Making the jump: pocket vs. prosumer vs. dSLR

Aaron Silverman · 06-28-2004, 02:25 PM

Hi gang,

It's time for me to enter the digital photo world. My Canon A-1 has served me well for about 15 years, but I'm thinking of moving on. Any advice is appreciated!

My needs: Mainly travel and some sports photography.

One issue that I have is that there have been times when I would have liked to bring the A-1 on a trip, but decided against it due to having to lug the whole kit around. For this reason, I am leaning more towards a pocket or prosumer model.

I've used Canon all my life, and my dad's used Canon a lot longer than that.

So I've mainly been looking at Canons; however I am open to other quality brands.

I guess my main question is this: What are the pros and cons of getting, say, an S500 vs. a G5 vs. a Pro 1 vs. a D Rebel? What will I get for spending $900 on a Pro 1 instead of $500 on a G5?

I haven't yet decided how much I want to spend, other than it'll be under $1000. It depends on what features are available at each price point.

Thanks!

Thomas Newton · 06-28-2004, 03:50 PM

Quote:

I guess my main question is this: What are the pros and cons of getting, say, an S500 vs. a G5 vs. a Pro 1 vs. a D Rebel? What will I get for spending $900 on a Pro 1 instead of $500 on a G5?

There are several things to look at:

Interchangeable lenses. Found only on DSLRs, although some prosumer and compact digicams have threads for auxillary wide-angle or tele-converters.
Ability to use external TTL bounce/tilt flash. Found on DSLRs and prosumer cameras; missing from most compacts. Lets you take indoor flash pictures that don't have redeye.
Portability. Compact and EVF cameras have the advantage here (with the possible exception of the Sony EVF camera.)
Image quality. DSLRs have an edge in the noise area due to their larger sensor sizes. Check dpreview.com and other such sites for in-depth reviews of specific cameras.
Optical zoom range. A prosumer camera can offer you a 7 to 10 times zoom in a small, lightweight package. SLR and DSLR zoom lenses usually don't offer more than about 7x zoom range (e.g., 28 to 210mm, and that with a heavy lens), due to the need to have the light cover a larger film or sensor area.
Lens speed. The smaller the minimum f-stop, the better. f/1.4 to f/1.8 are normal for 50mm lenses, but for a zoom, anything that's f/2.8 or faster is great. It's easier to get fast zooms on a prosumer model than on a DSLR (that image area again), and more important, for the reason that you can't buy a cheap, fast, high-quality 50mm auxillary lens.

Man-Fai Wong · 06-28-2004, 03:58 PM

Aaron,

Your criteria make this really difficult since they clash against each other quite a bit given the options available. Could you list them in order of importance/priority?

One thing you might want to consider (and have not yet) is going w/ 2 cameras, not 1, if you can afford it. Get a reasonably portable one that still yields good enough quality for when you need to travel lite. This could be any one of the smaller Canon's, even a cheap A70 or A80, depending your exact needs. Then for the "real" camera, go for a DSLR. But do know that a DSLR will actually cost you more than just the body (and a cheap kit lens) since you will inevitably need more and/or better lenses to make full use of it. Even if you have some existing lenses, you will likely want some upgrades/replacements since entry level DSLRs have significant crop factors that alter the uses and usefulness of your lenses. At the very least, you will find a new wideangle lens is needed -- although both Canon and Nikon offer such in their kit lenses.

_Man_

Thomas Newton · 06-28-2004, 04:02 PM

Other factors to consider:

Lag times. Digital cameras often have startup delays, shutter release delays, and time-until-ready-to-shoot-again delays. This is not universally true, but if you are accustomed to the nearly-instant availability of a film SLR, you might want to look for digital cameras that have good reviews in this department.
Battery type -- Some people don't mind proprietary rechargeable batteries; others prefer standard sizes (e.g., "AAs"), which let you use alkalines in a pinch.

Aaron Silverman · 06-28-2004, 04:18 PM

Quote:

One thing you might want to consider (and have not yet) is going w/ 2 cameras, not 1, if you can afford it.

Thanks for the tips! One thing I am considering is getting a small digital for travel (although I'll still want advanced features) and keeping the A-1 kit for sports photography.

Note that when I say "travel" I am not talking about snapshots of my girlfriend standing in front of landmarks, but more serious travelogue photography.

If there is one thing that is most important to me, it's picture quality. I want to be able to print an 8x10 and not think "geez, that looks lousy compared to my film prints".

**HTF Ads**

Michael Harris · 06-28-2004, 06:25 PM

I just retired my Canon A-1 in favor of a Nikon D-70 and I am glad I did. Don't get me wrong I had an A-1 since 1984 but it finally failed me at the 2003 Tour de France when Lance Armstrong was starting the Prologue. The camera's autowinder advanced the film and the mirror tripped but the shutter did not open. I was time to retire it. I am going to get another one as a back-up camera and the prices I've seen for good used bodies should be competitive with repairing it.

Biggest reason I went with the D-70 was its price/performance ratio and its speed. It also felt good in my hand compared with the Canon digitals I looked at. I've had the D-70 for only a short time and I'll know in a few months if I made the right choice but I think I did. I have to pass on this year's Tour but will be there next year.

Max Leung · 06-29-2004, 12:24 AM

Speaking of lag time...any non-DSLR cameras that are pocket-size with very fast focus times?

I hate how it takes a G3 3 seconds to lock focus on a subject. Grrrr. I missed way too many shots (kids and pets) because of that. Which is why I got a Digital Rebel - but it's pretty bulky for casual use.

Man-Fai Wong · 06-29-2004, 11:26 AM

Yes, I love the responsiveness of the D70 also though I don't have any prior SLR experience for comparison. My previous camera was the Canon G3 -- yes, w/ the very slow start-up time and slow AF (but similar to most non-SLR digicams) -- and I still have it so far though I haven't touched it since getting the D70 ~2.5 months ago.

As for faster non-SLR digicam than the G3, seems like Sony and Minolta make faster digicams in general although they are not w/out their own flaws. Not sure about Olympus although Phil Askey (of dpreview) rates their 8MP prosumer as best in class (based on his criteria/biases of course).

Personally, I found the G3 quite useable for shooting kids in many instances. Indeed, in some ways, it's actually easier than my D70. You do need to learn to take good advantage of the large DoF and the poorly implemented (but still useful in its own way) manual focus feature. And for indoor shots, definitely use it w/ an external flash (bounced) although I have made a few such photos w/ just available light -- the flip-out LCD helps a lot w/ getting steady shots. And in all cases, anticipation is very important.

Still, I don't believe Aaron plans to use this digicam for shooting kids, but for shooting landscapes, architecture and the like for the most part. And he's considering keeping the old A1 for action.

Given all that, maybe the Oly 8080 or Canon Pro1 would be the way to go although the Minolta A2 looks attractive also. Still, if 5MP is good enough (for ~250PPI 8x10's), then the G5 should be a good way to go (and save you some $$$ too). Read Phil Askey's reviews at dpreview.com as a start. If you plan to shoot RAW, then you should note that Phil Askey tends to favor cameras that give best straight-from-camera JPEGs, instead of delving all that deeply into RAW-converted, postprocessed results. He does touch on RAW issues, but not nearly as much as one would like. Still, he seems to be the best reviewer around by a fair margin. Just make sure you realize his biases, whatever flaws in his testing methodology, and whatever issues and criteria you have that he does not address. And in the end, you'll also want to check out the cameras personally.

Personally, I would go w/ the Canon G5, instead of the new 8MP prosumers. I don't think the 8MP prosumers are worth the price diff, but that's just me. Somethings that the G5 has over the 8MP prosumers are:

* "Faster" lens at f/2-3.
* No significant vignetting issue in the lens (although internal flash has some corner shading) like the Pro1 has.
* Built-in 3-stop ND filter that only the Pro1 has in the 8MP category.
* Allows wideangle converter for ~24.5mm FOV that some of the 8MP cams do not, including the Pro1, although most of them do start at 28mm (35-mm equiv) w/out needing converter.
* Optical viewfinder (although non-TTL) while all the 8MP cams have gone to EVF of varying quality -- this may or may not be important to you although EVF quality probably should matter some if you choose an 8MP cam.
* More portable and can certainly fit in a coat pocket unless you use a lens adapter for protection like many of us G-series users.

_Man_

Aaron Silverman · 06-29-2004, 04:26 PM

Thanks for all the info, guys! That DPReview site is pretty amazing, and has a lot of stuff to read.

It's tough for me to pick out Phil Askey's personal biases though, as I have basically zero experience with digicams at this point.

For example, he recommends the G3 over the G5 due to picture quality issues, saying that the lens works better with the 4MP sensor than with the 5MP sensor. Any experience with that?