Need good travel camera. Bought S3 - it won't cut it

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Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible.

<$500

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?

Something that will fit in the pocket of cargo shorts or khaki pants (men's, large). The Canon S3 that I bought is slightly too big, and is not a very comfortable fit in my hand (very large hands, prefer either small cameras or SLR).

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you?

5mp minimum, 8mp would be ideal.

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify)

I currently have 2x and seldom use it (35mm - 70mm). I'd really like to see 28mm wide, and 3 - 10x zoom.

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10)

It's a camera! What else is there to judge by?

Do you care for manual controls?

The perfect camera for me is a point and shoot. I take photos while hiking, diving, and during rough terrain travel - I do not have time to setup a tripod or make many manual adjustments.

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for?
Hiking, diving (eventually I will replace my current dive camera with the new one), landscape shots, friends and family shots at parties and social gathers.... normal consumer uses

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not?

I'd like to be able to make 4x6 and 5x7 out of everything, 8x10 out of select shots. I'd love to be able to go up to 16 x 20 on a select number of shots, but only periodically and after extensive PP.

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos?

90% are outdoors. The other 10% are casual snapshots. I would like basic compact 35MM performance (with flash) for indoor shots.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos?

I forget, is diving a sport? I won't be shooting soccer matches or anything...
Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate?

I do not want a camera that will not accept SD or CF memory. That rules out Sony and Fuji (I know, the F30 is great, I know).

Are there particular models you already have in mind?

Canon SD700 IS (I am replacing a Powershot S200)
Panasonic FX01
Panasonic TZ1
Panasonic LX1 (not very high on list, costly + no underwater housing)
Casio S600 (UW housing, mpeg-4!)

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD)

Wide angle would be great, IS is pretty close to a necessity (hence why S600 is last on list), weatherproof would be awesome if you can recommend a model that takes good shots, hotshoe would be decorative for me, rotating LCD doesn't do it for me (hate it on the S3).

I'd like a good LCD (2.0" + w/ 150k pixels or higher), optical viewfinder would be great (save battery, always works), I bloody hate EVF. Movie mode is nice, as it will be good for some casual clips and perhaps underwater shots.

I am (trying to) putting up a poll on this thread so that if you don't feel like responding you can still chime in. Any help is greatly appreciated!

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For what its worth, I did a test tonight to see which camera had output that best suited my wife's eyes. I had Sams Club (cheapest local place for digicam prints) print 8x10's of the ISO 80 test images from dpreview for the S3, SD700, FX01, and TZ1. I did 5x7's of the ISO 400 output, and 4x6's of the ISO 800 output (only S3, SD700, and TZ1 had ISO 800).

I asked my wife to examine the photos closely and pick her favorite two from each batch. The scoring went as follows:

ISO 80 (8x10):

1. SD700
2. TZ1

ISO 400 (5x7):

1. SD700
2. FX01

ISO 800 (4x6):

1. SD700
2. TZ1

This is not exactly a scientific study or anything, but it was pretty clear that she liked the SD700 and TZ1 better than the S3 (which we have, and will be taking back to the store). I was very surprised by this, as I expected the S3 to win hands down.

Now I just need to decide between the long zoom (TZ1) or ultra portability (SD700).

[ben7337]

good luck with that. I voted for the SD700 hours ago. on paper the FX 01 looked better though however there is no review here for it. you should just think of what you want the camera for most and then decide which is best. slightly better photos and small size or slightly larger and zoom in on far away people/objects/animals.

[forno]

Last year I spent 5 weeks in France and Italy with a Canon iXus 50 and a 1gig card, and for small size point and shooter that does a good job in lots of conditions it was awesome.

Lens was usually versatile enough for most situations except aircraft carriers on the med and fighter jets over the med

[BonjiB]

Unfortunately you have a choice to make. I wish every camera was fantastic but that's the nature of competition. The canon has slightly better image quality and higher iso performance (400 is actually quite good) but it only has a 4x optical zoom. The tz1 is a great camera but image quality isn't quite up to par with the canon (close though)... however... it has a 10 OPTICAL zoom. That word optical is important to me. I love cameras with powerful zooms. It gives you more versatility in your composition which is a plus. So really it's up to you. To be honest though I (personally) would choose the tz1 because that zoom makes for greater versatility and MOST of my casual shots are 4x6 or 5x7 and it does a great job at these sizes and as long as you stay out of the extended iso's it'll perform well up to 8.5x11 or maybe even larger. Good luck.

[undefined]

Unfortunately you have a choice to make. I wish every camera was fantastic but that's the nature of competition. The canon has slightly better image quality and higher iso performance (400 is actually quite good) but it only has a 4x optical zoom. The tz1 is a great camera but image quality isn't quite up to par with the canon (close though)... however... it has a 10 OPTICAL zoom. That word optical is important to me. I love cameras with powerful zooms. It gives you more versatility in your composition which is a plus. So really it's up to you. To be honest though I (personally) would choose the tz1 because that zoom makes for greater versatility and MOST of my casual shots are 4x6 or 5x7 and it does a great job at these sizes and as long as you stay out of the extended iso's it'll perform well up to 8.5x11 or maybe even larger. Good luck.

I appreciate the optical zoom as well (digital zoom is a bad joke), but I truly wish that the wide angle were a little wider. Give me 24 or 28mm any day. And I know that I am the average consumer - I want DSLR performance in a compact frame weighing less than 12oz and taking up less than 20cu in of space. While I'm dreaming, I'd like it to be waterproof (to 3m), dustproof, and offer all the extras I could dream of.

Now, back to reality, this is still a tough call.

I think I have narrowed my choices down to the Panasonic FX01 or the Canon SD700. I can get the Panasonic for ~$260 and the Canon for about $100 more, so price is not an issue with either model. Any final thoughts, as I really like both cameras but only plan to buy one. Here's where I'm stuck at:

FX01:

28mm wide angle - great for landscape
Widescreen movies - great for DVD transfer

SD700:

I'm a bit of a Canon fanboy, having used an S200 for so many years
Optical viewfinder - it may be tiny, but it doesn't drain batteries and I like them

[BonjiB]

Well if you're tottering between the canon and the fx01 i'd say canon wins hands down no question. The only reason i cast a vote for the tz1 is because with a point and shoot, your lens selection is limited to what you have on the camera so you have just that one lens to take ALL your pictures until you get a new camera which for most of us is usually quite a bit of time. MOST of the time with regular day to day shots you can "go wider" (35-28) by taking a couple steps back, however, if you're on the ellis island ferry, unless you're jesus you can't take 50 steps towards the statue of libery over the water. It's often very difficult to physically foot zoom an extra 210mm (140mm max on canon vs. 350mm max on tz1) closer to a subject. That extra telephoto isn't seen very often on a point and shoot and panasonic does telephoto very well. I'm thinking of my composition needs. Sometimes i like wide angle... sometimes i want telephoto but i don't want to limit myself to one or the other and i certainly wouldn't sacrifice an extra 210mm on the telephoto end to gain an extra 7 on the wide end. A point n shoot is an "all in one" camera and for that reason i cast a vote for the tizzy. But, if you've ruled the tizzy out then i'd say go with the canon just because the zoom range is comparable between it and the fx01 and the image quality is better. In my opinion.

Oh and as for movie modes, that's why i have a video camera :p I don't find myself taking movies with my fz30 as often as i thought i would. They're just too limited right now to sway me away from picture quality. A camera is for still pictures, not movies. It's a nice little feature to have but i don't think it should sway your final decision. Again, in my opinion.

[undefined]

Well if you're tottering between the canon and the fx01 i'd say canon wins hands down no question. The only reason i cast a vote for the tz1 is because with a point and shoot, your lens selection is limited to what you have on the camera so you have just that one lens to take ALL your pictures until you get a new camera which for most of us is usually quite a bit of time. MOST of the time with regular day to day shots you can "go wider" (35-28) by taking a couple steps back, however, if you're on the ellis island ferry, unless you're jesus you can't take 50 steps towards the statue of libery over the water. It's often very difficult to physically foot zoom an extra 210mm (140mm max on canon vs. 350mm max on tz1) closer to a subject. That extra telephoto isn't seen very often on a point and shoot and panasonic does telephoto very well. I'm thinking of my composition needs. Sometimes i like wide angle... sometimes i want telephoto but i don't want to limit myself to one or the other and i certainly wouldn't sacrifice an extra 210mm on the telephoto end to gain an extra 7 on the wide end. A point n shoot is an "all in one" camera and for that reason i cast a vote for the tizzy. But, if you've ruled the tizzy out then i'd say go with the canon just because the zoom range is comparable between it and the fx01 and the image quality is better. In my opinion.

Excellent points. My walking on water skills are rather.. undeveloped.

So, focusing on Canon for a moment - how would you pit the SD700 against the recent A series (A700, A620, A540) for image quality? The A series lack the IS, but use AA which is nice when on the road.

[BonjiB]

I'd say it (sd700) holds it's own against the a series. I was very impressed with it's higher ISO performance. Iso 400 is very nice indeed for a p&s and iso800 is usable although a little noisy BUT they chose not to mud over the detail with in camera noise reduction and my understanding is it's TRUE iso 800 and not an underexposed iso 400 with in camera software "fixin." That was one of the main reasons i decided to make the dslr plunge. LOW LIGHT NOISE. All cameras have it and some are worse than other. The sd700 performs very well in lower light without a flash. I'm not saying you can take pictures in the dark but inside shots aren't all screwed up like with most point and shoots. The a620 is a great camera too with a real iso 50 which is handy if you do a lot of outdoor stuff and the flippy swivvel lcd is nice. It comes down a personal preference. To me... i'd get the sd700 because i like the idea of less noisy low light shots like i said the iso 400 on the sd700 is perfectly usable and better than the a620 in my opinion. However, you also have the tradeoff that the a620 is very smooth at 50 and 100. I work retail so i play with all our cameras when we have down time and both are very impressive as far as image quality. The sd700 takes the cuteness award though. The image stabilization is also always a welcomed addition. You'd be surprised what a difference it really makes. I have an fz30 and when i upgraded to the 20d i was like "wow, my pictures really suck without that IS." I came to rely on it and i guess i got lazy cuz it really does make a big difference. All in all it's really up to you dude. Go up to your local electronics superstore with a memory card and test shoot both of them. See which one you'll enjoy using the most. Some people love the elph body style, some hate it, likewise with the a series. Bottom line though, i like the sd700 better than the a series but that's just me. :-)

[undefined]

Thank you, Bonji, for your help.

After the ISO tests last night I was leaning towards the SD700. After the votes on this poll, I was leaning towards the SD700. After reading dozens of threads here, I leaned towards the SD700. After reading several similar threads on dpreview, I leaned towards the SD700.

I have fallen over.

I will place an order for the SD700 today or tomorrow. For about $360 it looks like a good upgrade to my S200, which can take over as my underwater camera. In 2 years I will move the SD700 to underwater duty and go back on the prowl for a new camera. I prefer not to use my primary camera for scuba in case it floods.

You brought up a good point - I am in the crowd that loves the design of the Elph series. I always have. I wish that Canon made an SD730, as I like the body and screen on the SD630 better, but that is not going to make a huge difference. Comparing the S3 to the SD700 is strange - the S3 lost out in EVERY printed test using the sample photos from dcresource and dpreview (printed at 4x6 - 8x10). I was astonished! This wasn't a comparison of snapshots, so composition and color(s) had no bearing - this was plain ordinary studio shots, provided by the two aforementioned sites, that did not do the S3 justice.

Thank you all for your help! I will be sure to post some photos once I get the new SD700.

Also, before I go, have any of you got any recommendations on a small camera case, preferably small enough to fit in cargo shorts or pants, that may offer some mild degree of water protection for the SD700? I go to tropical parts of the world, and rain is a real issue for my camera(s).

[BonjiB]

I go to tropical parts of the world, and rain is a real issue for my camera(s).

Zip lock baggie with one of those little moisture absorbing silcone pouches thrown in. :D Actually i have no idea of a water/weatherproof camera for something that small. Maybe some other folks here can provide a suggestion. But in all seriousness a ziplock bag would give you the best water protection over any case. The elf is pretty rugged and features it's own little lens cover so a plastic bag inside a pair of cargo's would prolly do just fine. It wouldn't LOOK all that great, but it would get the job done. When i went to the beach a few weeks ago and brought my 20d along i tied it up in a turkey sized oven bag with a rubber band around the lens and the plastic cut away in front of the lens to keep it protected. People looked at me funny but i had piece of mind. Also, congrats on your decision. Look forward to some picture posts.