Need a camera for our honeymoon

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Smashed Ixnay

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Getting married March 3rd and we want a camera for our honeymoon. No, not to take those kind of pictures you pervs, but for when we go on our cruise and visit the places it stops. We currently have a Canon PowerShot SD800, but want something better. That camera was pretty decent about 2-3 years ago for a point and shoot camera, but it isn't that great anymore. Looking to spend around $300-$600 tops. If there is a excellent deal on one that is a tad bit more expensive, I'll consider it, but only if it is a smoking deal.

I will be wanting to buy it within two weeks, so I can learn to use it some before hand if it isn't a point and shoot camera. I know I won't know how to fully use the camera that quick, but at least to take decent pictures.


If you guys don't mind, could you recommend something low budget ($300-$400) and then high budget (to me, $500-$600).


Thanks!
 
I would recommend the Canon SX40hs point and shoot. The manual (200pages) has to be printed or read on the computer to fully understand how to use this camera to its potential, but takes great pictures regardless. Just got it for Christmas and couldn’t be happier. They sell for around 399. Worth checking out, it’s received lots of great reviews on the web.
 
northrop said:
Canon S95 - $330

Canon S100 - $430 (S95's newer brother)

Fujifilm X10 - $600 (Amazing all around)
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Man makes great suggestions... other suggestions are the new Canon G1X.. since the sensor in that think is almost as big as a APS-C sensor, but bigger than a M 4/3 camera's sensor...
 
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Also the G12 is a good camera... but I would pick the Fuji X10 first then the Canon G12 second... unless you want a very very small camera then I would pick the Canon S100... I have the S95 and like it... but my P&S is my beloved Fuji X100.....
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm really digging the look of the Canon S100. I'm not too crazy about the look of the Fujifilm, but I'm sure it is a good camera if you mentioned. Is the X10 a big upgrade over the S100? Would they be able to take pics from afar and come out good? Also, what point and shoot camera would you recommend after the X10 (obviously costing more).


Sorry for the 'dumb' questions, but the two past cameras we have owned was that Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 when it came out back in 04 or 05, and then we got the Canon SD800 about 2 or 3 years ago. I think a good point and shoot camera would be more pratical for us, and then we can buy a good start up DSLR camera for when we go to big events, family gatherings, etc.
 
darktiger said:
Also the G12 is a good camera... but I would pick the Fuji X10 first then the Canon G12 second... unless you want a very very small camera then I would pick the Canon S100... I have the S95 and like it... but my P&S is my beloved Fuji X100.....
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I was looking at the X100, but it's way out of our budget, atm. If we weren't getting married, then it'd be no problem, but we aren't getting much help at all for our wedding, so we have to pay for it all out of pocket.


Is the X100 the top of the line point and shoot camera?
 
Honestly if you want a P&S then the X100 is prob not the camera for you. It is only 35mm(23mm), so there is no zoom. That said, the images that the X100 produces are simply awesome.. A lot of popular photographers/people now use that as their travel/vacation camera. The IQ/low light production is great. The X10 has a good zoomable P&S, there is something about Fuji's algorithm that gets skin tones just right....

That said, if you want a camera with a decent reach (Canon G1X might not be out yet), the look into the G12. Like I mentioned, the S95 is great, but it lacks a lot on the telezoom side. But if you want a supersmall decent camera then the S100 is great.

When I went on my honeymoon (Greece), I decided that I had enough with the crappy/just okay images, etc... so that is when I made my jump to a DSLR (Rebel XT at the time)....

Another suggestion that is somewhere between the P&S and DSLR lines is the Sony NEX-5N.. it is just a tad higher than your price range, but they are decent camera's.....
 
Leaning towards the X10 atm. Going to wait a few more days to see if I can get anymore advice before I pull the trigger.
 
If I were you I would get either the S100 for pocket-ability or the Samsung TL500 for control. I got the TL500 myself, but it is too big for a jeans pocket (as would the X10). Everything I read on the X10 from owners was negative when the owner had access to other equipment. (keep in mind most people want to justify their purchase and say what ever it is that they have is the best, but when you have no such eggs in the basket it is much easier to be fair.)

For me it was either the Panasonic LX5 or the TL500. I used to own the G12 and it is great but I really wanted a 24mm equivalent lens and the G12, X10 nor the Olympus XZ-1 had this. Most people and reviews said to get the LX5, but that the Samsung was still very good. I chose the samsung because I just liked the images it produced better. I looked at a couple of hundred of each and I kept finding myself liking the Samsung's color and look better. I also found a blog that showed the almost exact same shots taken at almost the exact same time with the TL500 and LX5 both side by side. The TL500 won hands down.

Now that I have it I LOVE IT. I really did like the G12 but not as much as this one. Here is what the TL500 has:

-Wide 24mm f1.8 lens. Even on the long end it is only f2.4
-Fast startup and not much lag.
-Very good JPG processing (although I still use RAW)
-Articulating screen
-AMOLED screen


Here is a shot from a couple of days ago from it:

Gloomy-Neighborhood-XL.jpg
 
I researched the TL500 a while back, but the non usable ISO3200 and ISO1600 was very noisy... not even the good artistic noise.

Also the bokeh it produced was okay, but not as good as fuji's. How many blades is on the TL500 aperture? Just wondering.

I did like how it felt in my hands, and shooting <ISO800 was not too bad. Also I am curious what is the video? 480/720/1080?

The reason I am asking is I am looking for a decent camera to convert to IR.....
 
darktiger said:
I researched the TL500 a while back, but the non usable ISO3200 and ISO1600 was very noisy... not even the good artistic noise.

Also the bokeh it produced was okay, but not as good as fuji's. How many blades is on the TL500 aperture? Just wondering.

I did like how it felt in my hands, and shooting <ISO800 was not too bad. Also I am curious what is the video? 480/720/1080?

The reason I am asking is I am looking for a decent camera to convert to IR.....
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Video is garbage and only 480, and not sure on the blades. I never looked hard at the bokeh considering it is a P&S and that wont come in to play too much. I also like the noise at 800 better than the competition as far as noise quality goes, and 800 is enough for a P&S. Plus the lack of noise at 400 is excellent.

Everything on paper said to get the Fuji on the high end and LX5 on the cheap, but I really just liked the images I saw from the tl500. Also I only paid $325 for it.
 
Quite funny post..But I liked it...Honeymoon is something which a person can never forget in their life..Canon S100 is a good option for it..It is not that much expensive..I also like to click pictures of beautiful scenery and places..
 
Internets says the the Canon G1X is supposed to be out in February (I'm not sure when your honeymoon is.) I haven't heard a solid release date for it, but the sensor size is just slightly below APS-C, which in a compact of that size is amazing.

The only other problem is that the current MSRP is a bit higher than what I think you want to pay for a camera.
 
I would look into the mirrorless cameras, compared to them the old tiny sensor P&S are garbage.

Personal favorite of mine is the sony nex series, best "dslr-ish" sensor short of full frame ones. Has a limited native lens selection for now but works beautifully with legacy lenses.

you can get the c3 version for 500-550 USD and you give away very few features from the sibling 5n (like the 1080p 60fps video)

It works very well in auto modes and manual. In auto it has some preset function that are quite nice, in particular hand held twilight is amazing (look it up on dpreview -forums and review itself)

And in manual mode the very accurate live view with focus peaking makes using even fully manual lenses a breeze.

If you want super fast AF, a longer reach for zoom lenses but less width for landscape and don't mind a smaller sensor you can look into nikon 1 series

and of course there are the ubiquitous micro 4/3 cameras, lots of lenses, very good JPEG engine in the Olympus made ones.
 
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I agree that a lot of mirrorless cameras are great (although technically all P&S' are mirrorless cameras.)
The only thing is they cost quite a bit more (than most) P&S cameras. The Nex series of cameras are really great PQ wise, but for a person familiar with cameras in general they were really annoying try to get all the settings the way I wanted them. Maybe I was doing it wrong, and I didn't have as much time to play with it as I wouldn't liked, but it felt like I had to dig through the menus to change anything (Aperture/Shutter speed/ISO.) To reiterate, great photos, if you like the digital menus etc then it's a great option, just not my preference.

That said, the Canon G12/G1X I think are great. Olympus and Panasonic both have an awesome set of µ4/3rds cameras, which are particularly good if you like working with primes (although they have zooms as well.) Fuji has some great offerings but they're pricey... and lets not even get started on Leica. Each of these offerings have fully manual controls that are physical rather than digital, and I have to say that is my preference as I find it's a lot easier to adjust settings with manual controls on the fly.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
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I agree that technically p&s are mirrorless but for better of for worse the established terminology (not sure who coined it first) is mirrorless for cameras that offer dslr features without the mirror.

It's true that mirrorless cameras are more expensive but they do fit the OPs budget and given the absolutely massive picture quality differences from p&s cameras (quality delta grows exponentially with ISO) this is what i would choose

as far the nex navigation, it's not that bad, sometimes you have to get into menus to change settings but you still get the PASM functions at your fingertips. You can of course get the nex7 (pricy and hard to get now due to sony factory flood) which matches pretty much any dslr out there as far as changing settings on the fly.
 
Thnaks for all the suggestions guys. I still haven't purchased the camera, but will be doing so in the next day or two. We had some stuff come up and I didn't want to purchase it a few weeks back, but now all is good. The future wife has given me the go ahead to purchase a camera. She actually surprised me and said she wanted a nice good camera. She asked how much I was going to need and said $800? I told her not that much, so she was happy that I wasn't going to spend that much. She did say I could spend the $800 if I needed to so we can have a 'good' camera.

I'm leaning towards the X10. Technically, I could get the X100 if I wanted to since I have about $700 saved up that she doesn't know about. I really would prefer to have the X100, but you guys think it's worth it to pay $1200 for it?
 
I would suggest getting the X10, and spending the extra cash on something else (a vacation perhaps?).

If this is going to be your only camera, then the X100 is not the camera for you. Yes, it's a great camera on its own, but as a casual user, looking for a travel/family camera, you'll get a lot more use out of X10. Some of the advantages of the little X10 over the X100 are:
- zoom range.
- smaller physical size
- video (full HD 1080p at 30fps vs. 720p at 24fps with X100)
- 10 fps (vs. 5.3fps)

In conclusion, get the X10. ;)
 
Well, I'm gonna pull the trigger on the X10. Is there any accessories I should purchase with it? I'll be buying a 16gb SDHC class 10 card for storage. It doesn't come with a case, so I'll have to buy one. I'll make sure to get a lens cap (thinking of this one.


So, anything else I'm forgetting?
 
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I have read nothing but great things about the S100/S95. That would be what I'd get if I were looking for something more compact.

G12 If you were looking for something a little bigger/more potential, but for the purposes of compact carry, S100
 
Got the camera today. Pretty quick shipping on Newegg's part. :) Only taken a few pics on the Automatic camera mode and the quality is 100000000000x better than my old Canon SD800 (think that's the model). Now I need to learn how to use the camera!
 
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