5700 to an H1?

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Old Bob I want to get my son a new cam,he has 12,000 images on his 5700 and its getting tired,loose switch,sticky lens etc.He does a lot of mountain hiking and shooting in rather rough terrain,at times up to 10,000ft.He seems to want the nikon 8800 but I'm a bit concerned about that cam.I think he is hung up on the meg count.He does want the big lens for wildlife we see up there,mt.goat,marmots etc.H1 users,or anyone that has had both the 5700 and now the H1 do you think the 8mp is worth the need to shoot at only low iso due to noise issues,slow write times etc.From a pure image standpoint is there really much difference between 8mp and a good 5 such as the H1?Thanks for any advice,Bob

I used to have the Olympus 8080 (8mp) I tried several different cameras out there before landing on the Sony H1 (5.1mp).

Don't get me wrong there IS a difference in the quality. Is it necessary? In my opinion NO! I can show you shots that I have printed at 10 x 15 that are absolutely gorgeous.....from a 3mp Kodak!!

I got sucked into the megapixel thing but found that the features, and ease of use with effective focus and exposure are more important.

If you don't have a camera that can focus (and quickly) you end up with out of focus pictures...same thing of exposure metering, too light or dark pictures. Of course you have to be happy with the color signature of the camera....each seems to have its own. (very subjective)

Now if you have photoshop and are willing to use it....some of these things can be fixed there. I want to do as little of that as possible, I am lazy.

The H1 does two important things that made me keep it:

1) It gave me more "keepers" than the others I tried.

2) It is FUN to use.

The quality is good enough for me.....and it allows for additional closeup lenses, polorizers etc. to allow me to grow.

My two cents worth

Dave

Hi Old Bob.

Assuming most of the pics never get printed larger than 4 X 6, I dooubt you'd see any noticeable difference. The Sony will be faster in terms of shutter lag and AF but I doubt the ISO performance will be much better.