What intermediate digital camera is good for night shots?
- Thread starter salaryman
- Start date
editor
hiraethified
It's the Olympus C-7000/C-70.
I was initially really interested in the retro-looking Pentax Optio 750Z, but after having a play with found the looks to be cosmetic: it's nowhere near as rugged as it looks, with the back of the camera being a horrid sea of plastic.
Truth is that I'm still more inclined to go for the Sony out of all of them but I've yet to have a 'hands on' go with either the Sony or Olympus.
I was initially really interested in the retro-looking Pentax Optio 750Z, but after having a play with found the looks to be cosmetic: it's nowhere near as rugged as it looks, with the back of the camera being a horrid sea of plastic.
Truth is that I'm still more inclined to go for the Sony out of all of them but I've yet to have a 'hands on' go with either the Sony or Olympus.
editor
hiraethified
Nikon D70 for the big stuff, Sony DSC F717 for daytrips and a Sony DSC F88 for 'around town' stuff, but I've had big problems with the unit (blooming/focus) and really find the f3.5 aperture horribly limiting.Kid_Eternity said:
I'm hoping to return the F88 and sell the F717.
editor said:
Oh bugger, looks good too. I guess I just have to think of the things that have really annoyed me with previous digicams, and slow start up and autofocus is the worst. One thing that is of concern to me is the weather-proofing of the cameras. I want it to be able to handle a good variety of conditions and abuse for travel. Reviews never really cover this.
editor
hiraethified
I have to say that the Sony looks a lot more rugged than the G6.Poi E said:
The reviews say it's not so fast to start up, but it kicks ass once up and running:
If I can throw one last camera into the mix, the Canon Powershot S70 has picked up some good reviews and it comes with a 28mm lens.
Don't use digital. I have a digital SLR, but I prefer film for very lowlight photography. Autofocus never works properly in darkness, and at small apertures you have fuck all depth of field.
Get a cheap old manual SLR with a f1.4 lens (<£100). Get some ilford delta 3200 (£4 a roll). If you're feeling REALLY silly, expose it as 12500 or 25000 (!). Enjoy taking handheld shots by starlight. You may need to do your own developing for this.
Of course a Leica M series with a noctilux (50mm f1.0) would be best...
Get a cheap old manual SLR with a f1.4 lens (<£100). Get some ilford delta 3200 (£4 a roll). If you're feeling REALLY silly, expose it as 12500 or 25000 (!). Enjoy taking handheld shots by starlight. You may need to do your own developing for this.
Of course a Leica M series with a noctilux (50mm f1.0) would be best...
editor
hiraethified
Although film will almost always outperform a mid price digicam for low light photography, all of the digicams mentioned in this thread have manual focus and digital cameras offer vastly increased depth of field compared to their film counterparts. And, of course, the Sony can focus in complete darkness!tom k&e said:
salaryman: the Sony DSC-V1 is great value for £250 (although it is a tad old now). http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscv1/
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Does the Sony DSC-F717 do shots in multiples (is it called burst shot when you have 4-5 shots taken in a matter of seconds?)?
editor
hiraethified
Here you go:Kid_Eternity said:
Code:
The F717's dedicated continuous shooting mode is called 'Burst 3',
in this mode one press of the shutter release records three frames
over a 0.8 second period (thus 2.5 fps).
Depending on the selected image size / quality you will
have to wait for these images to be written away to
the Memory Stick before you can shoot the next burst.
Image Size / Quality Frames Frames per second Time before next burst
2560 x 1920 FINE 3 2.5 fps 11.4 sec
2560 x 1920 STANDARD 3 2.5 fps 8.2 sec
2048 x 1536 FINE 3 2.5 fps 9.8 sec
1280 x 960 FINE 3 2.5 fps 6.5 sec
640 x 480 FINE 3 2.5 fps 4.2 sec.Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Cool, cheers for that.editor said:
Just dropping in to say I bought the Sony DSC-V3. A very nice little camera, quick start up, fast AF in dimly lit situations with its focus assist, night/complete darkness framing is pretty good, although the "invisible light" only works about 5 meters in front of you, fast writing (but wait forever for RAW!), dual CF or memory stick, full 640x480 video at 30fps (but only if you use one of Sony's Memory StickPro cards, cheeky buggers) and a useable 800 ISO. Not so great is the lens speed, pretty slow at 4.0 at 138mm equiv., and the lack of a grid focus frame, something I used all the time on my old camera.
I tried both the Canon G6 and the Sony, and it was no competition as the Sony felt just right in my hands, whereas the G6 felt wrong and sort of plasticky. Much preferred the Sony menu and buttons. Better build overall. The Canon auto focus wandered around when I tested it in the store, the Sony just locked straight on.
I tried both the Canon G6 and the Sony, and it was no competition as the Sony felt just right in my hands, whereas the G6 felt wrong and sort of plasticky. Much preferred the Sony menu and buttons. Better build overall. The Canon auto focus wandered around when I tested it in the store, the Sony just locked straight on.
editor
hiraethified
The more I read about the Sony V3, the more I'm tempted.
I'm tying to get my Sony DSC F88 refunded and I'm successful, I reckon it'll be the V3 for me!
It looks great, is apparently very, very fast to focus and shoot but - annoyingly - suffers a slow start up time (2.5 secs).
If I manage to get the thing, I'll post up a report!
(And you're right about the Canon. It may have a better f2 lens, but it feels really horrible and I've read that it's a dog to focus in low light)
I'm tying to get my Sony DSC F88 refunded and I'm successful, I reckon it'll be the V3 for me!
It looks great, is apparently very, very fast to focus and shoot but - annoyingly - suffers a slow start up time (2.5 secs).
If I manage to get the thing, I'll post up a report!
(And you're right about the Canon. It may have a better f2 lens, but it feels really horrible and I've read that it's a dog to focus in low light)
editor
hiraethified
Well, Micro Anvika came up trumps and gave me a near-full refund on my five month-old, well used (4,500 pics!) Sony DSC F88, so I dashed out to Edgware Road to pick up a DSC V3 for the astonishingly cheap price of £385.
It's still charging up so I can't test drive it until tomorrow, but it looks and feels great - way better than the uber-plastic tackiness of the G6. The black finish is nice and discrete too, so it should make a good street camera.
It's still charging up so I can't test drive it until tomorrow, but it looks and feels great - way better than the uber-plastic tackiness of the G6. The black finish is nice and discrete too, so it should make a good street camera.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
editor said:
Look forward to getting a report! I tried the V3 out in Jessops (not the ideal test environment) a few days ago and was a bit tempted.
The reviews I've seen have been pretty positive. But all the online reviews I read mentioned that in program mode it choses inappropriate apertures for optimum picture quality (probably there was some copying going on here in the reviews...).
I guess this is something that might be fixed in firmware updates???
editor
hiraethified
I'm sure you've already seen the glowing review onPaul Russell said:
dpreview where they gave it a 'highly recommended' award. That review helped persuade me and after looking at the well reviewed Olympus c7000 and Canon G6, I found that the Sony's mix of discrete style, size, feel and speed won me over!
I'm looking forward to trying it out tomorrow!
editor
hiraethified
I bought it from AJ Electronics. I found them after searching for the best Sony V3 prices on dealtime.co.uk/pricerunner.co.uk and noted that their customer feedback was generally very positive.
The camera is a proper UK Sony import and they staff seemed friendly enough. Obviously, I'm not going to get the kind of support I'd get from a proper photographic store like Jessops, but a saving of £100 was too much to turn down!
I'm still working on the NY photos - once I've got my bastard tax return out the way hopefully I'll be able to finally finish off the loooong overdue gallery!
The camera is a proper UK Sony import and they staff seemed friendly enough. Obviously, I'm not going to get the kind of support I'd get from a proper photographic store like Jessops, but a saving of £100 was too much to turn down!
I'm still working on the NY photos - once I've got my bastard tax return out the way hopefully I'll be able to finally finish off the loooong overdue gallery!
I love this camera! It really has reawakened my interest in photgraphy. The auto focus is great, and the level of detail from images astounds me. I'll need to get another battery, though, and a wide angle add-on lens will come. Also need to get a memory stick to use the 640x480 30 fps video. As for the "P" problem, I use aperture priority almost all the time. Did I mention that I love that autofocus? Even without the autofocus assist it locks on by candlelight
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Poi E said:
Just about everything about this camera looks good.
Editor/Poi E -- do you find the optical viewfinder easy to use? -- it seemed to be in a bit of an odd position when I tried it out.
(Shame it only covers 85%, or whatever, though. If you use the viewfinder you'll be chucking valuable pixels away...)
Paul Russell said:
Crap optical viewfinder, TBH. The large LCD screen is good enough, and can be viewed from a fairly wide angle. I haven't had it in strong sunlight yet so I don't know how difficult viewing will be.
One big oversight (for me) is the lack of a grid composition screen. Really liked it on my old digicam. The internal flash is not that hot, no surprises there.
Paul Russell
Psychogeographer
Poi E said:
Damn! I prefer to use a viewfinder for "composition". Maybe the search for a decent fast, compact digital goes on...
salaryman said:
I've been wondering if the 30fps is only to sell Memory Sticks. Anyone know?
salaryman, I'm very happy with the DSC-V3. It goes everywhere with me and now I'm shooting hundreds of images a week (all rubbish, naturally!) The autofocus misses very, very infrequently, and usually thanks to my stupidity. I'm amazed how well the AF does on the AF auto mode. It almost always focusses on the object I want. It is also a tough son of a gun having collected the pavement several times of late. The LCD screen seems to be very resistant to scratching. The image quality isn't up with my housemates G6 (more noise, the odd artifact), but fuck the focussing is shite on the Canon. I'd rather have a noisy image than an out of focus one or miss the shot.
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