My regression from dSLR to P&S - Help Me (and a warning to buyers)

[CrackedButter]

I recently went to Newcastle in the UK and took with me 2 canon bodies with 2 lenses and a FujiFinepix F10.

I found the Fuji a much better camera given the situation, it was weird because I expected to use the Canon mostly. I was shooting some pics with the Fuji as research but I ended up being really happy with them. I'll how they compare when the canon images come in from the developers, still on film when it comes to my SLR.

Of course a smaller camera is always going to be more handy than an SLR, but in this case, its lens was a nice addition over the SLR. It was nothing special but it just seemed to work better for what I was doing.

I'm tempted to find a feature for feature replacement for the F10 but something with a lens that doesn't protrude to help with even greater portability. Another Fuji as well.

 

[FleurDuMal]

I came to the same conclusion as FleurDuMal. I was going to be doing a lot of travelling in Central America, and you need a discreet camera which isn't going to attact men with guns ;-)

So I bought the Panasonic LX-2 - amazing lens - great build quality - good manual features and interface. Shame about the aggressive jpeg compression, but it's not so bad unless you're making enlargements and is dealable with by using Noise Ninja. So I highly recommend it.

I was buying a present for my girlfriend, and I got her a Fuji F31fd. I had heard about the great low-light performance and thought it would be perfect for her. And it does perform well, up to a point, but the lens on the LX-2 is streets ahead. It is disappointing, comparatively speaking.

The sub-SLR space is crying out for a decent camera - and the LX-2 is almost it - so I would go for that.

(Mind you - the Canon G7 has its admirers too, and seems to take a good photo - but it's a little heftier and the lens is quite plasticky...)

Finally - if you want to see what each camera is capable of - check out the Flickr camera search - http://flickr.com/cameras/

What the Fuji offers in versatility for low light conditions, it does look like is balanced by less rich colours in normal light compared to other (pricier) compacts. Like I've said, my long term aim is to have the Fuji and then later on invest in a better performing P&S for normal light like the Ricoh GX 100 (and, perhaps in the very long term a camera with particuarly large zoom). What I like about the GX 100 is that although it is nosier than most P&Ss, most of that can be put down to the complete lack of incamera processing. Also, the noise it does create actually gives its pictures a grainyness which lends itself very well to black and white photography, judging by what I've seen on the interwebs.

 

[simp]

As a suffix - I had a burglary recently (Grrrr!) - and my LX-2 got nicked, among other things - but the nice insurance company have paid up (Phew!) - so I need to replace the LX-2...

And I've been wavering because of the agressive in-camera compression - but I just haven't found anything as nice to hold and use - so I must check out this Ricoh you're referring to...

 

[Alasta]

What I like about the GX 100 is that although it is nosier than most P&Ss, most of that can be put down to the complete lack of incamera processing.

If this appeals to you then you should also take a look at the Nikon P5000. I have one and I'd highly recommend it for its solid built quality, excellent handling, reasonable price, compact size, and non-aggressive internal image processing. Obviously you can't expect miracles from a compact camera with regard to high ISO performance, but I do find that noise on the P5000 is well controlled up to ISO400 and at a push it might even be feasible to use ISO800 or ISO1600 in some situations.

A couple of things that you need to be weary of with the P5000 is that it has no live exposure histogram, very poor burst speeds, and a slow AF system. The slow AF is compensated somewhat by the fact that it features continuous AF and has a flexible range of AF modes, but this still may not be the ideal camera if you take a lot of action shots.