SOURCING FOR A GOOD CAMERA

Looking for cameras for this festive season? I’ve sourced some information from cnet.com which would may come in handy for people looking for good cameras.

Canon G9
http://www.canon.com.sg/index.cfm?fuseaction=digitalcamera
If you really want a DSLR but need something more portable, get the Canon PowerShot G9. This 12.1-megapixel model with a 6x optical zoom offers the serious enthusiast or professional all the manual controls they could want, RAW format support, wireless flash capabilities, and a flash hot shoe. But it also has enough automatic controls that even a newbie could use it effectively. 25 shooting modes, including scene modes like Portrait, Night Scene, Indoor, and more, make it easy to snap a great shot in any situation and Canon’s new Face Select and Track lets you automatically detect and select an individual’s face to track on as the primary focus.

The G9, which can be found for about $899(promo price), gets high marks across the board from reviewers for performance and image quality. While Steve’s Digicams did find “colors almost a bit oversaturated,” Lori Grunin at CNET points out “relatively significant distortion at the widest angle of view,” and DPReview calls it out for poor performance in low light, everyone acknowledges that image quality is generally excellent and really as good as it gets in a camera this size. Throw in functional and appealing retro design, a bright 3-inch LCD, the latest DIGIC III image processor, and an Optical Image Stabilizer based on technology developed for Canon’s high-end professional SLRs, and you won’t walk away disappointed.

Most professionals would stick to their film-based SLRs for they are considered to be much more reliable than DSLRs. However, DSLRs are gaining popularity nowadays among photo enthusiasts as they are much more cost-effective.

Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FZ50
http://panasonic.com.sg/web/pid/27
If you don’t mind a little bulkiness and want the flexibility of a broad range of focal length, get Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FZ50.
You have to be willing to drop some change on this 10.1-megapixel megazoom model—it will run you about $800 or more–but you’ll get a slew of features, not the least of which is the excellent 12x Leica optical zoom lens. This camera is the next best thing to a DSLR in many ways (and shoots video, which you won’t find in an SLR). Though it’s bulkier than some other megazoom models, it really handles and operates much like an SLR. Like the much more compact Canon PowerShot G9, which is also on my best-of list, it includes SLR-worthy features such as full manual controls, RAW image capture, and a flash hot shoe, alongside point-and-shoot-simple automatic controls. But unlike the G9—and DSLRs for that matter–the FZ50 serves up a full 35mm-to-420mm zoom lens without requiring additional interchangeable lenses. I do wish the 2-inch LCD could be a bit bigger, but it’s one of those flip-out, rotating screens that sacrifice size for versatility.
Reviewers laud the shooting performance as being impressive for a non-SLR camera, and are generally pleased with image quality. CNET found images to be “impressive, especially for a Panasonic, whose cameras tend to be noisier than this one.” Its big complaint was that “the automatic white balance turned in horribly warm images with our lab’s tungsten lights.” Steve’s Digicams found “image quality was very good using the 10-megapixel, Fine mode, with the ISO set to 100” and “did not feel noise levels were dramatically higher than similar models,” due to Panasonic’s new noise reduction system. DPReview was surprisingly impressed, giving up that “under the right conditions it produces superb output.” Still, its review points out “the smearing of fine, low contrast detail that is the hallmark of the Venus III engine limits the FZ50 to low ISO settings for any serious photography unless you’re happy to accept that you’ll never be able to produce big enlargements.”


By Toh Jun Yong