I need some help in choosing one from these three cameras.
Canon S1 IS,Olympus C-770 and Panasonic FZ10.
Can some people help me figure out all the disadvantages between them and which one is the best deal? i have a hard time choosing because each camera have its own major sideback. for example, C770 doesn;t have a image stabiliazle.
Well, I've just been making pretty much the identical decision to you except that I decided that the Olympus C770 didn't offer enough extra over the C765 to justify an extra $100, so my choice was between the Olympus C765, Panasonic FZ10 and Canon S1-1S. I also considered the Minolta Z2 but ruled it out.
I decided against the Canon because of a number of reasons:
Here in the UK, it's the most expensive of them all
It's only 3 mega-pixel
Magazine reviews have generally not been as glowing for the Canon as for the C765 and FZ10
Customer reviews have complained of problems of focusing and some poor picture quality, even in good daylight conditions
In common with all the others, low-light photography is not great
No real macro mode
The FZ10 - well I came ever so close to plumping for this one. It seems to be the one that people are falling in love with, can take some fabulous pics, superb lens with that big f2.8 throughout the entire focal range. However, in the end, I decided against it.
In the UK, it's again quite pricey (best prices I could find had it costing 50% more than the C765)
Finding a backup battery in the UK was damn hard and when I finally found a couple of places that stocked them, they cost £40-£60 (about $75-$100).....for a battery!!
Not great in low-light - same as all the others
The image-stablising - well, I read an interesting thread in the forum at Steve's Digicams where a Panasonic rep conceded that he still carries his monopod everywhere. The image-stabilising is handy but no guarantee of sharp shots. I'm not the steadiest hand anyway so will probably need be using a tripod for a lot of my shots no matter which camera I buy, so this feature became less important to me.
The FZ10 is big - it's nearly as big as my old film SLR, not something which I can just slip in my pocket and take everywhere
Much as I'd love to have an FZ10, I just know that in a year or so, there will be a successor that will have improved upon it, so I'll be wishing I had it so will have to sell the FZ10
The C765 - well...
it suffers the same low-light problems that the others do
no image stabilising, but as mentioned, I'll probably be needing a mono/tri-pod no matter which camera I get
fabulous, sharp pictures
nice and small - even if I decide to buy the FZ10's successor, I'll want a nice, small "take anywhere in my pocket" camera, so I'll keep the C765 for years to come
and this little "take anywhere in my pocket" camera still has that big 10x lens, a great macro mode, full manual controls, decent built-in flash
it's by far the cheapest of the 3 (UK prices)
None of the camera's are perfect - they seem to just lack that one or two features which are pretty sure to arrive in next year's models. So, I'll spend less money now and get a great little camera and then maybe spend again in a year or two and get me a nice big camera with all the new technological advancements, but still have my little Oly.
Sorry, it's quite a long thread but as I've just been making the same decision as you, it's all at the forefront of my mind.
btw, I haven't actually received my Oly yet so it may turn out to be a pile of junk .
IS may not guarantee sharp shots, but it improves hand-holdability by 3 stops... so if you could hand-hold an unstabilized 400mm at 1/200 of a sec, you could hand-hold a stabilized one at 1/25!
Jake
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IS may not guarantee sharp shots, but it improves hand-holdability by 3 stops... so if you could hand-hold an unstabilized 400mm at 1/200 of a sec, you could hand-hold a stabilized one at 1/25!
Jake
IS, like Jake says, is great at allowing hand-holding of long telephoto shots. I've found that it's also great for short focal-length shots as well. On a recent trip, I was shooting indoor museum shots with my FZ10 routinely at 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 of a second, with sharp results. One 10X+ shot of a glassblower's work was sharp at 1/13 of a second! It's really kind of hard to believe how good IS is unless you experience the benefits yourself.
Regarding the IS, does 3.2 and 4 really make any differance? because i had some experiance when i took some photos with and 3.2 olyupms and a 2.0 canon. when the pictures came out, for some reasons, the canon actually seems to be clearer despite the same picture! And also, if price doesn't matter, which one would you really reccommend? And lastly, the only reason why i hesistated in choosing oly770 is due to the lack of image stabilization, so is this feature really useful?, cos it does sounds quite tempting to have.
From reading around the internet, opinion seems to vary from the FZ10's image stabilisation feature being next to useless to offering 3 or 4 stops. It's probably somewhere in the middle - around 2 stops. And don't forget it also has f2.8 at full-telephoto which means faster shutter speed possibilities.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what the FZ10's successor offers. If they can make big advancements on low-light, then my wallet will be more than half-way open.
If you're not in a big hurry to get your camera, you could wait too see how the recently announced Minolta Z3 turns out. It's also a 4 megapixel, 12x optical zoom with image stabilising. I'm not sure if they've announced a release date yet though, or price.
Regarding the IS, does 3.2 and 4 really make any differance? because i had some experiance when i took some photos with and 3.2 olyupms and a 2.0 canon. when the pictures came out, for some reasons, the canon actually seems to be clearer despite the same picture! And also, if price doesn't matter, which one would you really reccommend? And lastly, the only reason why i hesistated in choosing oly770 is due to the lack of image stabilization, so is this feature really useful?, cos it does sounds quite tempting to have.
IS is very useful, based on my experience. I'm a shaky-handed guy, and yet with both the Panasonic FZ1 and FZ10, I've been able to get sharp shots at shutter speeds way lower than would have otherwise been possible. Here's a shot, for example, I took with my FZ10 at the Corning Glass museum in NY a couple of weeks ago of a glass-blowing demonstration, handheld at a little over 10X zoom, 1/15th of a second:
How many stops below 1/focal length is that? I lost count.
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Well, I looked at the:
Panasonic FZ10, Nikon 5700 and Canon S1.
The FZ10 loses because it's got a proprietry battery and Secure Digital memory while everything else I use has AA or ENEL1/2CR5 and Compact Flash.
I have grave doubts about the build quality of the S1.
I understand that the 5700 can damage itself if it gets switched on in the bag, accidentally.
Featurewise, the S1 is head and shoulders above the 5700
Build-quality, the 5700 is better.
7dayshop are (at the moment) doing the S1 for £278. I emailed customs to ask whether they charged anything for importing it from a British Channel Island and got no sense from them.
What did customs say about import duty from Channel Islands?
This site http://www.worldtravelguide.net/data/wal/wal060.asp seems to suggest that only certain items are duty free. I've seen the exact same list elsewhere. It does suggest that most goods will incur import duty, and I think that might mean VAT on top of that.
I've ordered from 7dayshop before but luckily it was for smaller items. It didn't really cross my mind that import duty might apply from the Channel Islands, so thanks for the warning .
What about the 3cm marco which the olyppums can take? is it useful? and also, the canon IS SI has only 3.2 while the other two have 4.0. but i noticed the canon has quite alot of things which i am satisfied with. so should i sacrifice the pixels and just get the 3.2?
Canon S1 IS? Olympus C-770? Panasonic FZ10?
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