stevage
07-04-2006, 09:06 AM
Hi,
Having somehow taken over 8000 photos and 450 movies in the 10 months since I bought my Finepix F10 on the recommendation of this site, I'm finally in a position to talk about what matters in day-to-day use. I notice that Jeff has certain preferences that he tends to mention in every single review, perhaps giving the impression that they're important. Jeff has a natural bias: he does a lot of camera reviewing, so he's probably slightly biased towards cameras that are quick to test, reveal their secrets etc etc. I'm probably a pretty typical first-time buyer: I take a lot of photos at parties and social gatherings, tourism shots, and the odd bit of attempted artistry.
* Custom battery vs AA's. I know Jeff loves his AAs, but I've only *once* ever run out of battery, and it wasn't a big deal. Ok, the F10 is exceptional on battery life, but if you're even slightly organised (and I'm not), it's not necessarily a major deal.
* Direct plug-in chargers vs cables and stuff. Chargers with cables are mostly a pain in terms of the mass of cables you have to carry around. But personally I'd easily make that sacrifice for even a tiny improvement in some other aspect of performance.
* Delete without going into playback mode. I would never use it if I had it. My MO is "take photos until the card is full or I'm back at base, then decide which ones to keep". I almost never delete photos before seeing them at full resolution.
* Lack of optical viewfinder making photos impossible in bright sunlight. On the rare occasions that I've been unable to see the screen, it's because the sun was so bright I couldn't see my subject anyway! One big advantage I find of the LCD screen is being able to predict when an object is about to move into your field of view. When shooting at arm's length, you never have the problem that someone walks into shot at the wrong moment.
I suppose what I'm thinking is that on every review, Jeff writes "Camera X doesn't have a Y. This is bad because Z." It might be better to write "Camera X doesn't have a Y. Click here for the general wisdom on that" - with collected opinions from a few people.
I'm also a bit puzzled that most of the standard review photos seem to be bright sunlit shots outside on a clear day. These are somewhat rare, and most cameras handle them pretty well. What I want to know as a prospective buyer is, how does it handle in a range of situations? The most common:
* At a party, with and without flash
* In fading light, with and without tripod
* On long exposure
* On candid, unprepared shots - leave the camera on default settings, and quickly take a shot of a person (or whatever) passing by. Do the default settings give a passable result?
Especially for compact cameras, the first and last examples above are maybe more realistic and useful than shots of scenery?
Hope these comments are useful, as opposed to the bitchy criticism they probably sound like :) [1] I do love the site!
Steve
[1] Just read the finepix F30 review and wish I had that instead :)
Having somehow taken over 8000 photos and 450 movies in the 10 months since I bought my Finepix F10 on the recommendation of this site, I'm finally in a position to talk about what matters in day-to-day use. I notice that Jeff has certain preferences that he tends to mention in every single review, perhaps giving the impression that they're important. Jeff has a natural bias: he does a lot of camera reviewing, so he's probably slightly biased towards cameras that are quick to test, reveal their secrets etc etc. I'm probably a pretty typical first-time buyer: I take a lot of photos at parties and social gatherings, tourism shots, and the odd bit of attempted artistry.
* Custom battery vs AA's. I know Jeff loves his AAs, but I've only *once* ever run out of battery, and it wasn't a big deal. Ok, the F10 is exceptional on battery life, but if you're even slightly organised (and I'm not), it's not necessarily a major deal.
* Direct plug-in chargers vs cables and stuff. Chargers with cables are mostly a pain in terms of the mass of cables you have to carry around. But personally I'd easily make that sacrifice for even a tiny improvement in some other aspect of performance.
* Delete without going into playback mode. I would never use it if I had it. My MO is "take photos until the card is full or I'm back at base, then decide which ones to keep". I almost never delete photos before seeing them at full resolution.
* Lack of optical viewfinder making photos impossible in bright sunlight. On the rare occasions that I've been unable to see the screen, it's because the sun was so bright I couldn't see my subject anyway! One big advantage I find of the LCD screen is being able to predict when an object is about to move into your field of view. When shooting at arm's length, you never have the problem that someone walks into shot at the wrong moment.
I suppose what I'm thinking is that on every review, Jeff writes "Camera X doesn't have a Y. This is bad because Z." It might be better to write "Camera X doesn't have a Y. Click here for the general wisdom on that" - with collected opinions from a few people.
I'm also a bit puzzled that most of the standard review photos seem to be bright sunlit shots outside on a clear day. These are somewhat rare, and most cameras handle them pretty well. What I want to know as a prospective buyer is, how does it handle in a range of situations? The most common:
* At a party, with and without flash
* In fading light, with and without tripod
* On long exposure
* On candid, unprepared shots - leave the camera on default settings, and quickly take a shot of a person (or whatever) passing by. Do the default settings give a passable result?
Especially for compact cameras, the first and last examples above are maybe more realistic and useful than shots of scenery?
Hope these comments are useful, as opposed to the bitchy criticism they probably sound like :) [1] I do love the site!
Steve
[1] Just read the finepix F30 review and wish I had that instead :)