Winsor Crosby wrote:
> Very good article here by Simon Joinson who does the small camera
> reviews for dpreview.com:
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/articles/compactcamerahighiso/
>
An interesting article. Nothing he hasn't said many times before in
individual reviews, but useful all put together in one place.
> His lumping of Casio, Panasonic, and Olympus together makes me wonder
> whether Panasonic also supplies the sensors to Casio as well as Oly
> these days.
>
I've used his studio shots to compare some of these cameras. Whatever
the sensor similarities, there are big differences between current Panny
and Oly offerings. They are all useless or close to it at over iso 400,
but there are significant differences at iso 400 and below.
Looking at the TZ3 and SP-550 at iso 400, the Panny Venus III engine
eliminates much of the noise at the expense of seriously smearing fine
detail, especially low contrast detail. The Oly doesn't eliminate all
the noise, but leaves much more useful detail and an image that one may
work with using NR software more capable than what's in the cameras. I
REALLY wanted to like the TZ3 for its reasonably long zoom, IS and
smaller form factor compared to the real superzooms, but alas.........
What Simon left out, though, is the relationship between iso/noise and
IS, something about which there has been some discussion here. In one of
those little catches of life (What number are we up to by now?), the
best noise performers don't have IS just now.
Assuming either a static subject or a lack of desire for blurring as an
intended effect, what's the IQ difference between the best of the noise
performers, the 1/1.7" sensor F30 at say iso 800 and 1/60 sec and a
decent 1/2.5" sensor camera with good IS at iso 100 and 1/8 second?
It's a tough question to answer because it involves testing handheld
results, a very difficult thing to test and one where the results will
be different depending on the user and occasion.
My personal conclusion for the moment is that the F30 is a better
overall bet than any of the 3-4x competition for both IQ and ergonomics
and the ability to minimize subject movement blur. With my desire for
longer reach, I'm trying out a Canyon A710 IS. I've been too busy/lazy
to do any direct comparison testing, but I've seen enough to feel the
question is a serious one worth further consideration.
Moose
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