point and shoot recommendation?

ideasculptor

My wife laundered my Canon SD1000 - or she might say that I left it in my pants on the floor to get laundered - so I'm looking for a replacement. I have no idea if the market has progressed to the point of offering the features I'm looking for, but thought I'd ask here about which models to look into.

Things I must have:

• pocket sized. I loved that my SD1000 would disappear in my pocket. Bulky and bulbous P&S cameras are out of the question
• good image quality - I've liked all of my elph's. A decent tradeoff between size, price, and quality. Some of my other P&S cameras over the years have had terrible image quality - usually poor color accuracy.
• reasonably responsive shutter button. 5 second lag between pressing the button and opening the shutter is WAY too long.

Things I'd really like - items in bold are the things I am really looking for:

• time lapse mode - I'm OK with hacking the camera, so long as it isn't a community of 3 people who do so. Mostly, I want to be able to run time lapse on bicycle rides.
• Ability to shoot RAW. My P&S shots are generally snapshots, but sometimes it'd be nice to have the flexibility that RAW offers.
• Not too high a pixel count. I don't print that often, but I wouldn't mind being able to leave it RAW all the time, since my toolchain supports it natively, but that means shooting at the native pixel count, which means very large files for what will mostly be snapshots.
• built in gps integration would be great, but it seems there still are very few options on that score, so external geotagging will have to suffice for now.

swintonphoto

I would check out the Panasonic DMC-LX3 if you want raw shooting capabilities. If you want bang for the buck while still having good quality I would check the Olympus Stylus series.

ziggy53

ideasculptor wrote:

My wife laundered my Canon S1000 - or she might say that I left it in my pants on the floor to get laundered - so I'm looking for a replacement. I have no idea if the market has progressed to the point of offering the features I'm looking for, but thought I'd ask here about which models to look into.

Things I must have:

• pocket sized. I loved that my S1000 would disappear in my pocket. Bulky and bulbous P&S cameras are out of the question
• good image quality - I've liked all of my elph's. A decent tradeoff between size, price, and quality. Some of my other P&S cameras over the years have had terrible image quality - usually poor color accuracy.
• reasonably responsive shutter button. 5 second lag between pressing the button and opening the shutter is WAY too long.

Things I'd really like - items in bold are the things I am really looking for:

• time lapse mode - I'm OK with hacking the camera, so long as it isn't a community of 3 people who do so. Mostly, I want to be able to run time lapse on bicycle rides.
• Ability to shoot RAW. My P&S shots are generally snapshots, but sometimes it'd be nice to have the flexibility that RAW offers.
• Not too high a pixel count. I don't print that often, but I wouldn't mind being able to leave it RAW all the time, since my toolchain supports it natively, but that means shooting at the native pixel count, which means very large files for what will mostly be snapshots.
• built in gps integration would be great, but it seems there still are very few options on that score, so external geotagging will have to suffice for now.

Ideasculptor, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Since you are OK with a camera hack I suggest that one of the Canon P&S cameras like the AS720IS or SD950 with the CHDK hack might suffice.

That said, I do like the FujiFilm "F" series P&S cameras and I just got for myself the F40fd. They are capable of very good low-light and indoor work and they have very good dynamic range. I can recover shadow detail from their JPGs similar to what I do with RAW files.

LoriKTM

I also second the recommendation for the DMC-LX3. IF you can find one. (We bought one lightly used from fellow D-grinner tanglefoot47!)

It's small and lightweight. Slimmer and lighter than my P&S, Canon A620. Shoots RAW format. I don't know if it has time-lapse. 10mega pixel. It doesn't have much of a zoom on it, though, if that's important to you. But the photos right out of the camera are just beautiful. This one has very, very little post processing on it. (done from JPEG).

kpmedia

I tested at least 25 or more P&S cameras last year, looking for the perfect one, before arriving at these two options:

• Canon Elph SD1100
• Sony DSC-W120

I bought the Sony because it had better low-light high-ISO performance, clean even up ISO 3200, not much different than that of the D300 or even D3. The Canon left much to be desired beyond ISO 800.

And then let's not forget the most important part .... ... the metallic black looks pretty sweet. (That's a joke, of course, but it does look really slick!)

Price-wise, they're both in the $150-200 range, depending on store. After looking and looking (and looking!), Amazon had the best pricing.

ziggy53

kpmedia wrote:

,,,

• Sony DSC-W120

I bought the Sony because it had better low-light high-ISO performance, clean even up ISO 3200, not much different than that of the D300 or even D3. ...

Surely you have examples to demonstrate these claims?

Cameron

kpmedia wrote:

I tested at least 25 or more P&S cameras last year, looking for the perfect one, before arriving at these two options:

• Canon Elph SD1100
• Sony DSC-W120

I bought the Sony because it had better low-light high-ISO performance, clean even up ISO 3200, not much different than that of the D300 or even D3. The Canon left much to be desired beyond ISO 800.

And then let's not forget the most important part .... ... the metallic black looks pretty sweet. (That's a joke, of course, but it does look really slick!)

Price-wise, they're both in the $150-200 range, depending on store. After looking and looking (and looking!), Amazon had the best pricing.

Ok, let's not get too crazy comparing the high ISO quality of a $150 P&S with the D300...

Steves Digicams has some high-ISO samples from the DSC-W120 here:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/sony_w120_samples.html

D300 samples of the same scene (M&M guy and Dice)
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/nikon_d300_samples.html

Looking at the ISO 1600 and ISO3200 there is significant noise and loss of lots of detail and contrast. For a P&S camera it does quite well but doesn't compare to the D300.

But, back on the subject, the W120 would be a fine P&S recommendation!

LoriKTM

photograham wrote:

Arizona or Utah? I love them both

Were you asking about the picture? Look at my location-- New Mexico!

ideasculptor

The Elph is definitely a consideration, since it will be replacing an older elph that I was quite happy with. Does the Sony have time lapse and/or raw? I'd look it up myself, but I'm just running out of my office for the evening.