February 28, 2005
My new digital camera?
I've always been interested in photographing, but never owned a decent camera. My current Olympus 1.3 megapixel point-and-shoot camera is really a crappy piece of product with no optical zoom and a really poor lens, resulting in blurry, noisy pictures. I got it for just $40 a few years ago though, so for being almost free, I can't complain about it that much.
This summer, Sofie and I will travel abroad together for the first time and it would be a miss not to have a better camera then. Since I enjoy taking slightly more advanced pictures than the standard blurry, red-eyed party images most people are perfectly happy with, I don't want a simple compact camera with 3x optical zoom. I like experimenting with pictures, taking landscape pictures and zooming in on objects without loosing image quality because of the digital zoom. I also admire my father's macro photos of flowers and raindrops and would like to try some of that too. On the other hand, a full blown system camera would be too expensive and too cumbersome to carry and use, especially when travelling. Therefore, I'm thinking of choosing something in between.
Originally, I was going for the Minolta Dimage Z20, which seems to be a great camera with a very small price tag. It has a decent 8x optical zoom lens and compared to most compact digital cameras I've tried so far, the picture quality is excellent. However, both Sofie and I enjoy filming small video clips (one of the few features of my Sony Ericsson K700 mobile phone that is actually fun to use, although the video quality is as poor as it gets), and unfortunately, the Z20 doesn't support video with audio. Video without sound is not very interesting, is it?
Therefore, I think I'll go for Z20's bigger brother, Z5 (the silver version), which supports video with sound. Furthermore, it has a whopping 12x optical zoom lens and an anti-shake mechanism that's likely to produce even better pictures than the Z20, at least in my not-made-of-stone-hands. Of course, it's a bit more expensive, but I plan on keeping it for a few years so it might be worth it.
I'll probably not buy it just yet, since the vacation isn't until June. Also, the price may drop in a few months since the camera is still very new on the market.
Does anyone have experience with the Z5, or other cameras of the Z-series? Is it a good buy or are there better alternatives within the same price range?
I have no experience with any of the mentioned cameras, but you might also like to take a look at Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20. I bought that recently catched by its optical specifications. It has a 12x Leica-zoom of 36-432mm (35mm equiv.) with an optical image stabilizer. But maybe most impressive is its constant F2.8 aperture through the *whole* zoom-range.
It's a rather big camera, so I have a smaller compact-camera too, for situations I don't want to carry a bag to have my camera. But the FZ20 is definitely the camera which give me most fun.
My final decision to buy it came after reading this review:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz20/
I was a bit sceptical about the possible image-quality of a 12x zoom, but now one month after I bought it, I can only say I'm impressed with the optical quality and the camera overall. I just wish it had one of those swing-out LCD-screens as my more compact 2nd camera has. I miss that feature sometimes. Also I would prefer it could use standard AA-batteries. The extra proprietary Panasonic rechargeble batteri I purchased was rather expensive in my opinion.
Yes, you should *definitely* look at the reviews on the excellent dpreview.com site! :-) Don't go to a shop and let sales people talk into you.
Posted by: alfons at February 28, 2005 8:49 PMI'd also recommend checking out dpreview.com. It is a great site and provides tons of info.
Posted by: Stuart Parmenter at February 28, 2005 8:51 PMOh, yes: I agree with the "impressive F2.8 aperture through the *whole* zoom-range". That's very very impressive.
Konica Minolta is okayish - you can hardly expect glitches - a solid choice, but not particularly state of the art. (I own a Konica Minolta camera, so I'm hardly biased ;-)
Thanks. Actually, I have read the dpreview info, but they haven't reviewed the Z5 yet.
Stig, I've looked at the Panasonic FZ20 camera but find it too big and too expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if it has better optics than the Z5 though. Hopefully, dpreview will review the Z5 soon.
Alfons, I'm actually a sales person myself. ;) That's how I found out about the Z20. Unfortunately, we don't sell Z5 so I can't buy it at a reduced price.
Posted by: David Tenser at February 28, 2005 8:59 PMI own a SLR film camera which I love for it's high quality pictures. Unfortunately I rarely use it because it's simply to big to take with me everytime. I now own a Finepix E550 which I love (it does video with audio as well, with "reasonable" quality for a pocket digicam). I miss the way you can shoot with a SLR though.
My advice is: If you're going to get a camera that big anyway then why no a SLR. If you're not sure whether you want to drag around such a bulky thing go with a good pocket camera.
Posted by: tr at February 28, 2005 9:11 PMOops, sorry, David - no offense :-)
(At least over here in Holland the Wal-Mart like photoshops are more interested in selling quantity than in quality. :)
Posted by: alfons at February 28, 2005 10:00 PMAlfons, no offense taken. :) Personally, I'm more interested in quality selling since that generates happy customers, which in the end leads to... quantity!
Posted by: David Tenser at February 28, 2005 10:23 PMDavid, be very carefull with this camera. Actually I'm trying to get every piece of information about it since it was announced a few weeks ago, because it sounds too good to be true, escpecially with the video function I'd really like to use, but it has one big flaw: the poor picture quality. I hoped that minolta had learned from their mistakes with the z3, but it seems that they did the same mistake again with the z5. I too own the K700 and the pictures of the z5 look almost as noisy as the ones of the K700. Take a look at the comparison one buyer did: http://klute.com/fotos/vergleich/ and especially at these pictures: http://klute.com/fotos/vergleich/noise1.html
I can't tell you how disappointed I was, because I really wanted to get into this digital picture process. Now I'm looking forward to Sony's DSC-H1 Cyber-shot, which sounds very very promising, with it's picture stabilizer and video feature and it even looks more professional then the z5. Let's hope, the price will not be as profesional.
Posted by: Abdulkadir Topal at February 28, 2005 10:50 PMAbdulkadir, I wouldn't want a Sony camera because of their use of MemoryStick instead of SD cards. Everyone I know have SD cards which would make it very easy for me to just borrow them when travelling, allowing me to save at least SEK 1000.
I'm sure the camera is better though, and probably more expensive too. If not, I might reconsider. After all, I'm not planning on buying a camera just yet. But I have to have one in June.
Posted by: David Tenser at February 28, 2005 11:12 PMI have a Canon with 10x optical zoom plus image stabilizer but I can't keep the damn thing steady.
Buy a bag of beans.
Posted by: RAF at February 28, 2005 11:50 PMI previously owned an HP Photosmart 850 which I really enjoyed, but have since upgraded to a Minolta Dimage A1. While I can't say much about the Z5 or Z20, if the A1 is any indication they will surely both be great cameras - solidly built and with plenty of features. I will admit, I do notice a fair amount of noise in some of my pictures though, even compared to the old HP, so I guess I would be a little concered about what others are saying about noisy images as well. I hoped they would have fixed that but perhaps they didn't. I too will be curious to see what dpreview.com has to say when they give a review.
Posted by: somebody at March 1, 2005 3:50 AMHi,
My name is Cheski and I bought the Z5 last week. So far, I am very happy with it. Positive points:
- Great zoom (12x)
- Great display
- 5 Megapixels
- Fast zoom, fast click!
- Built-in memory so you don't have to wait until the picture is written to the camera!
- Smaller than I thought (from the pictures)
- 640x400 pixels video (use until flash card is full!)
Negative points:
- No pouch/case
- Flash has to be manually opened / pulled up
- Had a problem connecting my Z5 to my PC but I think this is an issue that is a result of me having had another KonicaMinolta installed on my XP before
I made some great pics and I love it! Also my friend, who is a photographer, recommends this me (average user). Panasonic is also much more expensive and less zoom.
Posted by: Cheski Frank at March 1, 2005 9:29 AMDCResource announced an upcoming review of the Z5, have a look: http://www.dcresource.com/ I generally like his reviews, and I'm sure it's worth reading this one as soon as it comes out.
Posted by: Thomas Stache at March 4, 2005 9:43 AM