My wife and I have still not bought a new digital camera. I posted some time ago about our dislike of our Sony Cybershot due to the poor image quality when things are “moving” even a bit.
We are picking up our daughter from Korea soon, so this camera is mainly for day to day pictures. Just a point and shoot.
Anyway, we’ve got it down to two cameras. Anyone care to give me your opinion? Also, anyone care to explain to me the relevant differences between these two?
The E1 is an extremely basic camera. It’s fairly old, so it has older chip technology, a poor LCD, basic functions, and the standard Canon video mode. It’s was intended as a fun, cute, camera but isn’t going to get you very good image quality.
The A1100 is newer and has newer/better electronics, better low light performance (but neither camera is great), no optical viewfinder, the same poor LCD, and the same lens. I’d definitely choose the A1100 over the E1 for the newer Digic 4 chip if nothing else.
But honestly, there are better choices for roughly the same price. Neither of these cameras are going to do much better than your Sony in low light - which is what is happening when things are moving. Your current camera needs to keep the shutter open longer to gather enough light, and as a result moving subjects are blurry. You’ll need to either set the ISO higher by hand or use the flash to avoid that. Neither of these cameras are going to help much. You may want to look at spending a little more and get something with a bit better low light performance, HD video mode, and a much better LCD.
Keep in mind that for cameras like these that use AA batteries you’ll need to by a set of NiMH rechargeable batteries and charger. Alkaline AAs are awful in digital cameras, they won’t last more than 20-30 shots. You’ll also need a memory card, so set aside $15-20 for that.
I was going to say the A-series PowerShots use AA batteries, which can be convenient, but so does the E1. In fact, overall they seem to have very similar specs, with the A1100IS being slightly newer. So I would go for whichever is cheaper.
No specifics, but if your images are blurry because subjects are moving, that means the camera isn’t taking a fast enough exposure (it’s leaving the lens open for too long).
To remedy this, it’s not so much brand that makes the difference but a combination of:
[ol]
[li]Lens speed, a measurement of aperture in f-stops. Look for lenses with a f/2.0 or less. “Faster” lenses (f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.0 up to maybe f/3.5 at max) let in more light for any given time period, meaning the camera doesn’t have to open the shutter as long, meaning subjects don’t have as much time to move.[/li]
[li]Maximum ISO, a measurement of how much “gain” (artificial brightening) a camera’s sensor can provide, making your exposures brighter at the expense of noise (basically a film grain effect that’ll show up your in photos). In practical terms, this basically means you want to settle for a SLR or SLR-like camera, whose bigger sensors allow the use of higher ISOs without introducing too much noise.[/li]
[li]Lighting. Obviously, the brighter the scene, the less time your photo will need to capture enough light to make a well-exposed photo. Consider using a better flash unit (or even a natural-colored flashlight) to brighten up the scene before taking a photo.[/li][/ol]
Practically speaking, for the absolute best effect you’d want to get a digital SLR with a fast lens, not a digital compact camera. Most compacts suffer from a combination of #1 and #2 above.
As a step-down compromise (if you insist on a compact instead of a SLR), there are certain models from various manufacturers that can help somewhat obviate either #1 or #2.
Neither of your two choices really do anything in that regard, unfortunately. They both have the same sensor size and maximum aperture.
As for other differences between them, on paper they seem very similar except the A1100 has a slightly higher megapixel count, can take widescreen (16x9) pictures, and has a bigger monitor. Which is strange because the A1100 is the cheaper of the two… maybe someone who’s actually used them can give you a better opinion.
I have an S70 (a pair of them, actually) of which I am quite fond, and my girlfriend has one of those A-series versions.
In general they do a very nice job of capturing a heckuva lot of pixels with very few artifacts. They are fairly solid and well-made although not in the same way that a 35mm Argus from 1955 was.
The 1100 certainly appears to have an optical viewfinder in that ad, Telemark. cnet’s specs say it does.
Battery usage will depend on some other factors, like how many flash pictures you take or how much you use the viewing screen.
I have an A720IS. I get about 50 shots when using flash and the LCD. I could get more but the flash recycle time gets slow, so I swap batteries. It takes some decent pictures.
I think you’ll have a hard time finding an affordable camera with a lens faster than f/2.8. Here’s a guide that allows you to input what you want and it spits out the models that are available.
Yeah, they’re not cheap But if you need to record fast-moving subjects, there aren’t really that many other things you can do. The OP was already dissatisfied with the performance of his last camera (what model was it, BTW, Mahaloth?), and without an improvement in SOME sort of light-gathering metric, his new camera may be no better than the last. New generations of compact digitals have focused mainly on increasing megapixel count and improving usability, but low-light/high-speed performance has not dramatically changed.
My point is that it’s not so much his brand of camera that’s making the difference, it’s how much money he’s willing to pay for quality optics and sensors.
I think we did a thread similar to this about a week ago, didn’t we? Unfortunately there’s not much in the way of a reasonably priced magic bullet.
Taking a different tack, many people strive for the highest shutter speed to freeze action. Note however OP, that a fast shutter speed like 1/1000 second is in fact an extremely long duration for a flash to put out its light. When you use flash, it can be the main source of light and therefore be as effective as a fast shutter speed (and even more effective at freezing motion).
is as follows. Focus camera (which is on a tripod) on object(s) to be shot by bullet. Train your flash (off camera, also on a tripod) on the area to be photographed. Set up a laser sensor in the path of the bullet so that when the bullet breaks the beam, it triggers a very short burst from the flash. Turn off the lights, open the camera shutter, pull the gun’s trigger. Close the camera shutter, turn on the lights.
I don’t know anything about the cameras you’re looking at but I can tell you a couple of things that I learned when shopping for a digital camera a while back.
First, try not to get sucked in by the numbers game. A 12mp camera is not necessarily better than a 10 or even 5mp camera. In fact, unless you are going to be making large prints to put up on your wall, you’ll probably never see the benefit of having more than a 5 mega pixel camera. Also as the mp number gets higher the quality of photo can reduce if the size of the sensor stays the same.
Second, a compact digital camera will probably do a lot of in-camera processing and give you pictures in .JPG. This is great if you’re not interested in playing around with your photos to make them better, but a camera that does less processing, or better yet can output in RAW format will give you more ability to digitally process the photo to look the way you want. This cuts both ways. A camera review may favour one model over another because it does less in-camera processing or outputs a RAW file, but it may be better for you personally to have a camera that puts out a ready made photo as a .JPG.
Ringing in as a PowerShot SX100 owner who doesn’t know anything about point ‘n’ shoot cameras and bought this one in December of 2007 for $280 at Best Buy. I don’t know why the Amazon price is so high, and based on the 2+ year old price I paid, I’m betting you’ll get a much better deal if you go to your local Big Box rather than the net. Best Buy online has the sx120 (next gen) for $249, but a local store might still have the older model in stock for half that.
I bought mine as an interim between my film SLR and the DSLR I aspire to, but couldn’t afford. I found this to be a compromise I can live with, and have found myself to be pretty happy with a smaller camera I now carry at all times. I think it takes fantastic pictures, but have no idea how it compares to the two the OP has picked out. Well, the first one seems pretty unimpressive.
I’ve had really good luck with the Energizer AA 8x For Electronics batteries, they last for several months where standard AA’s last less than 30 days.
You’re still much better off getting NiMH low discharge rechargeable batteries. They’ll out perform any alkaline battery and they hold 90% of their charge for a full year.
I see I’m a bit late to this party, but I brought a Power Shot AS1000IS a few months ago (on sale from Staples, no less) - I’m not exactly sure how incrementally better the AS1100 is, (well 10 vs 12 mp for one, I guess), but my camera works very well and takes good pictures (or do we say ‘images’ nowadays) - albiet I have not stressed it with super action shots at night or anything like that. Reasonable good controls (like all digitials you need to read the manual, which I keep in a camera bag I use).
Two things -
Thing 1: I repaced the (joke-size) 32m SD card that came with it with a 2G Kingston, and will get a bigger SDHC card sooner or later - probably 8G. The 2G SD card was 6.99, so not a big cost there.
Thing 2: I tried using my 1600mAH rechargable batteries from my old camera, and they get used up pretty quick - I’m going to try to find larger (I see 2450mAH from a quick google search) to see if they last more than 10-12 shots.
OK, thing 3 - at least one things always cheezy on consumer electronics nowadays, and for the Powershot I think it’s the battery/card access cover lock, which you have to press a button sideways and then slide the access cover - I’m pretty careful doing this, as I can readily see something cracking with a bit too much force applied in the wrong direction (I like to transfer my images to my computer using a USB card reader - don’t have to waste the camera batteries that way).
I own a Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Digital Elph that I always carry with me for snaps and making quick copies of pages in books. It takes good pictures. I do not do my real photography with that, I use a Canon Rebel Xti with nice amateur lenses, zooms to cover a full range of what I might want to play with.
I am perfectly happy with the SD790 for what I use it for, parties and casual photos and copies of pages in books.
I’m skeptical that the OP’s problem is the camera itself. It seems likely to me that his existing camera could capture better images under the conditions that frustrate him if it were set differently, and that to the extent it couldn’t, the Canon point & shoot alternatives listed won’t do a whole lot better.
There are three potential sources of blurry photos:
Subject motion combined with inadequate shutter speed. Subjects moving quickly, such as soccer players or running children, will generally require shutter speeds of around 1/500th of a second to freeze them. Now, you don’t necessarily want to always freeze your subject’s motion - the right sort of motion blur in a shot can make it far more dynamic. But if you are looking to freeze things, there’s absolutely no substitute for fast shutter speed.
Camera motion. If the camera moves during a shot, the entire picture will be blurry. The only time this can actually work is panning with a fast-moving subject, which if you do it perfectly can result in a sharp race car with the background in a blurred streak, or similar with other subjects. Otherwise, you want the camera motionless. Two factors come into play here - longer focal length (zoomed in) increases apparent camera motion, and shutter speeds (again). Very roughly, you should have at least 1/60th of a second, or faster if you’re zoomed in, in order to prevent camera motion from blurring your shot. And that’s assuming you hold it steady. Image stabilization helps here, but it can only do so much.
Focus. If you have a moving subject, the autofocus might not be successful in tracking the subject from the time you begin pushing the shutter to the point where the image is actually captured.
The OP’s issue is likely the first, and it’s quite likely that the problem can be solved by switching the camera from AUTO to shutter speed priority (‘S’ on the mode dial of a Sony, ‘Tv’ on a Canon) and then manually dial in 1/500 as the shutter speed. Going to a sports scene mode might also suffice, if the Sony model in question doesn’t have any manual settings modes. This other potential problem, as noted in a post above, is that the camera might not have a sufficiently fast lens (large maximum aperture) to shoot at the required speed except in sunlight. ISO settings can be bumped up to compensate, but on a point & shoot this will nearly always result in excessive ugly digital noise.
I would suggest that the OP look at some of his unacceptable images of moving subjects, and check the EXIF data to see what shutter speed they were taken at. If the shutter speed is down around 1/60 or 1/125, then the thing to do is to figure out how to get his existing camera to use a faster shutter speed when shooting moving targets. It doesn’t matter what camera you use, if you shoot sports at 1/60 you’ll have blurry pictures. Even if you’re using a Canon 1D MkIII with a 400mm f/2.8 like the guys on the sidelines of NFL games.
The reason I said that is because my previous, previous camera was a 3.2 Megapixel Canon Powershot and I took photos under identical situations and never had a problem of bluriness(I mean, almost never anyway).
My current Sony Cybershot DSC-S650 has no motion/action mode, which my old Powershot had.
Does anyone know if the current Powershot cameras I’ve mentioned have a motion/action/sports mode?
I don’t see an action mode listed for either. If you could get “shutter priority,” that would do the trick as well. One possible workaround: goose your ISO up.
I went into dpreview and searched. Here’s a Canon A590IS. You’d have f/2.6 max aperture, an optical finder to save batteries, and more.
I guess it’s in the “lame duck” category, no longer Canon’s latest and therefore not on its website. But it can be had for cheaper than dpreview would let on.
Canon says they bothhave a “Kids & Pets” mode, which according to the A1100 manual “lets you capture subjects that move around, such as children and pets, without missing photo opportunities.”
I do not know how effective it is.
It also has an ISO3200 mode, which I presume will let you capture very fast images, albeit at a smaller megapixel count and with a lot of noise.
But if you need to record fast-moving subjects, there aren’t really that many other things you can do. The OP was already dissatisfied with the performance of his last camera (what model was it, BTW, Mahaloth?), and without an improvement in SOME sort of light-gathering metric, his new camera may be no better than the last. New generations of compact digitals have focused mainly on increasing megapixel count and improving usability, but low-light/high-speed performance has not dramatically changed.