To UZ or not to UZ?

[gattaca]

Hi all,

First up, I'm quite clueless when it comes to photographic hardware so kindly forgive my ignorance or if i'm asking the obvious. :o

Have a rather weird (and i suspect silly) question to ask.
In your opinion which combination is a better one?

Having a good non-UZ camera such as the Olympus C-7070 WZ or Coolpix 8400 and attaching a teleconverter whenever i need a zoom.
or
A UZ camera like the FZ5, s5200 or S2 and attaching a wide angle whenever I need a.. umm wider view.

Thing is, I'm actually looking some versatility in a camera by having both wide angle as well as zoom capabilities,
but am just wondering which combination would produce better quality images on the whole (or with fewer problems: Chromatic Aberration, Vignetting etc)

I seem to gather from some camerashops that Ultra zoom cameras tend to have better lenses(such as ED in the Olympus SP500UZ) while non-uz cams have better sensors. Is that true? If so, which is more important?

[timmciglobal]

Answer: Whichever you will do more of. You'll find CA, Ving and lens slowdown on either solution depending on quality of TC to the degree of it.

Find which you do more and buy for that.

Tim

[gattaca]

hmm, thanks. i get what you're saying. :)
I probably won't be using zoom(especially the extreme end) extensively, more like only when the situation arises, ditto with wide angle.

It's just that i've heard that ultra zoom cams compromise on sensor size, thus they are more prone to noise. And that kinda worries me, so i'm toying with the idea of getting a cam with a decent sized sensor and attach a seperate zoom(not necessarily) on it.

I'm wondering which is a lesser evil in terms of image quality:
A non-zoomed image from say a FZ5 compared to an non-zoomed image from say a C7070.
OR
A zoomed(say 8X) image from a FZ5 compared to one from a C7070 attached with a decent teleconverter(prob one that costs about $100+) that gives a similar zoom level.

Again, sorry if i seem to be asking a "What is best camera in the world" type question. Just wanted to hear some opinions/recommendations about this really :o

[JTL]

It's just that i've heard that ultra zoom cams compromise on sensor size, thus they are more prone to noise.
What?!? :confused:

This is not true at all...you'll find the same size sensors...usually 1/2.5 or 1/1.8, even 1/1.6...in all P&S digciams! Ultra zoom or not!

Sony is even putting an APS-C size senor in the R1...the same size sensor that you'll find in some DSLRs...so either you've gotten wrong information or you've interpreted something incorrectly...

Inordinate amounts of noise, even at low ISO, is a result of: 1) poor sensor design; 2) poor filtering algorithms; 3) cramming more megapixels onto a sensor then the sensor size can reasonably accommodate.