I’m looking at the Nikon D3000 vs the P90. Are SLR’s really that big of a deal? The things that are important to me are:
*when I push the button it actually takes the picture, not 18 seconds later.
*can handle action shots, kids playing soccer.
*can handle indoor lighting without being blurry.
*of course clear, crisp, sharp pictures.
And when did SDMB go free again?!? I joined way back in the last century but had to drop when it went P2P. I’m glad I checked it out. It’s nice to be back.
For responsiveness, autofocus, and the ISO required to shoot indoors, yes, SLR’s are really that big of a deal. You can get into the same ballpark with the new Micro4/3rds systems from Panasonic (G1, GH1, GF1) and Olympus (EP-1 and EP-2), but they actually cost more than the D3000 or Rebel XS (and I’d presume the Pentax and Sony base models as well). What you’re asking for requires the large sensors of the SLRs, and the phase detection-based autofocus. The tiny sensors and contrast-based autofocus of the point and shoots just doesn’t deliver speed or low-light capability.
The main thing slowing down a DSLR after you push the button is likely to be the automatic focus. If you can work with manual focus in situations where the camera is slow in focusing, then both kinds are pretty well instantaneous.
Well, for that you ideally want a zoom telephoto lens with a large aperture: that can cost you more than the price of the camera. However, within its limitations, a point-and-shoot can give you some good results.
Well, you need large aperture, high ISO, and a tripod (or a combination of those) for better results. Again, a DSLR will take you further, but (especially using a tripod) you can get good results with a point-and shoot.
Any camera you buy these days can give you clear, crisp, sharp pictures.
When I started with digital photography about 4 years ago, I started with a point-and-shoot. However, I came up against its limitations, and upgraded to a DSLR. I haven’t regretted it. On the other hand, someone with less time to devote to the art and craft can be very happy with any of the incredibly good point-and-shoot cameras available today.
The question, as I understand it, is will the fixed lens camera cut it with indoor low light situations and sports shots. Looking at the P90 it has an ISO of 6400 but but the 3200 and 6400 settings are at the expense of resolution. The camera will bump the resolution from 12 mp to 3. Is this bad? Not if you get a clear picture at 3 mp. You’ll be able to blow that up to an 8 x 10. I’ll take a clear picture at 3 mp any day over a crappy 12 mp.
Sports shots. The P90 has a 2.8 aperture which is fairly large lens for gathering light (for a fixed lens camera) so you’re going to get about the most out of this type of camera. It will probably do as well as the stock lens that comes with the 9000 if you keep the zoom down to the 5-10x area. You can always bump the ISO up to 3200 or 6400 to increase the shutter speed and shoot 3 mp images. Again, sharp 3 mp images trumps fuzzy 12 mp pictures. If you’re printing them at 4X6 size then you will never know what resolution it was shot at.
If you remember your old username, PM a mod. They will help you with your password so you can use your old username, and probably merge with what you’ve already posted with your new username (Cuz they really don’t like folks to have more than one. Something about upsetting the hamsters.)
RE: “The main thing slowing down a DSLR after you push the button is likely to be the automatic focus. If you can work with manual focus in situations where the camera is slow in focusing, then both kinds are pretty well instantaneous.”
A little off-track; We just bought a ‘travel’ (more compact) digital non-slr today for the missus.
While trying several models I noted that if you just press the ‘shoot’ button it takes about 2-3 seconds for the picture to be captured. However if you partially hold in the button so it has a chance to do the auto-focus, then a full press of the button brings an instant capture.
What susrprises me is ; if the delay in the ‘just click’ approach were due to focus time, then I’d expect to get a focused picture; but usually what I got was an out-of-focus picture.
Thanks for the breakdown! It made things much clearer, but…
ISO’s… that’s the main thing causing me pause in deciding.
The point and shoot P90 has 6,400 ISO while the SLR D3000 has 1,600 ISO. The P90’s maximum light sensitivity is 2 f-stops better. Unless I’m not understanding. It seems every camera I look at, is customer reviewed as doing poorly in low light. So I’m looking for the one that does the least poorly?
http://snapsort.com/compare/Nikon_Coolpix_P90-vs-Nikon_D3000
With auto focus, you can probably (depending on your camera) do the following sequence: push the button half-way, wait till it focuses on what you want it to focus on, move the camera so that’s no longer in the centre of the picture, then push the button the rest of the way. You might want to do this if the centre of interest is on one side of the picture, and you don’t mind the centre of the picture being out of focus.
And manual focus is perfect for some kinds of pictures. For instance, if you are trying to take a picture of someone going over a high jump, manually focus on the high jump while getting ready for the picture. If you know exactly where the action will be, you can focus on that spot in advance.
Yes. The ability to open up the aperture and gather a lot of light really makes a huge difference for taking good-looking pictures. I knew this somewhat academically from having taken photo classes in Jr High and High School, but about a year ago I started getting back into it by buying a DSLR and the difference is amazing. If circumstances allow you to shoot at f1.4, for example, you can take some amazing photos in conditions that would require you to use the flash on a point-and-shoot. I’m no great shakes as a photographer other than what I consider a fair-to-middlin eye for composition, but I have taken (and gotten compliments on) so many really nice pictures with the DSLR that it’s really spurred an interest in learning more (there are still some scenarios where I’m unable to take a decent picture to save my life unless I put the camera on full-auto).
The good advice I got from a friend:
[ul]
[li]The flash ruins almost all photos[/li][li]Leave the camera in aperture priority mode most of the time[/li][li]Don’t get a zoom lens to start. The kits tend to come with a zoom, and people think getting a big honkin zoomer is the way to get pro results, but really, for a given price, the light gathering properties of a fixed lens are way better and the result is better pictures because, well, first off: hey, more light, and second, you just have more flexibility with the parameters, which is good when you’re learning. I opted for the raw camera body and this lens (note: that’s for canon but sigma makes variants for other brands) and couldn’t be happier with it.[/li][/ul]
Well, my favourite lens is a zoom lens, but that’s just because I take a lot of pictures of buildings, and a wide-angle zoom is essential for that.
ETA: And note that lens costs a lot more than many DSLR bodies cost.
Yes, a friend has that lens and I WANT but it’s a bit outside my camera-junk budget at the moment. I realize that’s cheap for quality zoom lenses, but it’s still expensive to me. 
BTW, OP, one other thing modern DSLRs tend to be great at which isn’t so universal with point-and-shoots is the ability to fire off pictures quickly, which is one of your requirements.
When taking pictures of my reason for owning a camera, which doesn’t hold still a lot, I tend to just leave the camera in continuous-shooting mode and hold the shutter button down for 3 pictures at a time. This often means two of the three pictures have eyes half-closed or weird grimaces or got blurry because of a twitch, but you still got one good one.
A straight comparison of maximum ISO setting is not very useful, unless you know that pictures taken at that setting are adequate for your needs. It’s pretty common for compact digital cameras to have high-ISO settings that produce absurdly grainy images–I guess the idea is to make sure you can get something even if it won’t be printable–while DSLRs are sometimes more conservative at setting high limits so that the pictures still turn out usable for you.
I don’t know anything about the P90 in particular, so I don’t know what its high-ISO performance is like. If you can try out the cameras, try to bring in your own SD card and take pictures of the same scene at high ISO settings on each camera, then compare them. Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) usually does this with their reviews. They don’t seem to have a P90 review up yet, but look at these images for the P50 and for the D90 and some other DSLRs for an example comparison. Note that at ISO 1600, the P50 produces something that you won’t be printing without postprocessing, and that the upper ISO limit for the D90 looks better than the upper limit for the P50.
If you’re interested in low-light photography, you should probably try out other things too. Make sure you can focus adequately (low-light AF performance may not be good enough) and that you can adjust the exposure time properly for long exposures.
This is pretty much what I was going to say. The technical aspects don’t tell you how good the pictures are. I have an old Kodak 3 mp camera that takes excellent pictures (for it’s class of camera).
the trend in better camera’s has been to reduce resolution in support of better quality. Doing it on the fly just makes sense. I would also recommend taking pictures with your own memory card and testing it as best you can with low light and also moving objects with the telephoto setting.
I suggest reading the Dave’s Picks over at Imaging Resource.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/WB/WB.HTM
He breaks down cameras into various categories and discusses the best cameras in each category. The reviews tend to be very detailed.
Sorry I accidentally posted twice
You can ignore these numbers. Once you go much above 400 (800 may be pushing it), your image will be so grainy it will be useless.
In brief, exposure is reliant on three things: ISO, aperture and shutter speed. If you adjust one, the other(s) must compensate.
What you need is a DSLR with a decent lens that will allow you to shoot with a larger aperture (f 2.8, maybe 3.5, for example). If you are taking sports shots, you will also need a longer focal length. Long focal length + fast (wide aperture) lens = $$$$$.
Also, flashes are not evil; what is undesirable is using the built-in, on-camera flash. Get an external unit and learn to move it off-camera.
With a DSLR, you need not worry about shutter lag. You push the shutter, it clicks. There is no ‘focusing delay’ unless you are shooting a very complex scene. Even then, it’s minimal.
It really depends on how serious you want to become with photography. If your answer is ‘not at all’, get a nice point and shoot. If your answer is any level above ‘not at all’, definitely invest in a DSLR.
And I would strongly steer you away from the D3000 and toward a D90.
Best of luck.
That’s not a true statement. If you looked at what was linked above for the D90 it does quiet well.
The P90 has an aperture of f2.8.
direct flash with a digital camera almost always involves overexposure for white objects. The ability to shoot in low light is a huge plus.
All of your questions are subjective and will depend on the standards you consider acceptable. One persons sharp is another persons embarassingly blurry. Same with autofocus speed. Unfortunately camera’s are a bit like audiophile territory, and the fussiness can get to levels where a normal person cant even see it.
A DSLR will definitely give less blurry shots and focusiif you get the right camera and lenses, but the improvement may be much larger than you are actually wanting or cost much more than you expect to get a difference large enough for you to consider meaningful. Its a bit like saying I want a faster car, will a Ferrari be better than a Toyota Corolla - it depends whether you want it for commuting or speed racing.
There are also various caveats with DSLRs’ ie cost, size, and they do need more care, in that when changing lenses you need to make sure nothing gets inside, and of course are a greater investment to risk if you drop it or it gets nicked.
They can get to the point where you find yourself not taking it as a normal thing because of the bulk vs being able to easily pop some of the superzooms in your bag to be ready whenever. Olympus micro 4/3 are a potential longer term solution to this but still fairly pricy.
For many people they will be overkill, particularly if your major showings will be on web shots, or smaller prints, and a superzoom compact will work very well. You can after all always upgrade to DSLR if you find you’ve outstripped your compact.
The P90 didnt fare well in reviews at Imaging Resources
and several other large zoom cameras were recommended. I would suggest trying them out at the shop, eg Canon SX20IS, Panasonic FZ35, and Sony HX1 before going DSLR and seeing if they are ‘good enough’ before considering DSLR.
Otara
I’ve heard that there is some factor involved in the sensor array such that # of megapixels of resolution is irrelevant compared to this factor - you could have a much higher resolution but if this factor is not high enough you will just have more pixels with lots of grain. What’s this factor, and has any camera review/comparison site found a way to quantify it?