your camera's own RAW package -- will do a much better job of colour adjustment, sharpening and so on.
your camera's own RAW package
It'll do an even better job if you put some Bodyglide on it.
70: pictures people take on acid usually turn out pretty damn hilarious. Upside down photos, pictures of unidentifiable body parts, the sky, inky blackness.
73: drawings can be even better .
73 - ha, yes, all sorts of blurred shit that you peer at and think, "but there was ..... oh, ok".
74 - brilliant.
Upon completing the drawing the patient starts laughing, then becomes startled by something on the floor.
His acid drawings get better and better.
'course you could just throw caution to the windows and buy a PhaseOne P45 and one-up everyone, ever.
Not camera related and not exactly a technical bleg, and I may have to post it in the 'Push' thread. Does anyone know how to print Gmail e-mails without printing every e-mail in the exchange more than once?
BG, if you want to print a "conversation" look to the right of the messages, where you should see a "print all" icon that should give you what you need. There's also a print option (in the dropdown next to "reply") that will show an individual message without any quoted text.
And ask out your doctor friend already.
Thanks ogged. When I've used "print all," it prints the whole damn thing.
Didn't and won't. We had been planning to see, of all things, Sicko at one point. When he was on vacation, and I had the day off, I tried to get him to go to a 5PM "matinee." He said he'd love to but couldn't, because he had softball practice. He would totally play hooky and go if it weren't for the fact that he'd missed the last practice, and he hoped that I'd take a raincheck.
I got an e-mail today saying, "can I just verify the intentions on both sides are wholly friendship and nothing more? I would hate to risk disappointing you because fo awkward or misconstrued signals on my part."
This was followed by an e-mail in which he apologized if he was being too cautious, but he'd just had a rough couple of days and couldn't quite tolerate contributing to anymore disappointment. I haven't written back yet.
That totally sucks, and it is a huge disappointment, but I do want to keep the friendship and don't yet know what to say, how honest to be etc. John is an open person who values honesty a great deal, but I don't want him to feel responsible for causing me pain. On the other hand, I don't quite feel like lieing. I thought of saying something like, Well, I did want something more at one point, but you didn't lead me on in any way and you shouldn't feel that you've contributed to any disappointment.
It sucks, but now I can stop pining.
Sorry to hear it, BG. This is just one guy's opinion, but given what a crush you had on this guy, I'm not sure it's in your best interest to keep up the friendship right now. Drift away, see if you want to be his friend again in a year.... Otherwise, you'll keep pining.
Can't totally drift apart, since we both go to the same church and have common friends, but, yes, I could and probably should dial down the intensity of the friendship.
Sorry to hear that, BG.
Something about this thread made me realize that there are a whole lot of people out there who never encountered flash cubes.
Sorry, BG, that is disappointing. Ogged's advice in 82 is probably right, even if he's inscrutable and his motives uncertain.
I'd agree with 82, for the additional reason that if this went on this long, he's either messing with you, inadvertently sending very mixed signals, or you read his signals badly. Where that comes out is that he's going to do something in the near future that looks like a comeon again, and you'll be confused and/or disappointed again. You don't have to pick a fight or anything, but I'd keep your distance as hard as you practically can.
(This has been another episode in 'Personal Advice Delivered With Great Force And Apparent Certainty From Someone Who Isn't There And Doesn't Know What's Going On.')
BG I will be in Boston in a week and vaguely lovesick myself. Let's cry into beers!
Any other miserable Boston people around? I know you're out there.
I'm moderately miserable, and available to cry into beer. Except on Wednesday.
84: I wouldn't be surprised if there are some people here who've never used film, much less flash cubes. I've got a bunch of very good film gear I hardly use but can't bear to get rid of.
BG saddened to hear that.
89: Me as well, I haven't shot film in ages.
81 -- Too bad about the doctor. Good thing to get to the end of a line that isn't going to go anywhere, though.
Sorry to hear that, BG. It's a situation I've been in more times than I care to think about, and I know it really sucks. How to respond is a tricky issue; I've tried both ways myself, but neither is all that great and I couldn't tell you which I would recommend. It's basically impossible to entirely avoid awkwardness in subsequent interactions, so I'd agree with the folks advocating dialing down the friendship for a while.
BG, perhaps there's detail I've missed--I haven't been able to read all the threads for a while now--but have you thought of simply laying your cards out and saying, "Yes, I'm interested in more than just friends. Come on a date with me and I'll do my best to convince you that it's a good idea."?
I thought of saying something like, "Well, I did want something more at one point, but you didn't lead me on in any way and you shouldn't feel that you've contributed to any disappointment."
I'm all for that sort of brutal-isn't-really-the-right-word-but-let's-use-it-anyway honesty.
94: Why would she do that? He's already explicitly told her he's not interested.
re: 89 and 90
I still mostly shoot film. Less, I'd imagine, now that I've bought a dSLR.* I expect I won't shoot colour film or transparencies at all, but I don't expect to completely stop shooting black and white film. I have too much classic film gear, and black and white film both has some distinct advantages over any other form of capture (in certain situations at least) and, since I process it myself, it's cheap. There will be circumstances, at gigs, for example, where a tiny film camera with 3200ASA film is still the best option over a huge SLR.
I deliberated chose an SLR that will mount most of my classic 'film' lenses.
* this is the first dSLR I've owned, but my doctorate-funding day-job is as a tech consultant in a photographic studio so I use and have used very high end digital gear all the time and the only photos I've had published (in the Guardian newspaper) were shot several years back using a D70.
ttaM, I should point out, is a really good photographer. I don't have any real point and shoot opinions -- the best low-light camera I ever found for that was the Olympus 5500 (I think), which hasn't been made for a few years, but had a really fast lens (1.8).
I got one off eBay for my son, who is a stage electrician / lighting designer so he that he could take pictures of his work.
For dSLRs, the smallest and lightest seem to be Olympus, which are also quite cheap. I have a friend who takes fantastic pictures with hers.
Pentaxes (I have the less flashy version of what ttaM has just bought) are smaller and lighter than most of the Nikons and much less plasticky than cheap Canons; they have a huge assortment of good second-hand lenses available, though new digital lenses are not as common or cheap as Nikon / Canon. I shoot a lot of low-light low life stuff with mine, and anything more than 800ASA is a stretch. Notionally, it goes up to 3200ASA, but I find I get better results by fiddling on the computer.
But if you don't already have a collection of old lenses, I would look very seriously at the Olympus for small, light, decent low-light performance.
I take all my photos with a camera obscura, staring at the upside-down image on the wall* for hours at a time. Then I describe the photos to all my friends, who listen intently.
*Sometimes I invite Emerson over to drink and curse at the wall with me; he never comes.
He's already explicitly told her he's not interested.
Sometimes guys say "no" when they really mean "yes".
101: John: lost, alive, enigmatic. Will you be Amundsen to his pole? Will he take you? The unknown awaits!
96 -- And in many more ways than just the email.
There's no reason a player ought to take ignorant advice from the bleachers, but I'll offer some anyway. You're going to see the doctor again, and he'll have constant opportunities to re-evaluate his position (that is, to understand his error -- one sits in the bleachers to root for one's team). A response that acknowledges the email, but in a very short and pragmatic way, strikes me as worthy of consideration. Thanks, I appreciate your honesty is enough to show that you got the message, and understood it. Your subsequent conduct demonstrating having moved on will do the rest.
100: Stanley is Abelardo Morell.
(Sorry to hear your news, BG.)
Color saturation makes my hair look orange in photos.
Sorry, BG. He sounds like a clueless Christian guy regarding signals.
re: 105
Yeah, makes my face look scarlet, usually.
96: I dunno, like I said, I possibly haven't caught all the backstory, but it seems to me that jarring things out of a "friends-hanging-out-and-maybe" rut into an explicitly romantic one can make a difference. The only times I've ever managed to make any transition out of a previously established Friend Zone relationship into the Land of Romance and Nooky is by making the transition explicit. Sometimes you go down in flames, sometimes it works out.
Imagine that I closed the tag after "maybe."
re: 99
For dSLRs, the smallest and lightest seem to be Olympus, which are also quite cheap. I have a friend who takes fantastic pictures with hers.
I've seen really good results from the Olympus cameras, but I find the viewfinders poky and dark. That's more or less a direct consequence of the 4/3 sensor format rather than because of anything bad Olympus are doing with the finder itself. Not really that much of a problem if you're using autofocus lenses, I suppose, but I'd imagine very hard to focus manually.
The photos on that Flickr page are good, though.
Sorry to hear it BG. CCarp's advice is good. Short and simple.
Canon point and shoots are excellent. dpreview.com is the best site if you want to research for a camera.
Rob Galbraith had a great site for the pro to semi-pro, but I havent been there in a while.
87: Sifu, some sort of meetup would be fun. Is anyone else free?
Thanks guys.
Chopper, there's nothing there. He said, before asking if he could verify my intentions "At the risk of a small amount of awkwardness but out of much respect for you.." He also said, "Forgive me if I'm in left field, I just think it's smart and cautious for us to make sure we're on the same wavelength to avoid hard feelings later on."
86: LB, he wasn't intentionally messing with me. He's a decent guy. I think that he was sending mixed signals for a while, but thinking back on it, he's been much friendlier for at least a month. I think it might be that there was some attraction and/or he liked having a female friend, but that he's not interested in any relationship. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that once we got to be better friends, he would have been pretty direct if he'd been interested. In any case, his reasons don't matter.
I'll sign on for a Boston event. When are we talking about?
