Point and shoot camera recommendation.
Hi all, I'm looking for suggestions for a point and shoot camera. I am a student and environmental educator. I create a lot of original work online and in the form of technical papers. I currently ...
Forum Discussion
I use a Stylus Tough (3000 was entry level when I got it) as my outdoor pocket camera alternative to phone. On my most recent trip to Europe, I carried it on rainy days and for the shorter outings when I didn't really plan to take pictures and thus left the DSLR in my cabin.
Panasonic, Canon, Pentax, Fujifilm have all had cameras of this type, Nikon has recently introduced one, and Sony may also be in the "tough" camera market. "Tough" models using sealed folded optics tend to be quite compact, those with pop-out lenses somewhat bulkier.
The "compact + tough" category is almost all screen on back as the only finder, and to the extent that they have manual controls, those controls are accessed my menu rather than dedicated buttons, dials, and control wheels.
Most compact cameras have several fixed focus points, down to about a meter or half meter, and will then focus closer in a dedicated macro mode. They all have sensors (usually CCD) less than 1/2" on the diagonal, operate most of the time lens wide open (or in very bright light with a smaller stop like f/8 inserted into the path), so don't have much control over depth of field.
I don't think you are going to like the speed in this category, particularly start-up times from shut-off or battery-saving modes, which can be several seconds for the camera to "boot" but shutter response can be pretty quick (a second or less) if the camera can quickly find focus, or it can hang up if it can't find focus, and ultimately take a picture at one focus extreme or the other. You will be having the camera off much of the time, because battery life on pocket sized compacts tends to be too short to leave the camera on all day.
Focus is another issue for your intended use, the contrast focus methods used by compacts, and the "intelligent" focus algorithms that scan the image to try to figure out on what to focus, can be totally confused by subjects like rocks, leaves, and stream beds. The thing is looking for faces, and trying to focus on eyes. My experience with these subjects, the camera needs an easy to use manual focus mode, and continuous focus, not just a few fixed points over the near to infinity range. That control over focus gets you into the advanced compact and "Pro-sumer" categories, e.g. Canon's Powershot S and G lines, Nikon's Coolpix P line, Fujifilm's X line. These tend to be not so compact, and prices overlap those of entry-level DSLRs and electronic viewfinder interchangable lens cameras, which would be what I would buy to do the kind of work you suggest.
When I was doing field geology, film camera era, there was no other option that worked as well as an SLR with a close focusing normal lens, but the cheapest SLR worked well enough.
Panasonic, Canon, Pentax, Fujifilm have all had cameras of this type, Nikon has recently introduced one, and Sony may also be in the "tough" camera market. "Tough" models using sealed folded optics tend to be quite compact, those with pop-out lenses somewhat bulkier.
The "compact + tough" category is almost all screen on back as the only finder, and to the extent that they have manual controls, those controls are accessed my menu rather than dedicated buttons, dials, and control wheels.
Most compact cameras have several fixed focus points, down to about a meter or half meter, and will then focus closer in a dedicated macro mode. They all have sensors (usually CCD) less than 1/2" on the diagonal, operate most of the time lens wide open (or in very bright light with a smaller stop like f/8 inserted into the path), so don't have much control over depth of field.
I don't think you are going to like the speed in this category, particularly start-up times from shut-off or battery-saving modes, which can be several seconds for the camera to "boot" but shutter response can be pretty quick (a second or less) if the camera can quickly find focus, or it can hang up if it can't find focus, and ultimately take a picture at one focus extreme or the other. You will be having the camera off much of the time, because battery life on pocket sized compacts tends to be too short to leave the camera on all day.
Focus is another issue for your intended use, the contrast focus methods used by compacts, and the "intelligent" focus algorithms that scan the image to try to figure out on what to focus, can be totally confused by subjects like rocks, leaves, and stream beds. The thing is looking for faces, and trying to focus on eyes. My experience with these subjects, the camera needs an easy to use manual focus mode, and continuous focus, not just a few fixed points over the near to infinity range. That control over focus gets you into the advanced compact and "Pro-sumer" categories, e.g. Canon's Powershot S and G lines, Nikon's Coolpix P line, Fujifilm's X line. These tend to be not so compact, and prices overlap those of entry-level DSLRs and electronic viewfinder interchangable lens cameras, which would be what I would buy to do the kind of work you suggest.
When I was doing field geology, film camera era, there was no other option that worked as well as an SLR with a close focusing normal lens, but the cheapest SLR worked well enough.
