» What compact camera would you recommend?
What compact camera would you recommend?
This is a request to my dear readers. I'm currently looking for a replacement for my Canon Ixus 40 camera. I've never been very happy with its image quality, and lately the lens is doing scary mechanical noise like some missing teeth on gears, and it seems to be loosing sensitivity, pushing the ISO to higher values, thus increasing the image noise.
So I'm looking at the current compact cameras, and nothing really stands out of the crowd. Manufacturers have been pushing resolution to incredible values (up to 12 Mpix) for small sensors, leading to quite noisy pictures when you go past 200 or 400 ISO.
So far I'm leaning towards the Panasonic Lumix TZ3 (reviews here), which has a reasonable 7 Mpix resolution, seems to have decent image quality and an amazing Leica 10x stabilized zoom lens. Definitely not as compact as the Ixus 40, but the additional size for the 10x zoom seems to be worth it.
So, dear readers, do any of you have some advice about a compact camera? What I'm looking for is primarily good image quality even in low light conditions, and a stabilized lens. A zoom better than x3 is a nice plus, but not that important.
Oh, and don't tell me I should get a DSLR. I have a Nikon D40x, and the compact camera is for situations where carrying the DSLR is not convenient.
My parents have a Lumix and it's awsome. The zoom is really amazing for the size of the camera. I think the trick is that they direct the light through the long side of the camera and thus get a longer focus length. Image quality is good, too. Of course you can't compare it to your D40.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm
My suggestion? Get one that has VR: you can shoot with lower shutter speeds and not worry about ISO in most situations.
I recently bought the Fujifilm F50 because I wanted a point-and-click camera that works well even in low light situations.
After reading reviews of it (e.g. http://laughingsquid.com/fuji-finepix-f50-se-a-powerful-point-and-shoot-...) I decided to give this camera a try and I'm quite satisfied with it so far.
I recommend Ricoh GR Digital II. However, it doesn't have zoom at all. There is one similar with zoom called Ricoh GX100, which also looks nice, but the lens on the GRD-II is better.
The GRD-II behaves as a "real camera", the lens is good, the tone of the light and colours good, but the sensor _is_ noisy on high iso (good enough for me though). The difference between GRD and GRD-II is basically sensor quality and write times to memory cards.
If you want no noise in a compact on high iso Fujifilm F31 seems to have no competition. The F50, which Thomas recommended, is also very good but it is actually a step back regarding noise, since they joined the completely useless megapixelrace.
PS. If you preview, then Post, there is no way to enter the anti-spam math.
I offered my wife a Lumix this year and we're pretty satisfied.
The picture is good, the battery lasts a long time. We also use it to record some videos, and the quality is very nice.