Megapixels vs zoom - which most important?

[Colorado Kat]

I'm looking at new cameras before my cruise. I really like the ultra-compact ones - so easy to always carry with you - fits in pocket, etc. Have a panasonic Lumix with a Leica lens I love, but it's giving me weird metering/exposures lately.

 

Wants:

compact/Ultra-compact range

Take SD cards

 

I haven't found the perfect camera. When I find something with a nice zoom, the Megapixels suffer, and vice-versa.

Choices:

Panasonic 5x zoom, 12.1 megapixel (FS15A)

Panasonic 10x zoom, 8.1 megapixel (TZ45)

Canon 10x zoom, 9.0 megapixel - a bit larger camera than I want, but workable (SX110)

Canon 5x zoom, 12.0 megapixel (970IS)

Canon 3x zoom, 12.0 megapixel (780IS)

 

Anything I'm overlooking, feature-wise? I'd like to be able to set my own aperature/speed, but I think that's not gonna happen with Ulta-compacts. I want to be able to crop & enlarge things eventually, so I don't want to cut myself short on the megapixels. Suggestions?

 

Kathy

[chipmaster]

I'm looking at new cameras before my cruise. I really like the ultra-compact ones - so easy to always carry with you - fits in pocket, etc. Have a panasonic Lumix with a Leica lens I love, but it's giving me weird metering/exposures lately.

 

Wants:

compact/Ultra-compact range

Take SD cards

 

I haven't found the perfect camera. When I find something with a nice zoom, the Megapixels suffer, and vice-versa.

Choices:

Panasonic 5x zoom, 12.1 megapixel (FS15A)

Panasonic 10x zoom, 8.1 megapixel (TZ45)

Canon 10x zoom, 9.0 megapixel - a bit larger camera than I want, but workable (SX110)

Canon 5x zoom, 12.0 megapixel (970IS)

Canon 3x zoom, 12.0 megapixel (780IS)

 

Anything I'm overlooking, feature-wise? I'd like to be able to set my own aperature/speed, but I think that's not gonna happen with Ulta-compacts. I want to be able to crop & enlarge things eventually, so I don't want to cut myself short on the megapixels. Suggestions?

 

Kathy

 

You can't have everthing, its all an engineering compromise.

 

Super zoom usually = larger lense

Faster lense ( better low light ) = larger lense

Better low light sensor = big sensor which driver larger lenses.

 

Everyone of course wants it all in a small package :D Here as a recent review of a compact superzoom, can there be such a thing?

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q209grouplongzoom/

 

The panasonic zs1 and zs3 seem the best of the bunch

[pierces]

Anything over about 8-9MP on a compact wil not show a huge improvement in image quality. The photosites (pixels) become very small and current technology can't overcome the tendency for small pixels to introduce noise into the image. If i had to choose zoom (optical, not digital) over MPs, I'd take the zoom over cropping.

 

None of the camera you mentioned are bad and all are good. It will boil down to the one you like best. Find a store where you can play with them and see how it feels. If the place will let you, take your own SD card and snap a few photos with each to look at later.

 

On the bright side, you can't possibly make a bad choice form the candidates!

 

My 2¢...

 

Dave

[Colorado Kat]

ChipMaster & Dave - Thanks for your responses. You two were the ones i was hoping would answer me - Like I said, I spent a lot of time reading these boards before I posted anything, and both your answers were always well-thought out and made a lot of sense.

 

The Panasonic ZS1 & ZS3 (10.1 mp, 12x zoom) seem to be just what I'm looking for.

 

Dave - I've already been to all my local spots, and most carry only low-end, run-of-the-mill cameras. Couldn't even find a single Panasonic to look at. Since I love my current Panasonic (till exposure difficulties), I'm going to have to trust the reviews, and order on-line. I do prefer to purchase locally, but the stuff just isn't available locally.

 

However, these seem quite popular - I'll see what I can dig up - lots of places out-of-stock - I leave in 16 days.

 

Thank you very much for your help! The tech talk takes me back to the old days where I played with lots of 35 mm cameras, working at Eastman Kodak.

 

Kathy

[nordicus]

If your looking for the ability to set aperture and shutter speed the Canon SX110 has that. Aperture and shutter priority, Full Manual, and several other Programmable modes. It's a nice little camera. I've got one that goes with me all the time. It's nice to not lug around the big Nikon and image quality is very good.

Every thing in this album except the pilot boat photos was shot with the Canon sx110: http://travel.webshots.com/album/569268616dPKpaA

 

For the money a great camera that has as much adjust-ability as my old Nikon D70 and almost as much adjust-ablity as my Nikon D300 and D700.

[donaldsc]

Do any of the cameras that you are looking at have eye level viewfinders. IMHO, and I will admit to being a bit of a luddite, any camera w/o an eye level viewfinder is unworkable.

 

DON

[pierces]

Since he has earned my respect on these boards, I would heartily agree with Don if it was an advanced compact like a Canon G10. However, I feel the small, pocketable cameras with a viewfinder have no working advantage over the ones with a good LCD. I've had a Canon SD800 for two years and have used the viewfinder an average of once a year (both times in the first week). I never even think to use it anymore. The tiny peepholes are only vaguely representative of the scene and if you wear glasses, fuggedaboudit!

 

On a DSLR, I am diametrically opposite...unless you are doing product shots tethered to a laptop or critical macro focusing, the live-view LCD is a very poor second place to a good optical viewfinder.

 

As with Don's posting, this is only my humble opinion...your mileage may vary. ;)

 

Dave

[ludocdoc]

I think you already have good advice, but let me put similar advice into different words. If you're looking for a pocket size camera, you're not looking for a device you can use to take a picture which you will then blow up to poster size -- you wont have the resolution, unles maybe you use a tripod, and if you're toting a tripod, you can tote a bigger camera.

 

So you're going to look at most of your pictures on a computer screen, and print some at 4x6 or MAYBE 8x10. I think even 6MP is going to be enough to do the job. So your question is, if I want to see a portion of the scene, do I want high MP so I can digitally zoom and still have high resolution when I crop the photo, or do I want to optically zoom. You want to optically zoom. This way you use the entire sensor to capture your image, and assuming there is enough light, and thus a fast enough shutter speed, handshake is limited. Always zoom with a lens. There is no such thng as digtal zoom. That function the best buy kid from vacuums who is covering digital is talking about is called cropping, and it is used to remove stray elbows ans suck that sneak into your pictures, and not much else!