Narrowing the field
Photography 03/14/2004 |Another camera post, feel free to ignore it if you’re not interested. Mainly, I’m in the midst of reading reviews, researching, and price-checking, and want to keep all the links I’ve been using at my fingertips when I actually get to a point of plunking down money.
Incidentally, if you live in Seattle and happen to stop by Cameras West, try to avoid dealing with Russ, one of the salesmen there. I went in there to see if I could take a hands-on look at some of the cameras I’ve been considering, and he came across as abrupt, smarmy, and somewhat condescending — I got the definite impression that he saw me less as a customer out to compare different cameras, and more as some random shmoe with money to burn who wanted a “cool camera” and might be an easy mark. He also had the most incredible fake “smile” I’ve ever seen on a salesman — he managed to pull all the facial muscles into roughly the right spots, but there was obviously nothing real about it. He also pushes Fujifilm cameras really strongly — not that there’s anything wrong with those, but that’s apparently all he bothers trying to sell.
Amusingly enough, I found out later from a co-worker (Rebecca, at Kit’s Cameras in the Westlake Center, who was far friendlier, far more helpful, willing to point out various pros and cons to the cameras, and all around a much better salesperson…not to mention really cute!) that he used to be a used-car salesman. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised at all…
Anyway, on to the cameras… First off, as I’ve mentioned before, the lowest-cost (and therefore most likely) option is pretty solidly decided.
Canon PowerShot A80
- Manufacturer’s site: PowerShot A80
- Basic features: 4MP, 3x optical zoom, 9-point autofocus, variable-angle LCD.
- Reviews:
- DCVIEWS: Canon Powershot A80 review
- Digital Camera Resource Page: DCRP: PowerShot A80 Reviews & Info
- Futurelooks: Canon Powershot A80 Digital Camera Review
- Steve’s Digicams: Canon Powershot A80
- DP Review User Reviews: Owners Opinions: Canon PowerShot A80
- Pros: Small, easily to carry around at all times, high resolution, not terribly expensive, lots of features.
- Cons: Off-center, plastic tripod mount. Other than that, none really, other than that it’s “just” a point-and-shoot, and I’m drooling over SLR-like cameras.
- Lowest price found: $264
Now for the “if I can find a way to afford it, I’d love to blow a wad on one of these” SLR-like cameras.
Fujifilm FinePix s7000
- Manufacturer’s site: Fujifilm: Digital Cameras: FinePix s7000
- Basic features: 6MP (12 interpolated), 6x optical zoom.
- Reviews:
- DP Review: Fujifilm FinePix s7000 Zoom Review
- Digital Camera Resource Page: Fuji FinePix s7000
- Megapixel.net: Fujifilm FinePix s7000
- Steves Digicams: FujiFilm FinePix s7000
- DP Review User Reviews: Owners Opinions: Fujifilm FinePix s7000
- Pros: The tripod mount’s in the right place. Good price/performance ratio.
- Cons: While the camera has a 6MP sensor, it interpolates to 12MP, leading to image artifacts at default resolutions. Dropping the camera to non-interpolated 6MP shots doesn’t allow for choices in file size/quality. Image quality issues mentioned in some reviews.
- Lowest price found: $349
Nikon Coolpix 5700
- Manufacturer’s site: Nikon USA: Coolpix 5700
- Basic features: 5MP, 8x optical zoom, EVF and variable-angle LCD.
- Reviews:
- DP Review: DP Review: Nikon Coolpix 5700 Review
- Digital Camera Resource Page: Nikon Coolpix 5700
- Megapixel.net: Nikon Coolpix 5700
- Steves Digicams: Nikon Coolpix 5700
- DP Review User Reviews: Owners Opinions: Minolta DiMAGE A1
- Pros: Smaller and lighter than I expected. Reported as having excellent image quality.
- Cons: Off-center tripod mount.
- Lowest price found: $407 (after $150 mail-in rebate)/$499
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A1
- Manufacturer’s site: Konica Minolta | DiMAGE A1
- Basic features: 5MP, 7x optical zoom, variable-angle LCD and EVF, anti-shake mechanism.
- Reviews:
- Digital Camera Resource Page: Minolta DiMAGE A1
- DP Review: Minolta DiMAGE A1 Review
- Megapixel.net: Minolta Dimage A1
- Steve’s Digicams: Minolta DiMAGE A1
- DP Review User Reviews: Owners Opinions: Minolta DiMAGE A1
- Pros: Mid-range price for high-end features. Reviews indicate that Minolta’s claims regarding the anti-shake system to be spot on. Camera can automatically switch between the LCD and the EVF by sensing when the eye is close to the EVF, or simply leave the LCD off and only turn the EVF on when the eye comes close. Long battery life.
- Cons: Off-center tripod mount. Somewhat noisy night shots. May have been discontinued (though still available for purchase) in favor of the new A2.
- Lowest price found: $459
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2
- Manufacturer’s site: Konica Minolta | DiMAGE A2
- Basic features: 8MP, 7x optical zoom, variable-angle LCD and EVF, anti-shake mechanism.
- Reviews:
- Steve’s Digicams: Minolta DiMAGE A2 (first-look only, not a full review)
- This is a fairly new camera, reviews are either not out or very hard to find so far.
- Pros: All of the pros of the A1, plus insanely high resolution, and it’s supposed to be much faster at all operations than the A1.
- Cons: Off-center tripod mount. New, still pretty pricey (essentially out of my realistic ability, but I can dream…)
- Lowest price found: $699
[See also: More camera ramblings | Digital camera recommendations? | New camera! | Size Matters | Lens Lust ]
9 Responses to “Narrowing the field”
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Gavriel
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Ryan Waddell
Sponge Bob
March 14th, 2004 at 7:36 pm
As a person who knows nothing about cameras, I’m interested in what the deal is about the centered tripod mounts. It is simply a “Well, I take better pictures with a centered mount” or is there some reasoning behind why this is a con? I can’t imagine it’s such a big deal since most of these (even the expensive ones) have it off-center. But I really don’t know anything about it.
March 14th, 2004 at 7:41 pm
The biggest reason I pay attention to that is that I like to take panoramic photos by taking multiple pictures and panning the camera from one side to the other. Having the tripod mount centered inline with the lens (and preferably with the internal CCD also) helps ensure that the photographs will stitch together accurately, as they’re all being taken from the same point. An off-center mount point (or just standing in place and turning your body) shifts the camera a bit from picture to picture, introducing a bit more distortion into the stitching process.
I’m rather surprised that so few of the cameras that I’ve been looking at actually have the mount point inline with the lens, actually. Ah, well…while it’s something I notice, it’s certainly not a dealbreaker.
March 14th, 2004 at 10:23 pm
I still think you should poll your user base and see what you get for comments on manufacturer’s supported drivers/software/updates, etc. I’ve got lots of friends who have Nikons and they seem to be somewhat laggard with respect to driver and software updates. Don’t know that many with Minolta’s or Fuji’s, but again, what’s the user base say about the supported software. I can vouch that Canon treats its Mac and Windows customers with care and posts updates all the time - and their software, for a freebie, is damned good. Just another angle which you don’t mention and which is worth investigating.
March 15th, 2004 at 5:06 am
“I still think you should poll your user base and see what you get for comments on manufacturer’s supported drivers/software/updates, etc.”
I use Minolta and have never neded to update, The software disk that came with the Dimage 7i worked the first time and has never needed to be reloaded. The disk is two part and the second is for MAC’s. Way cool.
I like Camera’s West. I bought the Dimage 7i and the Cannon GL2 there and yes some of the salespeople can be a bit pushy but they generally have the best prices.
I also like Glazer’s (www.glazerscamera.com) Just remember when you go in and see cameras in the 3 and 4 thousand dollar range your in the wrong part of the store. The “Digital” area is across the street in the digital store. Next door to the parking lot. I buy a lot of supplies at Glazers and can’t recomend them enough. Their still salesmen, but at least they know what their talking about. Glazer’s is stocked with Professional Photographers in the sales staff.
Good luck.
March 15th, 2004 at 6:35 am
You’ve found some very low prices there. Before buying I’d recommend looking at Reseller Ratings and the Photo.net Neighbor-to-Neighbor service. (Photo.net seems to be down at the moment so I can’t provide a link). To keep it short, I only buy from Adorama and B & H. It’s worth noting that the centered tripod mount becomes less important the further away the scene is. Certainly, if you’re shooting a 360-degree panorama of your bathroom, it’s very important; if you’re shooting a panorama of the mountain range 2 miles away, it probably doesn’t matter. Another option for centering the mount yourself is a quick-release system for your tripod. Depending upon what you use it’s easy to purposefully offset the camera to account for the offset tripod mount.
March 15th, 2004 at 10:23 am
Dan — thank you so much for that Reseller Ratings link. I knew there were sites like that on the ‘net, I just hadn’t been able to come up with one yet. Looks like those prices are too good to be true, something I knew was very possible and was curious about after seeing how low they were, but hadn’t been able to verify yet.
Tim — I’ll see if I can swing by Glazers before work sometime this week to look around…maybe even go back by Cameras West again (as bad as that salesman was, I try not to judge the entire store by his attitude, and the girl at Kits Cameras did say that just about anyone else at CW should be fine to talk to). I can’t buy anything before my next payday anyway, so I’m in no huge rush to toss money around.
Chas — as evidenced above, this is exactly why I’ve been “thinking out loud”, so to speak, by posting about what I’ve been looking into and finding. I’ve been getting some great advice and pointers from people stopping by here, and all the help is extremely appreciated. Situations like this are a large part of why I love the ‘net…
March 15th, 2004 at 7:34 pm
So sorry to post here - I couldn’t find any other way of contacting you - and I lost the original blog entry . Sufficed to say I read your article about the correct br tag i.e. and I want to learn more about correct HTML usage, as even the W3C website guide tells me to use . Where can I find out more?
March 16th, 2004 at 3:01 am
I have the Powershot A70 and before that the A60. I can vouch for the fact that both these cameras have been extremely good and seem pretty well built. The only thing I would advise to watch out for with the A80 (as I suspect it has very similar firmware to the A70) is chromatic aberration (purple fringing) on photos where the foreground is dark but there’s a light (usually sunny or spotlit) background.
I have to be careful to frame shots with my A70 so I don’t suffer from it too much.
It’s probably a ‘feature’ of most digital cameras but Canons seem to get slammed for it more than most. A good example picture is here.
March 18th, 2004 at 3:41 am
Skip the small stores and go to Glazer’s! Friendly folks and it’s professional! (No, I don’t work for them … just a loyal customer whenever I am in town).