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The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.


Knuckledragger

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1) I'm used to handling my DSLRs so using any P&S camera is significantly slower in comparison. The inherent slow-down to a P&S is tolerable for me though - but Canon's software-based menu slowed me down more than the camera's focusing speed (as changing ISO, aperture, shutter speed, & focal length are actions that I typically do a lot of, and each requires menu access - which obviously can't be done nearly as quickly as on a DSLR).

2) Never used the S90 much and I'm not really a critic on image quality either, so can't really speak for that. Seemed ok to me when I used it for the occasional pics of audio gear.

3) Never took enough pics at a time to drain the battery, can't speak for that either.

4) All of the pics that I've ever posted on HC or HF have been from JPG (have never shot in RAW), so I guess you can judge for yourself from my pics. I know Peter/Iron_Dreamer shoots in RAW though. Also I don't see why anyone would actually bother to use RAW on a P&S - makes a lot more sense to use RAW on DSLRs.

5) Never used the S90 to record video. Converting video formats shouldn't be hard to do though - and I'd imagine that to be more easily done on the Mac platform anyway (as opposed to Windows, which I use).

Thanks. In regards to #1, if you were to just let the camera do everything itself and you just wanted to snap pictures on automatic, did the camera make you wait very much to start shooting the first shot and subsequent shots?

I've seen some pretty incredible shots posted up on the web taken with the S95, so I feel better about that part. And I'm already used to carrying a spare battery with my Nikon S6, so I'd just get one to be safe. I'm frustrated that I missed VPI's used S95 for sale today...

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Thanks. In regards to #1, if you were to just let the camera do everything itself and you just wanted to snap pictures on automatic, did the camera make you wait very much to start shooting the first shot and subsequent shots?

If you're referring to power-on delay, every P&S has a short delay there, about 1-2 secs. Aside from that I'm not the right person to ask - I never used auto with the S90 and always shot full manual. It also had about maybe a half-sec delay between shutter releases.

Not sure why you'd be concerned about speed for a P&S camera anyway - no model will really be very fast. Well probably none of the inexpensive models anyway. Again, I'm not really a good person to ask about this - I'm not a P&S person and prefer using DSLRs.

I'd imagine the latest round of P&S cameras to be fast enough for most people, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about. If you really need fast speed (for power-on, focus, and changing of settings) then just get a DSLR.

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If you're referring to power-on delay, every P&S has a short delay there, about 1-2 secs. Aside from that I'm not the right person to ask - I never used auto with the S90 and always shot full manual. It also had about maybe a half-sec delay between shutter releases.

Not sure why you'd be concerned about speed for a P&S camera anyway - no model will really be very fast. Well probably none of the inexpensive models anyway. Again, I'm not really a good person to ask about this - I'm not a P&S person and prefer using DSLRs.

I'd imagine the latest round of P&S cameras to be fast enough for most people, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about. If you really need fast speed (for power-on, focus, and changing of settings) then just get a DSLR.

I can be indoors and try to take a photo of my son at his wrestling meet with my Nikon S6 (no flash), and press the shutter button but by the time it takes a photo a few seconds later the shot is gone, unless I am not using any zoom which slows it way down for indoors shooting, but I can't get close enough to the action to get a good shot without zoom. If I zoom in with the flash on, but am farther away than 5-10 feet then the shot comes out black because it seems to think it's okay to crank up the shutter speed higher with the flash on. The 6Mp photos don't have enough resolution to let me crop them digitally on the computer and throw out the unwanted pixels.

Basically the S6 is an outside-only camera if you want to zoom at all or not use the flash. And I'm not shooting in the dark, this was a well lit gymnasium. And inside my home with every light in the house turned on I get slow shutter speeds and blurry photos because it maxes out at 400 ASA (or ISO whatever). So, I get few good photos of the family at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I might just buy the S95 at Best Buy instead of online at a lower price, so I can try it out and return it if I don't like it after putting it through the ringer for a week or two. Right now I'm liking my son's $69 Canon A490 more than my $300 Nikon S6 (2006 price). I just want something better by the time we leave for spring break.

Edited by HeadphoneAddict
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Basically the S6 is an outside-only camera if you want to zoom at all or not use the flash. And I'm not shooting in the dark, this was a well lit gymnasium. And inside my home with every light in the house turned on I get slow shutter speeds and blurry photos because it maxes out at 400 ASA (or ISO whatever). So, I get few good photos of the family at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This is because human eyes do much better job of adjusting to available light as compared to your camera. You may think there are enough lights, but there are generally not enough lights for in most indoor locations/situations without cranking up ISO, lowering shutter speed, using a flash, etc.

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4) Also I don't see why anyone would actually bother to use RAW on a P&S - makes a lot more sense to use RAW on DSLRs.

Well, I would, but I guess you already suspected that ;)

I actually learned RAW processing before I had a DSLR, using the raw files from a Fuji E900 P&S cam. In retrospect, I'm glad I shot RAW, even with that P&S camera, because as software processing evolves, I can go back and extract better quality from those shots. Camera Raw 6.x (in Adobe CS5/LR3) was worth a least a stop, if not more, of noise performance from my previous processing. And that applied to almost every shot I've ever taken, on every camera I've owned. Since a lot of how a shot will look is in the processing, I just prefer to keep as much control of that as possible. If anything it's even MORE important on a P&S/small-sensor type camera, as they are so dependent on noise reduction, even at lower ISO's. Why get stuck with today/yesterday's NR algorithms, when if you keep the RAW data, you can always go back and re-process those shots with the NR of the future?

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Camera Raw 6.x (in Adobe CS5/LR3) was worth a least a stop, if not more, of noise performance from my previous processing.

I've been begrudgingly shooting RAW recently and using Canon's Digital Photo Professional for conversion. Is CS5 and LR3 any better than DPP for RAW conversion? I like DPP fine for its simplicity, but it seems to only allow manipulation of +/-2 stops for "brightness" and also narrow ranges of manipulation for color saturation, for example (can't turn color photo into complete B&W for example).

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I actually learned RAW processing before I had a DSLR, using the raw files from a Fuji E900 P&S cam. In retrospect, I'm glad I shot RAW, even with that P&S camera, because as software processing evolves, I can go back and extract better quality from those shots. Camera Raw 6.x (in Adobe CS5/LR3) was worth a least a stop, if not more, of noise performance from my previous processing. And that applied to almost every shot I've ever taken, on every camera I've owned. Since a lot of how a shot will look is in the processing, I just prefer to keep as much control of that as possible. If anything it's even MORE important on a P&S/small-sensor type camera, as they are so dependent on noise reduction, even at lower ISO's. Why get stuck with today/yesterday's NR algorithms, when if you keep the RAW data, you can always go back and re-process those shots with the NR of the future?

Good point, and one I hadn't considered before. Makes a lot of sense to retain RAW files for future processing. I can see the advantages of shooting RAW on a P&S then. ;) Should probably start shooting in RAW myself, now that I actually have LR3.

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Hey guys, I picked up a refurbished Leica D Lux 5 with a 1 year warranty, which includes the Adobe LR3 software. It was about the price of a mail order Panasonic LX5 and LR3 software with a similar 1 year warranty. So far I'm very happy with it. It's very responsive with almost no lag between pressing the shutter button to capturing the shot, and auto-focus is very fast so I'm not forced to pre-focus if I'm in a hurry. I took all the shots below in automatic mode, and only had to enhance one of them).

I can definitely use it indoors without flash, and even with using zoom and no flash indoors it looks pretty good. I have the shot below in a dimly lit restaurant with 3.8x zoom from 8 feet away, and at that point if I look at the image at 100% on the computer I can see the artifacts there from the high ISO, but in a 5x7 print I can't tell at all. I've set it to save RAW+JPEG, so I get both in case I want to adjust the photos in LR3. But even just the JPEG files look pretty good. I have resized photos below, with links to the full image under them.

Here is the re-sized shot of my son reading a book in the restaurant, max zoom at 8 feet no flash, dim light:

focushard.jpg

Full Size son

I took this one of some dolls 4 feet away in a sushi bar, again with poor lighting and using zoom (re-sized). I think the detail in the full-size shot is very good for the conditions:

japanesedolls.jpg

Full Size Dolls

I took this portrait of my son's German teacher, which wasn't posed or planned. I like being to catch a photo without having to tell the subject to wait and sit still:

germanteacher.jpg

Full-size teacher

And another shot of my favorite antique door (re-seized with a link to full-size below it):

agingdoor.jpg

Full-size old door

Macro is also pretty good, and I took this shot of the fake stones over the fireplace in the restaurant from less than 2" away but from an angle so part of the shot if out of focus:

bricky.jpg

Now, this shot in automatic mode of NORAD and Cheyenne Mountain covered in clouds did have the colors washed out a little, but it was easy to enhance the shot in iPhoto - both re-sized below:

noraduntouched.jpg

noradenhanced.jpg

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