Nikon, Canon or Sony ????

[SteveC]

I thought I had made my mind up and was going to buy the coolpix 4500, but now I've read about the Canon A95 im not sure, and then theres the new Sony DSC-P200.

I want to use the camera for things other than digiscoping, i.e. flowers, insects, landscapes, small child with icecream on his face etc and am very unsure which camerea to get.

Ive seen and used the 4500 and was very impressed but it is getting on a bit now, the shots posted on this forum from the A95 are very impressive and it also has a more MP and then there is the sony which has 7.2 MP a nice large lcd.

Any help would be apreciated as this is diving me insane trying to choose

[Andy Bright]

What about the new Nikon cp8400 that Yossi is testing out in another thread...little bit underpowered in the zoom lens but that's not always a bad thing for digiscoping. Certainly the cp8400 would suit general photography very well indeed. Still not sure it's worth worrying about megapixels a great deal, there are far more important things to consider.
Must admit the Canon A95 does seem to produce the goods when digiscoping.

Regards,
Andy

[SteveC]

Thanks for the reply Andy.
So its a toss up between the Nikon 4500 or Canon A95, at least I'm down to just two now ;)

[geoff hurley]

SteveC
Why did i buy the canon A95 instead of the Nikon 4500,
cost there is about £75.00-£100.00 price difference depending on where you buy, not a great incentive so about even so far.
As a nikon dslr user i should have been swayed towards the 4500 but
batteries the 4500 uses a dedicated battery type, here we go again another charger
A95 AA batteries plenty of these, rechargeable as well.
from reports 4500 a bit light on battery power, quite happy with the battery consumption with the A95, a good afternoon switched on all the time on the same set of batteries.
As i had a supply of compact flash cards no difference, showing 99 photos at the best resolution on a 256mb card on the A95.
Build quality both seem fine, but i would rather put the A95 in my pocket quite small in size.
Focus again only from report the focus on the 4500 is a bit slow, the A95 whilst there is an almost perceptable delay in auto focus, in manual it is bang on the button.
Where it counts quality of photograph this is where the crunch comes. whilst i am using an opticon ed80 scope it unfair to compare this with the likes of Nikon-Leica-Swaro etc. there are some fantastic shot in the gallery taken with the 4500 i have not seen many with the A95 swaro etc.
I am trying to do some comparisons with A95 and and a nikon D70 on the opticron fitted with a telephotoadapter which is used in place of an eyepiece. the first have been of a static subject and the A95 compares well with the nikon but the nikon D70 has a very distinct better quality.
The 4500 is old technology and the A95 is upto date.
Nothing wrong with the 4500 and i'm sure there are many member out there who will swear by the 4500.
the A95 needs a special lens hood to be able to connect to a scope before an adapter can be fitted, the 4500 connects directly to a scope adapter.
my only complaint about the A95 is, there is no raw or tiff files.
probably a bit confusing but trying to rationalise the reason
cost
batteries
compact flash cards
focus
technology
quality of photograph
cannon has built upon success and the A95 is no micky mouse camera
and having used the camera ease of use very intuative.

hope this helps

cheers geoff

[SteveC]

Thanks Geoff you've helped me make up my mind, the Canon it is.

Now all I have to do is find the best deal, web search here I come.

[john-henry]

Thanks Geoff you've helped me make up my mind, the Canon it is.

Now all I have to do is find the best deal, web search here I come.


Steve
Having bought the A95 a couple of weeks ago the best deal I could find was from Pixmania - £205 delivered and with a 2year warranty - worth a look.

The one drawback with them is the manual is in French but they give you a link to Canon where you can download the English version for free.
happy hunting

john-henry

[Neil]

I'm surprised there is no RAW and TIFF setting. It's nice to get the better quality. What about the number of focus points for Spot Focusing? Very important when digiscoping into trees and bushes to have more options for focusing (the CP4500 has 5 ).

[Keith Reeder]

Neil,

the A95 has 9 point AiAF mode.

I should also mention that it has a very useful burst/continuous shooting mode which - while not quite on a par with the latest Contax/Kyocera offerings - still makes all the difference sometimes when trying to get "the" shot when digiscoping...

Depending on the chosen mode, you can get between 0.8 and 2 frames per second.

It doesn't grind to a halt when the buffer is full either, it starts to write (more slowly) straight to the card.

[Josfre]

As I know The sony P200, The Nikon 8400, The new Digilux from Panasonic, are good cameras by the lens.
The Nkon is too havy and the zoom is small, a new digilux whith 6x zoom in April.
I am in the same dilema as Steve.
My actual and unique camera is a Nytech and i am not so hapy whith the lens, so the Leica Panasonic or Zeiss Sony will fix the problem, i think.
My Scope is a Swa At 80 not hd but whith a baader filter and a set of 1,25" panoptics from Tele vue as eyepieces is a fantastique spotingscope. To make justice to these eyepieces I am in the process of chosing a camera.
My sistem is home made and it supports the camera in any position at any distance in front of the eyepiece, the sistem is supported by the head in the tripod not by the eyepiece, i can put the camera for shooting only,or I can put my eye in the eyepiece and the camera roades whith a finger, the sistem is fixed and previously regulated in the exact position for shoting, virtualy any camera can be positioned. I am hapy whith my sistem I am not hapy whith my camera.
Any advise will be welcome

Thankyou

[yossi]

A good scope should always come first. A very cheap camera and a good scope will give better results than a fancy, high quality camera, and a cheap scope. I've started my way in digiscoping with cheap scopes. It took me over a year and a lot of disappointments to come to this conclusion. It was a frustrating and expensive school.
I "saw the light" when I purchased eventually my first good scope - the Swaro ST 80 HD. At that time I had the CP990 as my main camera - and I suddenly felt like saying: "...Toto, it's not Kansas anymore" (if I remember the phrase correctly)...

[john-henry]

As I know The sony P200, The Nikon 8400, The new Digilux from Panasonic, are good cameras by the lens.
The Nkon is too havy and the zoom is small, a new digilux whith 6x zoom in April.
I am in the same dilema as Steve.
My actual and unique camera is a Nytech and i am not so hapy whith the lens, so the Leica Panasonic or Zeiss Sony will fix the problem, i think.
My Scope is a Swa At 80 not hd but whith a baader filter and a set of 1,25" panoptics from Tele vue as eyepieces is a fantastique spotingscope. To make justice to these eyepieces I am in the process of chosing a camera.
My sistem is home made and it supports the camera in any position at any distance in front of the eyepiece, the sistem is supported by the head in the tripod not by the eyepiece, i can put the camera for shooting only,or I can put my eye in the eyepiece and the camera roades whith a finger, the sistem is fixed and previously regulated in the exact position for shoting, virtualy any camera can be positioned. I am hapy whith my sistem I am not hapy whith my camera.
Any advise will be welcome

Thankyou


Bom dia Josfre
If you are looking for a new camera consider the Canon A95, it's a really good camera, it gives excellent results and is very easy to use.
I too have made a swing-out bracket to take cameras without a lens thread (or if you don't want a lump of metal hanging on the end of your lens) and had no trouble getting it to line up with the scope.
The problem with the larger zoom cameras for digiscoping is vignetting of course, you end up being able to use only a small part of the zoom range.

Hopes this helps.

john-henry

ps. visiting the Alentejo the last week of April, see if you can produce some good weather for me, I understand it rains quite often then. ;)

[SteveC]

Well I've ordered the camera from Pixmania (seemed the best deal) and am now waiting paitently for Mr Delivery man, thats if he can get through all the snow here at Sandwich Bay.

[Josfre]

Steve choice was A95 I think.
I am confused about my choice.I am going to take some time whith my old camera, and in a near future my choice will go to a SLR in eyepiece projection photography maybe.
Jonh, have a good stage here in Alentejo/Algarve.D'ont forget to visite Lagoa de Santo André near Sines.Carrapateira in Sado river.and other good places for digiscoping.The small lagons all over the province are good places too, if you are going to stay for some time or if you intend to return other years in the futur think about to use a map 1/50000 you can buy it in the site
http://igeoe.shopping.sapo.pt/sapo
good photos

[clascronlund]

Well I've ordered the camera from Pixmania (seemed the best deal) and am now waiting paitently for Mr Delivery man, thats if he can get through all the snow here at Sandwich Bay.

|:d| I've got my A95 from Pixmania yesterday.
Waiting for the Lensmate adapter though.
And of course the spring and the birds to getting here.
Next step is to make some adapter for the cable release.

I choose the A95 because of all the good I have read about it.
Not only in this forum, also in other test it often got the “best product” and “best buy”. And also at a very reasonable price.

If I don’t freeze my hands of I shall try some “hand shoots” this weekend.
(Last week it has been below -20 C in southern Sweden.)

[SteveC]

Well its finally turned up and so far I'm very impressed, just got to get an english manual now.

Couldn't wait to try it out so on the way home I nipped into the scrape and digi-binned these images.
I know there not great, but it just shows how good the camera is straight out of the box and on auto. I've since found out that it wasn't even on the highest setting.