Glen Christian
Member
Neil said:
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Feature Comparison for a Digiscoping Camera (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Neil
- Start date
john-henry
Well-known member
Glen Christian said:
Very misleading these review sites aren't they! The reviewer says it has AP and SP yet the specs list says it hasn't!!
Quality seems so so, CA at wide end and sharper at the edges than the centre at tele, also high contrast and overprocessed NR. Think I'll wait for a few more reviews before make my mind up on this one.
One other thing I would like to find out more about is the battery, it has the same battery as the W100 - NP-BG1 - which takes 5.5 hours to charge.
I sometimes wonder if we're at fault for expecting these newer cameras with high Mpix and newer chips to give us good quality or the camera manufacturers are by seemingly catering for a market where you press the button then print straight from the camera. What they don't seem to realise is anyone buying 8-10Mpix is looking for a bit better quality than having it all done in-camera for you and done in such a way that fine detail is destroyed.
There again I might be totally wrong and this is what sells cameras, but I should have thought that the general holiday-snap market wants something cheap and cheerful.
Let's hear a few more views on the subject of newer cameras and what people expect from them.
Sorry if I'm going off subject a little Neil, but I don't think I am really, you've started a darn good thread here with several digi-enthusiasts contributing and it would be good to broaden it a little to include what people actually want from a compact for digiscoping.
Regards
John
CP4500, Panasonic FX01/Leica C-Lux1
Lens (vignetting issue) 3 5
Ease of Use (Menus,Custom Modes, 4 4
buttons,handling,histogram )
Image Quality (RAW,file size,noise) 4 4 (better resolution but more processed, not as good colours, blotchy noise)
Thread for Adapter/tripod thread 5 3 (no thread for lens adapters, metal tripod threads)
Remote Control/Flexible Self-timer 4 (R) 4 ("universal" bracket)
Frame Rate per second/Continuous 2 4 (fast, but small buffer 5 frames)
Screen (rotatable/hi-res ) 3(R) 5
Battery Life 2 4
Robustness (drop-a-bility ) 3 3 (dropped once, wouldn't like to try again)
Others (eg.EVF, optical viewfinder,
video,panorama )
Autofocus (speed, accuracy) 1 4
Couldn't agree more with John-Henry about optics, pixels and in-camera processing. Give me good pixels, excellent 3x lens, sharp screen, fast serial shooting - and I'll figure out everything else. Rotating screen, A & S priority exp., filter threads, OIS etc. would be nice, but I could live without them.
Ilkka
Lens (vignetting issue) 3 5
Ease of Use (Menus,Custom Modes, 4 4
buttons,handling,histogram )
Image Quality (RAW,file size,noise) 4 4 (better resolution but more processed, not as good colours, blotchy noise)
Thread for Adapter/tripod thread 5 3 (no thread for lens adapters, metal tripod threads)
Remote Control/Flexible Self-timer 4 (R) 4 ("universal" bracket)
Frame Rate per second/Continuous 2 4 (fast, but small buffer 5 frames)
Screen (rotatable/hi-res ) 3(R) 5
Battery Life 2 4
Robustness (drop-a-bility ) 3 3 (dropped once, wouldn't like to try again)
Others (eg.EVF, optical viewfinder,
video,panorama )
Autofocus (speed, accuracy) 1 4
Couldn't agree more with John-Henry about optics, pixels and in-camera processing. Give me good pixels, excellent 3x lens, sharp screen, fast serial shooting - and I'll figure out everything else. Rotating screen, A & S priority exp., filter threads, OIS etc. would be nice, but I could live without them.
Ilkka
John,
Your not off topic because what we hoping for are criteria for knowing a good digiscoping camera when we see one. Everyone will have different requirements and rate features differently. I suspect that I will have to continue to carry two digicams to cover different situations. At the moment my preferred choice is the Olympus 7070wz and the Fuji F30 (when I replace the broken one ), but I'm hoping for a suitable upmarket Fuji (better than the E900 ). The 7070wz won't last forever ( I've dropped it twice when the tripod fell over ). I can still buy the Nikon Coolpix 8400 in Hong Kong but it's a bit long in the tooth now to pay US$650 for it. Neil.
Your not off topic because what we hoping for are criteria for knowing a good digiscoping camera when we see one. Everyone will have different requirements and rate features differently. I suspect that I will have to continue to carry two digicams to cover different situations. At the moment my preferred choice is the Olympus 7070wz and the Fuji F30 (when I replace the broken one ), but I'm hoping for a suitable upmarket Fuji (better than the E900 ). The 7070wz won't last forever ( I've dropped it twice when the tripod fell over ). I can still buy the Nikon Coolpix 8400 in Hong Kong but it's a bit long in the tooth now to pay US$650 for it. Neil.
One thing hasn't been talked about much is megapixels which John-Henry touched on. For full frame birds (which I get with the 30x eyepiece ) 6/7 megapixels should be enough for most people. The 10 meg A640 is a bit slow and can't take too many images on a 1 gig card in full res. It works better dropped down to a lower res. Neil.
Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
Sorry all just cannot get this to fit right.
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Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
If I may add to Neil's posts the subject of megapixels is important. I have an A95 which is rated at 5, now I think that is a too little now but still sufficient. One thing that does annoy me though is the max ISO is only 400 and when this is used noise is obvious. Love to have a greater range or a raw capability.
Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
I know, the original was all straight lines but when I attached it was thrown all over the show. 'Fraid not that clever enough on computer docs etc.
It was fine when I opened it in Excel... then saved it into html and on my browsers it looks just perfect.Robert L Jarvis said:
I see I had a little confusing headers in my comparisons. I actually meant that the Panasonic and Leica are the same camera and they were meant to have the same scores. The other scores for Nikon CP4500 were copied from Neil's original table for a reference. I attach the table with correct scores for the Pana FX01 (Leica left out).
Best regards,
Ilkka
Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
Thanks Iporali. But your attachment is not opening for me, comes up in notepad.
Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
All I get is the title. I did the table in excel and saved it as text before putting it on the thread. But it was all over the place, tried to fix it several times but to no avail.
Not sure how to open it excel?
Not sure how to open it excel?
john-henry
Well-known member
Neil said:
Neil,
I agree with you about having to carry two cameras for different situations, the trouble is of course what do you choose?
I'm quite happy with the A95 but it does have its limitations, mainly being a 'noisier' camera than many out there so I suppose a Fuji would be the first choice but I'm not happy with the in-camera NR on the F30 or its performance in good sunlight.
I keep coming back to look at the Olympus SP-350, a bit slow in performance but plenty of 'tweaks' available to increase quality, it suffers the usual highlight clipping, CA at wide angle etc. as do most other digicams in this range, so we've just got to learn to minimise these problems because I think they are here to stay.
I'm sure you must have had a look at the 350 if only because it has RAW shooting, have you got an opinion about it?
I did buy the SP-320 but sent it back in disgust as Olympus had not improved the battery life when using NiMH batteries despite having the same problem with the 310 and 350 and having to issue a firmware update to overcome the problem - what's the matter with these companies!! However apart from this and the slow write times it didn't seem too bad although I must admit I didn't keep it long enough to give it a good field test.
Perhaps someone who is using one will contribute to the thread and make us all the more wiser.
cheers for now
John
Robert L Jarvis said:
Robert,
It is a pity that the forum messages can't handle html tables. I have to admit that I don't understand computer systems enough to know why some files open easily and some don't. If your Excel does not open my txt-file by File -> Open... then unfortunately I have no idea.
I attached an image (screen capture) of the table, which - of course - is not editable, but at least it should be readable.
Thanks for the idea to collect the data in a table format - I hope BF could provide some clever system to display it. :t:
Ilkka
EDIT: The resized attachment...
Attachments
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Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
See it now, but need to make it somehow writeable for all to enter their cameras.
Alastair Rae
London birder
I pasted it into a spreadsheet and that sorted the tabs out.
Robert L Jarvis
Robert L Jarvis
Alistair can you fix it so that members can access it, put their scores on for their cameras and put it back on the thread so all can view it.
Robert
Robert
Alastair Rae
London birder
Attachments can only be images or text.
I've attached a CSV (comma separated values) file as txt. You'd have to save it, rename as a csv and import into spreadsheet to view it properly and then reverse the procedure to upload it.
I can't see this procedure working |^|
I've attached a CSV (comma separated values) file as txt. You'd have to save it, rename as a csv and import into spreadsheet to view it properly and then reverse the procedure to upload it.
I can't see this procedure working |^|
