Compact Digicam recommendations

[e_dawg]

Hi everyone,

I am writing to tell you about a fantastic little digicam I picked up the other day: The Fuji Finepix F10 Zoom.

This move was precipitated by my frustration with my Canon PowerShot SD110. I am quite disappointed with the seemingly universally praised Canon Digital Elph series and wanted to find something compact like the Digital Elphs but did not have horrendous focusing problems and low-light usability problems.

Focusing and low-light usability, I have come to learn, are the bane of the point and shoot digicam existence. I can't say the SD110 was significantly worse than its competitors, but I find it hard to believe that nobody noticed that half their pics were blurry.

The F10 overcomes both of these problems mainly with a fast & relatively accurate focusing engine and outstanding light sensitivity (the sensitivity not only helps the focusing sensor but allows you to use a much faster shutter speed to avoid motion blur). This camera can be used at 800 ISO with the grain that is no worse than most P&S digicams at 200 ISO, and the 1600 ISO setting is like most of its competitors at 400 ISO.

I have only used this camera for a week now, but hallelujah, most of my shots are in focus and are not motion blurred -- even in low light. And the bonus is that I can elect not to use flash (which often horridly overexposes subjects that are close or medium distance with most P&S digicams) for a lot more low-to-medium available light shots.

The 6 MP resolution is just about perfect -- any more and it would be a waste of file size for me --, the battery life is supposedly excellent, the 2.5" LCD is big and clear, and the lens exhibits very low distortion at either end for a P&S digicam. It's also fairly compact -- just slightly larger than the Digital Elph that it replaces.

The only drawbacks of note: no aperture or shutter priority modes, an infuriating menu system, xD flash memory, review sites noted purple fringing (CA), and needing to hookup a breakout adapter box whenever charging the battery (no standalone charger, so must be done inside the camera) or transfering pics to your PC (unless you have an xD flash reader).

The good news (well, not for me) is that upcoming (in November) Finepix F11 Zoom will add aperture and shutter priority modes. The bad news is that Fuji hasn't confirmed whether they will be selling it in North America or not.

If anyone else has other compact digicam recommendations, post them here. The F10/F11 Zoom is my current entry.

 

[Buck]

e_dawg, I've been looking for a P&S camera too. Recently, during my trip to Hawaii, I used a Powershot, and was disappointed with blurry pictures. Essentially, the main object of the picture is out of focus, and ancilliary items are in focus -- very frustrating. Perhaps it is not the camera, but me. It is the first time I've used a digital camera and someone mentioned that I may not have spent enough time letting the camera focus. Here is an example:

 

[GIANT]

...I used a Powershot, and was disappointed with blurry pictures.

Man, that's got to be the blurriest picture of an '84 Corolla I've ever seen!

The problem was either you did not have the f-stop set high enough to increase depth of field, or there was too much motion of the subject for the shutter speed used.

 

[Gilbo]

GIANT, that's definitely an autofocus miss, not a shutter speed or depth of field problem. Notice that the green leaves are in focus and sharp, but the flower, the intended object of the shot is not.

Too slow a shutterspeed, handheld would have blurred everything including the leaves. While an increased depth of field might have brought the flower in focus, it would have been an accident of the misfocus. The focusing system was still focusing on the background. Besides a low depth of field is nice to have in a shot like this though because it emphasizes the flower by blurring the background. If the autofocus locks on the right thing anyway...

This example is especially damning because the intended focus point is in the foreground and in the center of the frame. This is the last type of shot the camera should miss. If it was going to misfocus on anything, I would have understood if it hit the noodley thing coming out the flower, front-focusing, but the background! Bah.

 

[mubs]

Gilbo, generally agree with what you said. Digicams have very good depth of field, so longer shots are usually in focus. This being a close-up, focussing mattered more. I would hazard a guess the the pink stalk was the centerpoint, and was too narrow for the camera to focus on, so it shifted the focus to what it could lock on to, the leaves. My Oly-4000 does this, but indicates this by moving the focus rectangle in the lcd off-center, so I know it's going goofy on me, and can take corrective action. In this particular case, the camera was probably in "focus on entire scene" mode. Shifting it to spot-focus would have helped.

 

[Buck]

Everything just seems easier with my older Minolta XG-1.

 

[Tea]

Clear autofocus miss, as Gilbo says. The problem is caused by one or more of:

1: The leaves have more horizontal and vertical lines than the flower has. Autofocus loves lines!

2: Focus mode. On my point and shoot Canon (and on my Nikons too, and the Canon SLR for that matter) you can select between several autofocus modes, much like your exposure modes: spot, evaluative (take a general average) or user-selected spot (you select which spot on the screen you want in focus). Looks to me as though it's in an average-everything mode. Selecting a focus spot is easy with an investment of about 2 minutes reading the appropriate page in the manual. On my Powershot A95, for example, you just press SET and move the joystick till the spot you want the focus to centre on is where you want it. Then point and click. The spot (outlined in green while you are moving it) stays there until you move it somewhere else or turn the camera off.

3: Focus time. Point and shoot cameras can take quite a while to figure out their focus. Five seconds is not unusual where there are several possible focal points. For macro work, always use the screen, not the viewfinder. On the LCD screen, you can see what's in focus and what isn't.

4: Use the finger trick. Where you can't get the camera to focus on the flower, use your hand or a bit of card or something to give it a large foreground object to focus on, then remove the card and click. In general, once it actually gets the idea that you want to focus on the flower, not the leaves, it will stay with the flower.

5: If having difficulty, move the camera in and out (especially in) until it locks up on the flower (because nothing much else is in frame at that distance). Then move out slowly to your desired point and click. Nine times out of ten, the camera will get the idea and stay with the flower.

6: Focus manually. On point and shoots, not always possible, and even where it is, usually a PITA. But when all else fails it works.

Stay with it, Buck. Digicams are fantastic little things, but they are different. Takes a while to get used to them, I think.

 

[e_dawg]

Good point, Tea. Spot or center focus is great, especially in combination with the focus and recompose technique. Aim the center/spot at the subject you want to focus on, press the shutter halfway and hold it (this will cause the camera to lock the focus)... recompose your shot and press the shutter button fully.

One of the problems of using center or spot focusing mode is when other people use your camera. This is something I do quite often on vacation or at parties/dinners, etc. I ask someone else to take a picture of me and someone else or me with interesting scenery/buildings, etc. Most people don't know the focus and recompose technique, and will rarely make sure the focusing center-zone is centered over the subject. Thus, the multi-zone focus mode is required in the hopes that the camera's "fuzzy logic" will help it choose the correct subject. This is often not the case (especially with my Canon).

 

[Buck]

Thanks for the tips everyone, they seem very helpful. I'll have to practice some more.

 

[Mercutio]

I have a 3 or 4MP Elph that I use for point and shoot. It autofocusses for crap, leading to either much futzing about trying to get the focus I want, or really awful, blurry pictures.

I carry it in my tech bag and really only use it to photograph hardware for customers (so that, if they need something over the phone, I know what their site looks like well enough to direct them), or when I'm trying to take pictures of my cats - for that purpose, the Elph is useless. It has never taken a non-blurry kitty photo.