Good Little Digital Cameras

[rslomkow]

This a little bit off-topic, but I thought I would add it to this thread.

I would recommend the
Canon A620 to anybody considering entry-level underwater photography at this time.

I gave my girlfriend an A620 for her Birthday in May and my work gave me a Canon SD550 (aka Ixus750 for Europeans)

They are the same Internal electronics, both use SD memory. The A620 is cheaper, they are both 7.1 Mega Pixel Cameras with no raw format, and a built in underwater mode for color correction. Both do "unlimited" 640x480 video

The A620 does better in low-light, it focuses faster, it has a bigger zoom (not of much use for underwater photography), and it can zoom while doing video. I suspect most of those differences are because of the larger physical lens.

The only real advantage of the SD550/Ixus750 is the smaller size, and Fancier battery. But getting high-end rechargeable double-AA give the A620 a good amount of battery life, and once you add the underwater housing the size difference between the two really dissapears.

I have used other compact Canons and Nikons underwater and have been very pleased with the current generation of Canons.

The lack of Raw format is not really an issue with Fine-mode with this number of Mega-Pixels and the size of lenses you are talking about.

The "Underwater mode" does a good job of reducing the use of flash, and basic color correction enough to make pictures viewable without post-processing (If you really want to show off details doing color normalization aftward will help)

I also think the "weight kit" is useless, even the A620 in its case that is suppose to have need 3 weights does not have much pull in Salt Water, and honestly I like have a camera that floats upwards.

I don't use strobes, I do use a flashlight at times, the flash is very weak (way too close to the lens, not enough lighting power) except for a few macro shots.

The video is surprisingly good, but you don't get any color correction with it.

With that said I generally use the SD550/Ixus750 because it is "mine"

Here are some sample pictures.

http://flickr.com/photos/robinslomko...ags/underwater

[garett]

I’m thinking to buy a camera for shallow (snorkeling/freediving) water photography and video recording.
After reading tons of articles and reviews my choice narrowed to the next 3 Canon cameras:

G7

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_g7-review/

http://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/compare_products/loadcomparator.asp?prod=1285B009;&lang=UK&country= UK&dir=/for_home/product_finder/cameras/digital_camera/powershot/

S80

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_s80-review/

SD800 IS Digital ELPH (IXUS 850 IS)

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_sd800-review/

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_Camera/IXUS/Digital_IXUS_850_IS/index.asp

I’ll be really happy to hear any comments and suggestions.

[Fondueset]

JimDoe2U has the G7. Considering it's the latest and greatest - and has a higher native iso setting (80 vs 50 for the S80 - means maybe better in low light) it would probably be my choice if I were just getting a camera - however I don't think it's worth the upgrade from the S80. The G7 as S80 are both hi-end - which means they have a lot of 'SLR-ish' features. For U/w pics - particularly in low-light - you will want to go beyond 'point and shoot' and work out some good presets. It really depends on what you want to do with it which one you get and how much you spend. One nice thing about the G7 and the Ixus 850 (which I believe is lower end than the other two) is Canon's image stabilization. Instead of doing it digitally they use actual tiny gyros to stabilize the lens. I wish the S80 had that. I have friends who have the Canon 640 and love it too.
Honorable mention goes to the little casio exz series cameras. I know Jon has the exz1000. The ones i used focused very quickly for digital cameras - faster than the canons - though the image was not as good as my S80. That said I never tweaked the settings on the Casios - except to turn off the flash. Considering that the quality is pretty amazing. (on my site all of the pics from the top down to where it says 'new camera' were taken with a casio exz57 - those below 'new camera' with the S80)

Here is a review of the G7 from dpreview.
Review of G7 at Dpreview.com

If it were me I might go for the G7 - should be about the same as the s80 with maybe a few improvements - image stabilization - higher ISO. I wouldn't upgrade because it still has the same size sensor. You need to way the expenditure against your use though. If you are doing mostly movies you could probably go cheaper. You can see on my site the very inexpensive little casios do a great job - as do the cheaper canons.

I recommend grabbing a copy of photoshop too - it's a big help particularly if you prefer not to use the flash. Here are a couple of images I took the other day - we got playing around with black and white and sepia type stuff.

[garett]

I plan both, photo and video.

I personally prefer G7 but I like wide angle, and G7 has no wide angle lens.

Also as I’ve understood from description the focusing is slower than on other cameras.

That’s not so good.

What is good, bigger lens size – I like it.

Also I have Speedlite flash from my EOS5 – I could use it with G7 for land photos.

Hard to make right decision.



I have no problems with Photoshop – any tricks, any filters. I have few hundred extra filters. But I don’t have much time to spend on Photoshop…

[garett]

What is your opinion about this: - Galeries : Photographie par Michel Loup

I've tried to contact that guy twice, but never get any response (maybe he doesn't speak English at all?)

[fabrice]

Hi Garett,

Michel Loup site is great - really amazing pictures... If you have specific questions for him I can translate them to french if you need.

Fabrice

[garett]

Originally Posted by fabrice

Hi Garett,

Michel Loup site is great - really amazing pictures... If you have specific questions for him I can translate them to french if you need.

Fabrice

Thanks Fabrice.

I just tried to find what camera he used. But maybe it's his professional secret?

[trux]

No secret, he shows the camera on his website. You can see the camera on this photo:

about.jpg

It is without doubts Nikonos V with a UW Nikkor 15mm (wide angle) lenses. Hence no digital camera, but a classical film.

[garett]

Thanks.
It's hard to see clearly, but I hope you’re right.

http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/filmcamera/underwater/5/index.htm

http://www.underwaterphotography.com/articles/equipment/f.asp?page=/articles/Equipment/Nikon/NikonosV.asp

So, what is your opinion: his pictures are so good because of camera?
It will be interesting to see same pictures taken with digital camera.


But any way I don’t want underwater film camera even if it’s really good.

Two more questions to G7 and S80 users:
- Can these cameras create a still image from a movie frame? Like Casio Exilim EX-Z750 for example (see review) http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/casio/exilim_z750-review/
- Has anybody tried to use a wide angle external lens with G7?

[Fondueset]

Yes - and the 1025x768 15fps mode is pretty good for that. I haven't actually done it with the camera - I used software to capture the frames - but I think they do it. DPreview seems to think the s80 is the better camera - at least at the time it came out they were much more enthusiastic about it. The S80 does have a fairly large lense. Slow focus would be a deal breaker for me on an underwater camera but I am not sure if they mean the zoom is slow or the focus. On re-reading that review the G7 did not compare all that favoreably with the much cheaper a640. Several of us here on DB have the s80 and it's been a pretty happy unit I think for all of us. I look forward to seeing what Canon does by way of an upgrade in the next year or so.

[trux]

Originally Posted by garett

It's hard to see clearly, but I hope you’re right.

I am absolutely sure about that. If you do not trust my judgment, simply enter "michel loup" nikonos into Google and you'll see I was right.

Originally Posted by garett

So, what is your opinion: his pictures are so good because of camera?

Well, the camera is certainly quite important, but the person behind it is always principal. You get the best results when both elements are excellent.

That told, the wide lenses, excellent Nikon optics, and the reflex Nikonos body surely make a big difference. The fact that he uses film is also important, but you can get excellent results with digital technology too. However, you should not expect getting the same quality of photos with a cheap compact model as with a special UW reflex camera with expensive optics. Also the optical properties of a wide angle lenses build specially for UW photography without additional housing like the Nikkor can be barely matched by any lenses in a UW housing - the additional layers of glass (or plastic) and water/air necessarily change the optical proprieties of the lenses.

Still, it does not of course mean you cannot make excellent photos with a small digital camera in a UW housing.

[Fondueset]

I wonder if Nikon will make us a nice Nikonos Digital - I agree by the way - I think he is using a Nikonos.

[trux]

Originally Posted by Fondueset

I wonder if Nikon will make us a nice Nikonos Digital - I agree by the way - I think he is using a Nikonos.

Unfortunately it looks like Nikon completely retreated from underwater photography. Although originally they claimed they would continue the Nikonos V indefinitely, in 2001 they announced the line would be discontinued. Unfortunately, so far they did not announce any plans for developing a digital Nikonos, although I bet that most of Nikonos owners would be more than happy if they could reuse the lenses with a new digital body.

[Fondueset]

It might be the rate of evolution in digital cameras vs cost makes making a dedicated U/w digital SLR a non-starter - but the larger CCD in slrs makes the image quality such that the Megapixel race is not so relevant. Still it would probably be really expensive. Housings for SLR's are expensive, and bulky for freediving.

[garett]

Originally Posted by Fondueset

Yes - and the 1025x768 15fps mode is pretty good for that. I haven't actually done it with the camera - I used software to capture the frames - but I think they do it. DPreview seems to think the s80 is the better camera - at least at the time it came out they were much more enthusiastic about it. The S80 does have a fairly large lense. Slow focus would be a deal breaker for me on an underwater camera but I am not sure if they mean the zoom is slow or the focus. On re-reading that review the G7 did not compare all that favoreably with the much cheaper a640. Several of us here on DB have the s80 and it's been a pretty happy unit I think for all of us. I look forward to seeing what Canon does by way of an upgrade in the next year or so.

Could you show couple of examples please?
Maybe you could ask JimDoe2U to do the same thing with G7 and to show us some results?