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Wide-angle cameras?
- Thread starter Buschmaster
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Leica D-Lux 3 or its near twin (with differences in firmware and software bundled) the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2.
Very nice, best lens YOU have used. No barrel distortion you say? More distortion than teh Tokina 12-24. And the king of no barrel distortion is the much more affordable Canon 10-22 f3.5-4.5 USM. Not that Nikkor. Very nice that you like your very expensive lens, but recommending just everyone a Nikon DSLR just because of that lens, that is not the best wide angle APS-C DSLR lens anyway, is a bit weird to me.
IF you want a DSLR, it makes a LOT more sense to get a Tokina 12-24, Canon 10-22 USM or Sigma 10-20. And I knwo that the Canon will not fit on a Nikon camera
... so why not suggest a Canon 400D/XTi in the process in future? But as it has been said before, INCLUDING by the OP, a point and shoot is wanted.
To the people that have mentioned Panasonic and Leica:
These panasonics/leicas have a lot noisier sensors and not so good image processing, and also have more barrel distortion than the equivalent Canon wide angle compacts.
So I stay by my original recommendations:
Ultra compact with image stabilization: Canon SD800 IS
Compact with beautiful finish and very good (closest to DSLR probably by any compact) image quality: Canon S80.
^^True. And Panasonic sensors have improved. They have a bad rep that they deserve, but recently, they have been improving. Get a Kodak, I say. They make more than one camera capable of wideangle (relatively speaking), and one of them is a small camera.
Even if the Panasonics claim to have improved, they lag still.
Here some 100% cropped examples that illustrate this (linked from dcrecource.com):
Canon SD800 IS @ ISO 80:
Panasonic LX2 @ ISO 100:
Notice how the Panasonic makes it a bit too saturated and dark, but it still is quite good att ISO 100.
Canon SD800 IS @ ISO 400:
Panasonic LX2 @ ISO 400:
Now things take a turn for the worse in a BIG way for the Panasonic. Notice the muddying of details... the loss of colour, all courtesy of Panasonic's noise reduction crap... yes, you see more noise in the Canon ISO 400 shot than before, but the results will still be very usable.
So... im sure some people would return a Canon SD800IS, you can always find stories of people returning whatever camera on internet. But do not tell me those people would be happy with the results of a Panasonic.
Thanks to the couple of you who strived to bring this thread back to its purpose. I was ready to just give up.
Image quality is important here, but only slightly. She currently uses an Olympus Camedia that has 2.1 megapixels. It'll all be a step up for her. She prints fliers, uploads these pictures to show, etc. She's not printing off 8x10s of someone's living room. Would the Panasonic sensor be that bad that she'd be that dissatisfied with it? Beyond this, it'll shoot family, and that's about it.
Image quality is important here, but only slightly. She currently uses an Olympus Camedia that has 2.1 megapixels. It'll all be a step up for her. She prints fliers, uploads these pictures to show, etc. She's not printing off 8x10s of someone's living room. Would the Panasonic sensor be that bad that she'd be that dissatisfied with it? Beyond this, it'll shoot family, and that's about it.
The Panasonic sensors are actually quite a bit worse. It is up to you to decide how much that matters. But what does a Panasonic have over the 2 Canons that would make you go for the one with lesser image quality? And the Canons do have that very nice panorama assistance mode that let you make upto 360 degree panoramas with ease.
So... better lens (less barrel distortion), better image quality due to sensor and in camera processing, more complete are the pros for the Canons.
What are the pros that would make you look at the Panasonics?
With the Canons you have to make the panorama with the provided software.
With the Kodak V705, you can just stitch 3 photos in the camera itself, no need for postprocessing.
The Kodak has one fixed 23mm lens, but the other zoom lens starts at 39mm, so there's a gap there. But I guess she would just be shooting at 23 almost all the time anyway.
With the Kodak V705, you can just stitch 3 photos in the camera itself, no need for postprocessing.
The Kodak has one fixed 23mm lens, but the other zoom lens starts at 39mm, so there's a gap there. But I guess she would just be shooting at 23 almost all the time anyway.
Can the Kodak stitch portrait oriented photos? I dont think it can. can it do more than 3 photos? I dont think it can. How about its image quality? Not even close to the other 4/5 cameras I recommended.