fed up from seeing loads of great stuff recently and not having a camera within 30 miles of me, i'm now in the market for a really good compact digital camera - needs to be small enough to live next to the phone and blackberry in an inside pocket, but at least 9 times better than the pile of shite Nikon "how do you turn the grey filter off?" Coolpix i've got in a drawer somewhere. Image quality is most important, i couldn't give a stuff about lots of modern megapixels

any ideas anyone? ta

My sony dsc-t100 is great because it's so damn small I can take it anywhere, and so fast to startup I don't miss any shots. Image quality isn't DSLR, there's some noise even at the lowest ASA unless the light is bright. But I don't fool myself, it isn't a texture-capturing camera. Some shots.
http://www.ericchadwick.com/gallerie...um=7&pos=1

I've been through a TON of these pocket compacts, and I think the Canon SD series have the best image quality, I currently own 2 of them.

In fact, I think the newer Canon compacts don't quite have the same image quality as they did a few years back, but it just depends on how picky you are. I've upgraded and returned them in favor of the older ones. The best compact camera Canon ever made IMO was the SD500 and the SD550 (larger lcd),awesome image quality. The SD 400/450 were pretty good too.

Newer versions added image stabilization, and a few more megapixels, but they suffered a bit in image quality, more noise, and slightly grainier images. See if you can find a SD 500/550 on ebay. I like Canon's entire line, though, I also use a 40D with a 50mm prime lens, and I wouldn't hesitate to use it for textures even viewed at 100%.

I always test a new camera by taking a picture of my dog, then viewing it at 100%. With the Canons, I can still see individual hairs distinctly. I've tried compacts from Fuji, Olympus, and Casio, and when viewed at full res, the hair turns into clumps of pixels.

thanks, very useful ta

hyrumark - i was looking at the newer compact canons and have heard what you said about them, image quality suffering from More Megapixels (cos megapixels is where it's at isn't it snapshotters of the world ... who might occasionally print out at 6x4) but i didn't think down to look for an earlier model. Cheers

Yeah I definitely think Canon caved to the consumer market a bit with their latest compacts. Cramming in more megapixels, and ridiculously high ISO levels, just so people could get that red-eye shot of their drunk friends in a dark bar. Only to be cropped to 640x480 and posted on myspace. That market should be left to phone-cameras...

I know a few folk with the Ricoh R7, it's a nice little compact.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ricoh-Caplio-R7-...7202&sr=8-1

^^^ bought. I can't be bothered chewing over these things for ages. Thanks rick

I would highly recomend the Olympus 790SW. Its that 7.1mp industructable one on TV. I have tested this on many a night out and found it to be supurb. Its water proof too, tested that in a pint, apart from being sticky all was fine (Just cleaned it the next day in the sink [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]), also throw it in a night club and it works fine. It also catch images very well. Got loads of preset setting that do the job of changing modes very quickly, and it turn on in 1 second or less! Just makin sure u get a cloth to clean the lense [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

DAz

If you don't mind, post your impressions of that Ricoh camera after you get it. I'm love my SD500, but that 7x zoom looks attractive if it has the image quality to back it up.

If you are concerned about image quality get a real camera.

if you want a compact, you can't do better than the Ricoh GR Digital.

Image quality will degrade over 6 megapixels.
http://6mpixel.org/en/

[ QUOTE ]
If you are concerned about image quality get a real camera.

if you want a compact, you can't do better than the Ricoh GR Digital.

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[/ QUOTE ]

By "real" are you referring to film, or just any SLR? The 40D is an awesome camera (with the right lens), but sometimes it's just not practical to lug around a big SLR.

No offense, that Ricoh GR looked interesting, but after reading some so-so reviews on it's image quality and looking at some crops I don't think it stands up to Canon's high-end compacts. There was quite a bit of noise even at ISO 100, where my Canon is clean and sharp as knife. I'd like to get my hands on one to try it firsthand though.

the reason why I suggest the Ricoh GR, it's shutter is bloody fast and it shoots raw. Also you can stick lenses on it if you like. For it's power, it's tiny.

Also another reason I guess speaks for it's self but several photographers I know use the Ricoh GR for location hunting and snaps, for any so-so sterile comparisons reviews it has it makes up for by being the professionals choice.

I use a Nikon d1h, it's a monster. Camera phone suffices for anything else.



A massive footprint of 2 mega pixels!!

i've nobbed off that order anyway, and am going to get one of these instead :

http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/prod...overview/k800i

friend at work has one, his untouched stuff on flikr is ace, and it seems like a decent phone too. Certainly solves the compact problem ...