Nikon Coolpix S4 or Panasonic DMC-LZ1?


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Clockunder said:
If you need to zoom in close and have pictures like shoulders & above type facial shots, then you would need 6x-12x zoom, depending on how far you're from your subject.

Whether you'll experience blur due to camera shake will depend on the light condition (which will determine your minimum shutter speed) and focal length used.

Here are samples of what I shot at 8x zoom (72mm focal length = 280mm equivalent on 35mm format) with my Coolpix 5700 when I was within 1 metre from the stage and within 3 metres from the subject and the indoor light was pretty ok at Raffles City :
F/4.2, 1/60 shutter speed, ISO 200 (ISO 400 was too noisy).

dscn0107a400frame9zz.jpg


dscn0147a400frame1ec.jpg


If you're further than this kind of distance, then there may not be enough light and the shutter speed may become too slow 1/8-1/30 and you will have problems with blur images at 10x zoom on S4.

So you really have to know the light condition first.
You photoshop'd the photos? These do not look like straight out-of-camera digital photos.
 

I have a fz5.

the zoom range coupled with the size and weight of it is amazing.

and panasonic just announced the fz7 yesterday. it looks good.
 

some images from my FZ5 taken from tokyo disneyland.

P1000569.jpg


P1000574.jpg
 

wheek said:
Well I went to Steve's Digicam website to take a look. Length & width appears about the same as S4 but it sure is a lot thicker. How much does it cost anyway?

Ol' Steve claims that with 4 2300mAh NiMH batts, one can take 550 shots with the LCD on. Zun boh? That's a helluva lot sia!

I own the S2 and last year kenna arrow to be photog for company D&D so invested in a slave flash and with the 2500NiMHs, did 400 shots before I needed to chage the batteries. They were not yet empty but as I need to have a fast recycle time, decided to change and continue taking another 40 shots plus 2 short videos. This mode includes the onboard flash too. So it is very zun.

Cost is $840-$850

Get e-quotes from MS Color, Alan Photo or Cathay Photo.
 

wheek said:
Okay now I'm confused. I'm a noob photographer & honestly know nuts about F/4, 1/60 & all that. :embrass:
then you need the fuji F11. Set to auto and shoot. Good light/low light sure ok.
DSCF0106_Small_.JPG

Clean output at ISO 1600. Only resize done. No touch up or anything else.
 

yanyewkay said:
then you need the fuji F11. Set to auto and shoot. Good light/low light sure ok.
DSCF0106_Small_.JPG

Clean output at ISO 1600. Only resize done. No touch up or anything else.
Thanks but 3x zoom lah. I need at least 6x.
 

Astin said:
You photoshop'd the photos? These do not look like straight out-of-camera digital photos.

Yes, photoshopped.

I reduced colour noise, small blurring of selected surfaces (to remove noise), adjusted levels, brightness and contrast, saturation and lastly, resized and sharpened. No cropping as I've slowly learnt to frame my shots so that the final pictures are consistent in size ratios (width vs height). If don't frame properly and anyhow shoot like when I first started, then need to crop here and there to get what I want in the final frame, resulting in odd and various size ratios on my pictures.

Noise was a bit visible at ISO 200.

Usually, more refinement are needed to be done when shot in low light conditions. Outdoor, very little adjustments are needed because there is more leeway to use different aperture and shutter speed and also noise is lower at ISO 100.

Here are a picture straight out of camera (with just resized down) and a picture after minor adjustments and increased saturation before resize and sharpen (opps! I forgot to use photoshop to remove the distraction at the bottom right corner. No choice because I wanted to capture part of the red roof in the picture and have the row of shops exactly diagonally across the frame) :

dscn0024b5nl.jpg




dscn0024a640frame.jpg
 

fuji S9500? covers from wide 28mm to tele 300mm. Has a better sensor than F11 giving cleaner and more vibrant JPEGs straight out of camera even at ISO1600. :D

Try ISO800 with any other P&S ;p
 

if you want more than 6X zoom,S5600 can meet your needs with up to 10X zoom.
but if you want better noise performance at high ISO then S5600 will suit you better than S2.
S5600 is cheaper than S2 and since it is from fuji the noise performance should be better than S2 even though they have the same size of CCD.
 

Hi all,

Got a friend who just bought the S4 and sold it after a week. He was quite disappointed with it. I saw some pics from S4 and was myself very disappointed! Very noise even at low ISO... I'd not recommend it!
 

Thanks for the feedback. Well I guess I'll just see how much I amass over CNY before deciding. :angel:
 

Simon_84 said:
some images from my FZ5 taken from tokyo disneyland.

P1000569.jpg


P1000574.jpg

Nice... just to check how many disneyland are there ?
 

Frankly, you know the best 2 brands for camera.

The S series for Nikon are good to see but not enuff to eat when you compare with
the P or even the thousands series. There is simply compensation you've got
to have for fixed lens.

Since you are ready to settle for a slower cam (PnS), why not
take up the 7900. It is quite decent. (Although I carries my dSLR around nowadays)

Sometimes with a 10x zoom what you've gonna get in a crowded audience is just
handshakes. Get a 7MP, clear, 3x zoom. Then at home, zoom in using your computer
since 7MP should have lotsa spaces for you to crop! ;p
 

Andy Ang said:
Get a 7MP, clear, 3x zoom. Then at home, zoom in using your computer since 7MP should have lotsa spaces for you to crop! ;p
But wouldn't it look crappy? I thought they said not to use digital zoom 'cos digital zoom islike cropping on the PC i.e. you get lousy quality?
 

if you have a lot of megapixels to work with the quality 'degradtion' shouldn't be too bad. but cropping should be the last resort. Shooting with a high megapixel cam creates storage large problems.

Fuji S5600 :thumbsup:
 

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