Sony Qualia 016

http://www.qualia.sony.us/qualia_main.cgi

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0306/03...yqualia016.asp

FWIW I just got a new SD550 through eBay for $360. The seller fucked up and couldn't send it after two weeks so he ordered it from Amazon.com for $399 and had it shipped to my address. He covered the difference and shipping
The camera is great, but there's 1 pixel stuck in green at the edge of the screen - very minor annoyance. The pics are top notch, and I can certainly recommend this camera. My parents have a Sony DSC-T7 which is great, too but the movie mode in the SD550 seems to be quite a bit better.

...now I'm waiting for my 1GB SanDisk Ultra II SD+USB card...

OK, technically not ultra compact, but I'm just curious if anyone have any hands on time with any high end pocket cameras like the Canon S80 or Panasonic LX-1. I've read the usual suspects for reviews so don't bother linking.

i have the SD400. LOVE IT.

Looking for a ultra compact digital camera. What should I look at?

Canon sd 450

Sony DSC-T1, T7, T9 or T5.

T7 is very ultra compact

I have a T1 from years back and it's very nice. The T9 is newer of the bunch.

The T5 from Dell on a good day is about $293.xx

The Canon SD450 on a good day is about $273.xx

that's how much I recently paid for those 2 cameras for friends.

Canon elphs > *

Agreed. Looking to replace my Sony eventually. I have the DSC-L1. Its very small, 4.1mp and takes good pics. Got it from Dell for 249 I think. But Canon >Sony for pictures.

Okay, since I could have REALLY used a small cam on my last three outings (two I wanted movie mode, the other was an ice rink where I didn't exactly feel like having the DSLR),
I'm now seriously in the hunt for a pocket cam.

Current leading candidate: The Casio EX-Z750.

Reasons I'm picking it:
1) it's the only one with aperture/shutter control. (and yes, at night I like to keep an eye on the shutter speed).
2) It records movies in MP4 compression so you can store fairly long movies on a memory card. At highest res, 30 minutes on a 1 gig card. Also the 'past movie' mode is wicked, where it buffers 4 seconds of video, and when you hit record, it saves the 4 seconds BEFORE you hit the record button. Great for capturing crud where you don't know when it'll happen.
3) Live histogram, which I don't think the others have.

Cons:
Lots of moans about the weak flash

For the record, I ended up going with the Z750. I decided the S600 would just be too thin and annoying.

I really think that it's a pretty close race between all of them, and unless you are looking for a specific thing or two, you'd be happy with any of them. And if you are, you've probably already made your choice.

Anyone here knows of a good online place that i can order the casio ex-s600.
i owned the ex-s100 and LOVED it. Unfortunatly it fell in the water and that's the end of it. i have looked at other camera's and found that nothing (for me atleast) compares with the casio.

anyway, i am trying to find a reliable place in Canada or a website in the .us that will ship to Canada (without charging duty if that is possible)

Tnx

techtoysforless was a very popular place to get the casio z750 (I got mine there too) and they sell the s600. Not sure if it's the cheapest place, but it is certainly reliable.

Great, thanks ChodTheWacko!

Small question: the main difference between the z750 and the s600 is the MP and the size, correct?

Not really.

The Z750 is the larger/more powerful version of the S500.
The Z850 replaced the Z750 and the S600 replaced the S500.

It'll be interesting to compare the S600 to the Z750 now.
Although offhand it looks like they just added a brighter LCD, and an anti-shake
thing (need to read reviews to see how effective it is).

The thinness is a big deal though. It's convenient to carry, but harder to use. Harder to hold, and buttons are more squished together. Also, someitimes I put the camera on a table/flat surface as a free tripod, and if the camera is too thin I'd be worried it'd get knocked over.

i owned the ex-s100, and i would imagine that the size is the same as the 500/600. Yes, it can be small and somewhat annoying, but i love the fact that it is so small and fits in all my pockets without it bothering me.

It would be nice if they made it that you can see out of the LCD at night.
Any day now i am going to get the s600, i will write up a small review and show you some of the pics i have taken.

Time to upgrade from my bulky FujiFilm 3800 to something more compact and slim. I've been looking around and have narrowed it down to Canon.

Here are my choices:

SD450
SD600
SD 550


They all seem to be pretty much the same except that the megapixels increase from 5 (SD450) to 6 (SD600) to 7.1 (SD550). Is there anything else that distinguishes them? Any pro's, con's that I should be aware of? Oh and is there anything new coming out anytime soon (like within the next month or two) that will make me regret my purchase? If you guys know of any websites with information or with good prices please let me know!

The SD700 looks cool
BTW There are other differences between the ones you mentioned. For instance the SD600 does ISO 800 while the 550 only does up to 400.

FWIW I've got the 550 and love it. Also, megapixels aren't everything. The newer p&s canons are mostly 6MP but they'll probably take nicer pics than the 7MP cameras

Yeah I'm well aware that megapixels aren't everything and that the higher you go, the more memory a picture will take up and thus the need for a bigger memory card. I also remember reading somewhere that to print a 4x6 you only need a certain amount of megapixels for it to come out very good and 5 mp is more than enough for this.


I'm not really concerned with the megapixels though. I'm worried about the little things such as features that one may have over the other. Things like the ISO and other things I might have overlooked.


As far as the ISO is concerned... I understand that its the measurement of light sensitivity. But what exactly does a higher number mean and what is better?

Is there any way to manually control the shutter speed with SD300? My gf has that camera and I couldn't figure out how to do that.

I'm looking at a new camera soon too and wanted to continue sticking with Canon. My old Powershot S30 was a great camera but I have some issues with it that I'm trying to troubleshoot that are either charger related, battery related, or camera discharge related.

Anyways, I'm looking at the SD700, SD600 and SD450. The first 2 are top choices but if I can find a great deal on an SD450, I'll just go with that. First 2 can do the ISO 800 and the first has image stability, but I'm sure the SD700 will be more expensive.

You need to be careful about new camera's ISO 800 settings, because they are equivalent to old camera's ISO 400 settings. Canon has been playing with ISO settings' numbers. At best it's a good marketing move, at worst it's a ploy to trick consumers.

No. None of the really small cameras allow this. (The Canon EX 750/850 'sort of' have this ability, but it's pretty cheesy)

Casio is getting silly!! Upping the ante in the P&S market. open link for full info.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/pr/ca..._z1000_pr.html

Canon 7MP P&S > Casio 10MP P&S

I guess Casio didn't hear that the megapixel wars are over.

Wasn't Casio's recent 7mp entry pretty good?

I disagree. P&S cameras will keep going until their picture quality is at the level of DSLR's - not the high-end crazy ones, but the "normal" ones. It's coming.

It's not going to help them to cram more pixels into the same size (or even smaller) sensors. These high-megapixel cams are plagued by poor dynamic range due to not enough light hitting each photosite.

Resolution != image quality

There's so much more to a good picture than just lots of pixels. I'd rather have 6 million clean pixels than 10 million pixels of crap. Give me high dynamic range, clean high-iso without image-crippling noise reduction, sharp glass, and image stabilization. Those will give you better shots.

The Sony R1 is the only P&S that uses a sensor bigger than your pinky finger. It's a step in the right direction, but you can clearly see how much more it costs for the support systems (lens, body, etc.) to enable large sensors. It's not impossible to make a P&S with a 1.6x crop sensor that will fit in your pocket, but they won't be as small as these guys.

ok - let's take 2 DSLR's. All hardware and specs are equal. With one exception. One is 6mp, and the other is 10mp. Which one will take better-looking pictures? What was that ridiculous Hasselblad I posted... 32mp or something? Why?

Why is the 1Ds MkII 16.7mp? Why not keep it at 8mp?

I am convinced that if you have 2 compact cameras, equal specs (mainly the sensor) - except one is 6mp and the other is 10mp - the 10mp's pics will look better - at all camera resolutions. This has been my experience.

Higher resolution only makes a difference when your output destination is bigger. At 240PPI, a 10MP camera can print to 11x17 whereas a 6MP cam could do 8x12. Print both at 8x12 and they'll look identical. That's an important concept to understand.

Resolution mearly determines your output size.

The 39MP Hassy uses a much bigger sensor (49mm x 36.7mm) so it can afford to have more pixels than a standard dSLR. The Canon 1DsMK2 uses a sensor that's the same size as a 35mm piece of film (36mm x 24 mm), so it too can have more pixels. Both of these cameras are targeted towards professionals who need to be able to print 2 page spreads at 240 or 300PPI.

This Casio crams 10 million pixels on a sensor that measures 7.2mm x 5.3mm. If you were to keep that pixel density and blow up the sensor to the size of the Hassy, you'd have a 712 megapixel camera.

Think about that for a second.

The technology exists to make a single 700+ megapixel sensor, yet hassy has decided to go with 39 megapixels. That means that every photosite in the hassy is 18 times bigger than the ones found in the Casio. Bigger photosites allow higher dynamic range, less noise, and better color accuracy.

I've learned to never question Dan when it comes to photography.

Now, in no way am I comparing the Casio to the Hasselblad. Do you agree that if 2 cameras have the same sensor size and other image-quality related specs, yet one is 6mp and the other is 10mp - that the 10mp's pictures will look better, at any resolution (i.e. 1600x1200, 2534x1802 etc)?

No, I disagree with that. So long as you keep the resolution within the limits of the sensor, the images will look the same. It only takes 1.9mp to make a 1600x1200 image, so anything more than that is just getting thrown away.

In fact, if the 10mp and 6mp cameras used the same size sensor, but the 10mp camera had to use smaller photosites so it could fit all the pixels on the sensor, there's a good chance that the 6mp could look better. This is the reason the 30D didn't get a bump in resolution over the 20D. There was just no reason to degrade image quality for the sake of resolution.

Come to think of it I own an SD400 for almost a year now and ever since I enrolled to photography class in college as an elective I must say this is by far my best pics yet:





Like I said in my other thread it's not the best quality you'll ever see but then I'm trying to max out my camera with its full potential using manual mode......but still I must say it's not back for a 5.0 megapixel camera I'm gonna be moving up in the camera world probably the end of summer with a Nikon DSLR 20D I believe what it was called.

SD400 is 4.0 MP and the 20D is a Canon.

Alright I meant to say Nikon D50 but you are wrong my friend the SD400 is 5.0 Megapixel I have camera right in front of me.

Lemme post this link too before I get owned or something lol

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...anon_sd400.asp

well I guess we disagree then!

Your right. I have the SD300, keep thinking its a 400.