Just posted: Our group test of travel zoom compact cameras

The text has been fixed now - the HX7 does, of course, have GPS.

Because dpreview is a highly biased farce

The olympus is smaller than the others. What a scam this omission is. Clear bias shown, don't act like it's anything else, Amazon.

dale thorn wrote:"continued comments by people of extremely low perceptual ability who simply cannot comprehend what "zoom" means."

Do *YOU* know what "Zoom" mean? Apparently, you DON'T.
Zoom simply means that the lens focal length can vary; be it wide angle or telephoto.

Most people prefer a wider lens, what is wrong with that?

Guess what, you should check out camcorders. Some of them has 30x zoom or even 70x zoom! Yeah you can get your pixels filled up by the eye of the sparrow.... LOL

So you two "experts" don't understand why Nikon chose to make a 450 mm zoom, and why DPReview continues to ignore the obvious. Now who is the person who lacks perception here? You two, obviously. Like DPReview, you ignore what's in front of your faces and continue to nag about "wide angle" on long zoom cameras, instead of going and buying a wide angle camera. What I'm doing is pointing out your inability to use reason and logic.

Chiane sounds very much like a troll for DPReview - he wants wide angle and less zoom, so where does he hang out and complain? In the long zoom section. Now that is the definition of crazy.

Chiane is still Trolling here. Why doesn't Chiane go to some other section where long zooms aren't the subject? And sparrows look good and make nice sounds. OTOH, all you do is grumble about your illogical fantasies. Sparrows are far more interesting and better creatures than you are.

Check out the S9100 photos at dalethorn.com.
Dale puts his money where his mouth is, unlike the trolls you see here.

Chiane is all talk, all Troll, contributing nothing except personal attacks.

The bottom line here for the intelligent customer is that there are plenty of good quality wide angle pocket cameras available, where you don't have to pay for a long zoom or sacrifice wide angle quality to accomodate the long zoom. There is no logical reason to demand that all cameras have wide angle capability - some cameras should be allowed to forsake wide angle for longer and better zooms. Certainly some customers would want both on the same camera and accept the resulting compromises, but DPReview's continued nagging about "wide", "wide", "wide" is an insult to the intelligent customer.

Now Gully - why would you want to flaunt your ignorance so blatantly here? You, like the other troll, have just made a personal attack without posting ONE bit of fact. I posted many facts AND my website with photos, and you somehow "missed" that.

Note: Facts are things like this - when shooting anything with maximum zoom, the longest zoom will get closer and reveal more details. See how simple that is? But these trolls can't handle that because they have an agenda, so they avoid facts and post attacks.

My credentials: I bought the SX-210 last year and the S9100 this year, which (the SX210 is the prior of the SX230) given that those are the top two picks I picked very well indeed. I have these two cameras and the Panasonic ZS7, and a Leica X1. I have also owned Leica M's, Panasonic G1, Leica R, Pana LX3, many others. I started with B&W lab work with the military, and have continued many years later with all kinds of digital equipment. So yes, I have a very good idea what "zoom" is, and I don't need Gully's dictionary, I can read all about it in pro photo books. And on the Web of course.

You pretend to miss the point, so here it is again: It is necessary to compare a photo of a small object at distance with each camera (or text if you insist) to see which camera resolves the best detail at maximum zoom. DPReview never does this, because, like you, they don't see the point of a "long zoom" on a camera that's designed for "long zoom". Now you could argue that the longest zoom will always win that test (like, duh), but it's not so simple because of the other factors. I buy these small long-zoom cameras on two points mainly, as do most consumers. How far is the zoom and how much distant detail can I capture, and how is the average image quality in average daylight? The point about trolls is they are illogical - opposing long zooms in long-zoom cameras, then attacking anyone who points that out. You did that BTW. The bottom line is that the 9100 and SX230 were designed primarily for the long zoom. You can't escape that since there's no other explanation for it.

Explaining further for the logic-challenged: The LX5 has wide but not long, ergo we don't need cameras that have long zoom (tele) to *always* have wide angle. Do you have an explanation for why some cameras can optimize for wide, but in your world cameras *cannot* optimize for long and forsake the wide? Why is that? Why can't we have medium-to-long in a small camera? Why not? Why does every long-zoom camera have to have wide?

You might also wonder why these important camera mfrs. are producing such extreme zoom lenses, going from 25 to 450 mm (135 effective). Not hard to figure out at all. The consumers are screaming for more zoom, and big-time sites like (mostly) DPReview are screaming for more wide angle, and so the mfrs. are caught between these demands, the actual demands from the consumers, and the ridiculous demands from the photo sites like DPReview. So what are the mfrs. to do? Compromise both ends of the zoom quality-wise to try to please both. Myself, I'm more reasonable - I would like to see more high quality pocket cameras with wide angle like the LX5, and also more high quality long-zoom pocket cameras that forsake the wide angle to optimize the long zoom quality.

I have never seen a good (or even a satisfactory) picture made by a compact on that immens zoom. If 2 cameras start from 24mm, and 1st have zoom x10, second zoom x15, then in 35mm equivalent they will give 240mm vs. 360. And though it seems immense, it is just a zoom factor x1.5, which means that your sparrow will be just sqrt(1.5)=> 20% bigger. BUT NOT 5 TIMES BIGGER!!!

If I'm not missing the point (again), in short what you say then is that mfrs should build a, say, 4x 25-100 for the ones who want wide, and 4x 100-400 for the ones who want tele. How is it you're being more reasonable, dale? In fact your argument tries to convince us all that having a longer reach is better (totally irrelevant to the review BTW, therefore invalid). In what way dale? And how do you know that "consumers scream for more zoom"? Post a poll, if you like, with the above example and see how many will prefer the 100-400. You're just not being sensible because, obviously, you're not in the target market for these cameras. And I bet the average buyer of these TZ cameras would hardly put in use the long end of the zoom. He might buy it for it (i.e the NUMBER=450) but rarely put it in good use. That's what marketing is for. One who would really appreciate tele would be far better served with a cheap DSLR body and a decent long tele. Will not post again. Good luck.

Wrong, Gully. You're out of touch with reality. Lesson #1 in reality is the cameras we see. That's reality. And contrary To what ZAnton says, I have excellent 450 mm photos from the S9100, and not only that, I can get excellent sharp photos at 450 mm on 3/4 of my shots. Lesson #2 in reality: People in the general public don't demand, and if they did they wouldn't get what they demand. A president of a country like the U.S. is far more important than the pocket camera, and they don't get a choice of who to vote for there, so why would you think anyone cares about their camera choices? The closest thing they get to what they want is the long zoom. I know people who work at Best Buy. Their customers can relate to 12x and 18x, but 24 mm? They don't know or care about that. And BTW, you can keep posting your ignorant tripe and denials about how 450 mm isn't useful, but my photos at my website prove my case.

ZAnton's math is bad. A zoom factor on a small image that does not fill the entire image works like this: If the total image is 12 mp at 240 mm, the total image will also be 12 mp at 360 mm. But if the bird occupies only 1 mp of that image at 240 mm, the bird will occupy 2.25 mp of that image at 360 mm. That is 2.25 times larger, which is an increase of 125 percent, not 20 percent.

Isn't 25mm equivalent wide enough? Anything wider is apt to be very fish-eyed and have barrel distortion.
There are plenty of compacts with modest 3X or 135mm equivalent zoom, but 250mm or higher is nice to have.

That's like saying "isn't 135mm enough? Anything longer is going to not be great quality or very fast".

You people continue to ignore what's right in front of your face. It's called "450 mm zoom". Now you can complain about "too much zoom" all you want, then go buy your 24-90 mm LX5 and stay out of here! Get a life.

"Why does everyone love zoom on these cameras so much", to quote Chiane. Why? Because they're zoom cameras. If you don't like zoom so much, what are you doing trolling here in the zoom reviews?

Dale, are you seeing anyone about the anger issues, or are you trying to just manage it on your own?

While Chiane still Trolls on this site, dalethorn has S9100 photos on his website at dalethorn.com.
So you see, it isn't about anger, it's about blowing off trolls like Chiane.

Dale Thorn talks to himself in the third person, and maybe to sparrows.

Chiane continues trolling. I think for the other members here, it is now clear that you have nothing to contribute except personal attacks.

The bottom line here for the intelligent customer is that there are plenty of good quality wide angle pocket cameras available, where you don't have to pay for a long zoom or sacrifice wide angle quality to accomodate the long zoom. There is no logical reason to demand that all cameras have wide angle capability - some cameras should be allowed to forsake wide angle for longer and better zooms. Certainly some customers would want both on the same camera and accept the resulting compromises, but DPReview's continued nagging about "wide", "wide", "wide" is an insult to the intelligent customer's sensibilities.

A travel zoom needs to do both things well.

And like every other camera, it will be a compromise of features, performance and capability in order to achieve a sensible price.

When people vacation, they might be shooting wildlife at long distances, but they also will be shooting large things in close quarters. Like landmarks, buildings, and large groups of people.

So they need a camera that can deliver wide as well as long shots. What is a reasonable compromise? I'd say 24mm is wide enough because anything wider would drive the cost up a lot.

How long should the zoom range go? I'd say 300mm is quite enough. Once you get much larger than that your camera is no longer small, and certainly not convenient to carry.

Besides.... have you ever seen how horrible the image quality is at the long end of a 18X zoom lens?

If you need a superzoom camera, then buy one. But this category is a different market niche. The allure of Travel Zoom cameras is maximum versatility, not longest reach.

If a travel camera (and not all travel cameras are "travel zoom") can be like a LX5 with 24-90 mm lens, or a Leica X1 with fixed 36 mm equivalent lens, then why can't a similarly small camera be optimized the other way around, toward the long end? Why do all small cameras have to be either wide-to-medium or wide-to-long? Why not medium-to-long? The problem with DPReview and many of these naysayers here are that they specifically call for a prohibition on medium-to-long zoom cameras, which is easily discernable by hundreds of review comments on this site. There's nothing wrong with the "travel zoom" concept, if there is such an official designation, but it doesn't have to exlude cameras optimized for long zoom, except in the minds of DPReview unfortunately.

Oh, and BTW, if you look at my 9100 section on dalethorn dot com, you will see a woman and dog shot at maximum zoom, plus a couple of birds at maximum zoom of 450 mm. And they are NOT horrible by a long shot.

And BTW #2 - I can get two (count 'em) Nikon 9100's into a typical shirt pocket at the same time. Is that not small and convenient to carry?

So what you're arguing, Marty, is that there is no such thing as advertising and marketing that creates an artificial demand for things that people really aren't demanding, and further, that DPReview and it's decade-long constant hammering on the mfrs. to add wide angle also has no influence. Is that right? Well, you can be proven wrong in an instant. Several people here have stated emphatically that 300 mm is more than enough, that the consumers aren't demanding more, and that DPReview is totally behind that. And yet we see the push to 450 mm (and it will go higher), despite the strain of having to satisfy the propaganda arms like DPReview. Why? Because I know the real consumers, and they want more zoom. They don't give a damn about wide angle. Know why? Because it's just a matter (to them mind you) of how far to stand back to get the family in the frame. Long zoom, to capture wildlife is another matter for consumers. Even they know they can't approach wild critters closely.

So let's explore some more, Marty. We dropped from 35 mm to 25 mm and up from 350 mm to 450 mm, comparing the Pana TZ1 to the lead camera today, the Nikon 9100. Now you're trying to suggest cleverly by steering the topic to a second-rate camera (the TZ10) that the difference on the long end is marginal, when in fact it's 350 to 450. I'm a little smarter than that. Now photos are 2-dimensional, so that 450 mm lens puts 65.3 percent more pixels on my sparrow than what the 350 mm lens does. And you are suggesting that my non-pro family members can't tell the difference? Well, they can tell, and they don't read DPReview.

For the benefit of those who just can't figure this out, the reason long zoom is so important is that it brings things within reach of the camera you couldn't photograph effectively before. Wide angle doesn't do that. Wide angle is for landscapes and group people shots, which are always within reach and always have been. But long zoom and the ability to capture wildlife (for example) is new for small cameras, and the suppressive people who argue against it are exactly that - suppressive and anti-freedom types. And BTW, the pocket camera is a poor tool for wide angle photos, since it will badly smear landscape detail, and also the faces in a group shot of many people.

If you try iso 400 of a more centered preset zone (for example the face on the banknote) you 'll see that sz8 has a lot more details...

No, that still doesn't make sense from a physics standpoint.

Does the extended lens at 450mm equiv. catch the wind more versus 24mm equiv. :P?

The camera's mass (and thus inertia) doesn't change when zooming. So what are you talking about? Forces (such as winds) should affect the camera equally at any focal length.

TechOutsider, a small movement on 24mm is less visible than at 450mm. Do you remember the 1/fl rule? Barney statement make much sense, but is a general one and should not be linked to Power O.I.S.

Whoops - jumped the gun - I missed the perfunctory review towards the end. Sorry :).