A95 or S1 IS or E550 or FZ 15?

[chengee]

Hi,

I am in quite a fix here deciding which camera I should to buy. I am just a college student so I have quite a limited budget ($450 USD including accessories). Other than my gf's olympus C-300 I do not have have experience with any other cameras in my life. However, I am very interested in learning about photography as I do design work(advertising) and wish to expand my creative boundaries with my own photos rather than stock art.
I am now considering these few cameras,

A95 -

I like the sample pictures ( very sharp, nice colors, good details) posted on dcresource and its 5 megapixels which i presume will be useful for photo editing . From what I gathered from the reviews this camera has almost as much manual controls as a high end G5 which I can slowly teach myself to learn and improve my photos. However, I am concerned that this camera do not offer a RAW mode which after having work with images before, I find it essential if I want complete image editing control.

Besides this, there are some doubts like the 3x zoom lenses which I am afraid that it might be inadequet in the long run.
Canon S1 Is

Its a beautiful camera. Love the touch of it. Like the handling a lot. Good weight. Feels like a man's camera(not like the dainty little things e.g S400). Has everything that A95 has plus better zoom lenses. However, I had pretty much given up on this one even though because of its picture quality. I took a few pictures with the camera in the shop(stored in my CF card) and tested them in my image editing software, resolution was simply lacking and I just cannot live with the less levels available with JPEG for editing. However, I am afraid that I am making these conclusions due my lack of experience. Can someone who has experience working with lower res pics talk me out of the resolution thingy?
Fuji E550

This has everything that A95 has and with Raw mode(Is it a true raw mode?). Might go for it if I can't decide on anything else. Just want some opinion about Fuji warranty(is a US warranty honored outside the US?) as I will be bringing this back to singapore from the states. I am sorry if this is in the wrong forum but it is interesting to know what canon users think of fuji because everyone is telling me to forget about having a fuji (poor quality, design and lousy service)
Panasonic FZ15

This is the confusing part. It is a good compromise b/w everything that I am looking for. Zoom, just enough resolution, nice design and all the manual controls. However, nosie seems to be a problem ( I am not sure about that but I am sure I can remove them). Problem, too expensive. 499 MSRP

I know its hard to come up with good choice but if you were in my position what will you buy?

And .. one last thing I hope to get the camera before Fall to take pictures in Fall.

Thanks
CE

[Rhys]

I have a Canon S1 IS. While I do think that Canon could have squeezed a little more quality out of the images, I'm perfectly happy with them as they are. It has an excellent video mode and virtually lossless JPEG. The high-quality JPEG mode puts a 3 megapixel photo into as much as 2.5 megabytes of space. I like the S1 a lot. It's the smallest of the semi-SLRs and the memory for it is the cheapest. 3 megapixels in my opinion is adequate for most things. 5 would be nicer but it's entirely up to you. Why are you not also considering the Nikon 5700?

[speaklightly]

Unfortunately, a lot of people shy away from particular digital cameras they like, based, for example, on the Canon S-1, because of MSRP. The Canon S-1 may indeed have an MSRP of $US 499, but in reality it is selling everday on the internet for about $US 330.

Likewise, a much more complex, digital camera, the Nikon 5700 currently has a substantial rebate being paid by the manufacturer to purchasers. So please become more familiar with pricing and rebates.

You might indeed be able to purchase a lot more digital camera than you think.

Sarah Joyce

PS I do not believe that the Canon S-1 produces raw images.

[chengee]

Thanks for the replies!

I had pretty much given up on S1 IS after replies from other forums but you rekindled some interest I had in it. Just one last question.

How useful are telephoto lenses? What other situations are they suited for besides sports and wildlife?

Thanks

[Rhys]

Thanks for the replies!

I had pretty much given up on S1 IS after replies from other forums but you rekindled some interest I had in it. Just one last question.

How useful are telephoto lenses? What other situations are they suited for besides sports and wildlife?

Thanks

Just about anytime's right for telephoto. I can zoom in on a flower in the middle of a flowebed for example and photograph just that flower, without having to trample over the rest to get close enough.

The S1 does lack a RAW mode. The Nikon 5700 has one, I believe.

[speaklightly]

I do a lot of informal or casual photos of children with my Canon S-1.

Sarah Joyce

[chengee]

After looking through all the posts.

Thanks everyone, you were all very helpful

I had just 1 more question.

I have this concept about Zooms which I am not too sure about.

If a 3.2mp camera is capable of 10 x zoom, does this mean that as long as I learn how to frame my picture correctly, understand what I want in the final picture, I can essentially use the optical zoom to bypass resolution problems that might otherwise be present for close ups, macros, etc.. The only problem I see with this is that I will be restricted when it comes to taking landscapes and scenery as the lower resolution will not give the kind of details I want unless I "crop" using the optical lenses and focus on the part of the scenery I want.

I think the opposite of this reasoning can be applied to the less zoom but higher mega pixel cameras. You can take scenery with great details and still be able to crop it in Photoshop. Is "cropping" in this way more effective? Is a 5 megapixel camera going to provide enought resolution for me to play around with the details such that it eliminates the need for a long zoom 10x telephoto?

Damn, I need a EOS digital..haha

As of now, only the FZ15 meets all my needs and pricing level.

[wax]

you should consider minolta Z3 too. the main advantage it has over FZ15 is that it uses aa batteries, so cheaper and less risky too as you can just pop in aa batteries when you run out of juice, not like the FZ15, which of course you can't.