Canon Vs. Sony F828

Ok maybe you canon camera owners will talk, nobody on the Sony forum wants to

I have a great and loved Sony F828, but it's size and weight are an issue for me. I find I leave it home because I don't want to carry it and it's case around all day.

So My question (hope somebody post back) are there any canon cameras that could compare or excel my 3 and 1/2 year old F828??????

I mostly take family pics. (low light sittings) and love the movie mode thought it's not that great on the F828.

Also in looking at all the new cameras I notice that none have an ISO 64 setting (Why?), and few have 28MM zoom. And I'm confused about sensor size I thought mine had a smaller senor that most today.

Please post any thoughts, thanks ann

ann404 said:

Ok maybe you canon camera owners will talk, nobody on the Sony forum
wants to
I have a great and loved Sony F828, but it's size and weight are an
issue for me. I find I leave it home because I don't want to carry it
and it's case around all day.

So My question (hope somebody post back) are there any canon cameras
that could compare or excel my 3 and 1/2 year old F828??????

Click to expand...

The Canon camera that is of the same vintage as the F828 is the Pro1. They, along with the Oly C-8080 and the Minolta A2, use the same Sony 2/3" sensor. The F828 has more bells and whistles and has much faster shutter response, but the Pro1 is reputed to have better Image Quality and is much smaller.

ann404 said:

I mostly take family pics. (low light sittings) and love the movie
mode thought it's not that great on the F828.

Also in looking at all the new cameras I notice that none have an ISO
64 setting (Why?), and few have 28MM zoom. And I'm confused about
sensor size I thought mine had a smaller senor that most today.

Click to expand...

An excellent source of sensor size information is found at

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Camera_System/sensor_sizes_01.htm

The 2/3" sensor of the F828 and Pro1 is quite large for a non-dSLR camera.

--mamallama

I'll give you my opinion, but you probably won't like it. I have two F828s and don't find the image quality to be very good. Don't get me wrong, I think it's one of, if not the nicest camera Sony ever made, but the 'ol "purple monster" just didn't live up to my expectations of good image quality. My V3 was the best (not including my R1 which is a different camera). Understand too that I moved from (in that lineage) an F505v, F717 then the F828, so I was thinking the quality would be better than the F717 - it was worse. The image quality on my A630 (sub $200) is better in my eyes than the F828 (both 8MP). There is also a hack which will allow me to shoot RAW with the A630. So, I would say that in my opinion, if you like the IQ of the F828, just about any of the new Canons will look good. Sometimes it's hard to find an unbiased opinion, but I don't have any brand loyalty, so I try and tell it like it is.
--
'The primary purpose of any business is to make a profit.'
Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home ;jsessionid=GX90G0k1Qp!1508707039?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=186095&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

It seems Sony nor canon is making better sensors, but smaller ones on their top of the line cameras. Why? What am I missing here, are the smaller sensors better now? When I got my camera 3+ years ago I remember hearing the 8.2 MP was too much for the senor size, but now much smaller sensors have 12 Megapixels. Yet the pictures don't look grainy? Is this why the newer cameras have an ISO 80, and mine has an ISO64.

Wow when I first statred looking for a smaller camera I thought most new ones would bet my old F828. Confused.

Dear Confused:

Larger sensors cost more to make and require larger (and more expensive) lenses to cover the frame.

In general, larger sensors have lower noise for the same pixel count, but the 8 MP, 2/3" sensor on the F828 and Pro 1 was quite noisy. The slightly later 7 MP, 1/1.8" sensor used in the Canon G6 had higher pixel density (more pixels in the same area) and had noticeably less noise. So technology does have something to do with it, and it has gotten better.

The problem now is that the average buyer thinks more pixels is better, regardless of sensor size, and there seems to be a "pixel war" going on to see who can claim the highest pixel count and still have acceptable (not good) image quality. 6 to 7 MP is about optimum for the 1/2.5" sensor, and about 8 for the 1/1.8". Nobody uses the 2/3" anymore.

Thanks to better and faster processors in the cameras, more noise reduction can be used on these cameras, and some pretty decent looking prints can be made on these high pixel density cameras. What you notice is that if you are pixel peeping at 100% crops on your PC screen, the quality has gone down, but even a borderless 8.5" x 11" print doesn't need all the pixels and won't make the finest detail visible, so the prints look fine. The penalty for all this is less ability to crop (or to use digital zoom, which is just cropping in the camera).

As far as the disappearance of low ISO, I think a lot of that is an illusion. The Pro 1, for example, had very conservative ISO ratings, so ISO 50 was really ISO 100, and ISO 400 was ISO 640. Canon and others have gotten more accurate with their ISO ratings, but my G7 is still about 1/3-1/2 stop conservative.
--
Jerry

GeraldW said:

Dear Confused:

Larger sensors cost more to make and require larger (and more
expensive) lenses to cover the frame.

Click to expand...

---

GeraldW said:

---- Nobody uses the 2/3" anymore.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately true. the closest sensor in digicams now is the 1/1.7" which has a 9.5 mm diagonal compared to 11 mm for the 2/3" sensor. With newer technology some pixel-packed 1/1.7" sensor cameras are getting some good performances.

--mamallama

I think that image quality wise, any of the newer Canons will be fine for you. They will probably be better than what you're used to. What you will miss will be some of the 828's niceties, such as the manual zoom.

Olga

for all the detail. That helps a lot. Ann