I am looking for a compact digital which is small, reasonably
responsive and takes decent pictures. It seems many of the reviews
of the F700 had a problem with the camera when it was priced at
$600. Now that the camera is significantly cheaper do F700 owners
recommend it more? Also does anyone have any sample people photos
since there is a real lack of these on the usual sites, ie.
Photosig.com. THanks everyone,
Tim
I love this camera. This is coming from someone who owns a 10d and about $5000 in lenses. At first I made the mistake of examining the pictures from this camera at 100% and comparing it to my 10D, as well as images from other cameras online. No competition. In most cases the f700 would look like a noisy mess. And this is after paying almost $600 for it. I was p@$%ed! However, there was no ignoring the uniqueness of this camera compared to its compact peers. First of all, its super fast. I bought a canon G3 and had to return it....after using my DSLR it was agonizingly SLOW. Secondly, 5 frames per second. Do you know how useful this can be? I took about 80 pics of my 13 month old in about 5 minutes today. Then went threw them all, deleted the blurry ones, out of focus ones, poorly composed ones, etc.....and now I have 7 or 8 great keepers. I'd also like to mention the vivid colors. Wonderful.
But, most importantly, the SuperCCD SR. I know, many people, myself included at first, expected this new sensor to be able to show the solar flares on the sun with all the extra dynamic range its supposed to have. Alright, it can't. But....in high contrast situations, it adds a magical quality to the pictures, almost like they are paintings. I've compared my 10D to my F700, and although the pictures from the 10D are technically perfect for a digital, the pics from the F700 have something the 10D's pics don't. Quite often I prefer the F700 pics. Even after jumping through hoops in photoshop with my 10D pics, I many times can't get them to match the pleasing look of the F700's pics.
Don't get me wrong...the F700 has its limitations; It's really not an indoor camera unless your house is very well lit, or you have good window light. I hate straight on flash pictures...bounced flash with my 10D has spoiled me. Also, it does suffer from overcompression, and the interpolation of the SuperCCD, along with the overcompression, obliterates fine detail...yes even in raw and shot in soft mode (I acually prefer normal or hard, as the F700 pics do not sharpen well with photoshop). Examples; hairs, eyelashes and such get melded together easily unless your doing quite a closeup; the fine lines in a cityscape picture can exhibit their noise when viewed at 8*10 size or above. You do have to learn how to utilize this camera to get the pics out of it you want..pleantiful light, enough to stop down the aperature a bit....I never use the zoom (alright, almost never) I actually shoot in macro for most picure types(seems to focus better)......
Alright, I'm rambling (4 hours of sleep last night)...is it worth $359? Well, I can say for myself it is. I would'nt hesitate to buy another should something happen to my current one.
Well I hope my rambling helped. Goodluck with whatever decision you make.