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I spent some time comparing this cam to a near competitor, the panasonic fz5.
some thoughts on why I chose the canon:
- AA batteries. its good and bad, though. the good is that its easily available and lowers the cost of ownership. the bad is that it really weighs the camera down with 4 AA's. if they only used 2 AA's, it would have been a much bigger win.
- 2 speeds of zoom. the pany took too long to zoom from end to end of the zoom range. the canon can zoom in 'ultrasonic mode' (pretty quiet) or faster mode that is noisier but gets the job done faster. annoyance: the USM motors has this high pitched squeal that is audible as you use the camera and it goes thru a focus hunt cycle. wish it were a bit quieter, but I'm probably picking nits at this point.
- better hand grip and button positions. the fz5 didn't feel natural and the buttons felt kind of cheap (the zoom button, especially). otoh, the canon's release button is spongy feeling, like a rubber membrane keyboard, sort of. not a major downside but it could have had a more sharper 2-stage press feel, I think.
- canon seems to have no remote shutter release - you have to use the one on the camera. the fz5 has a connection for a wired remote. the canon should also. shame on canon for leaving this out.
- the fz5 has a live histogram. the canon has only a static one that shows _after_ you shoot the pic.
- the fz5 says it takes only dos formatted (fat16) sd-cards. the canon seems to only take fat16 and fat12 (verified by booting into linux and forcing the partition to be fat12/16/32 via fdisk.) also the fz5 makes mention that it has a 1gb limit on media size. the canon doesn't list this limit but I can't verify since I only have 1gig sd-cards, myself.
- the flip lcd. a LOT more useful than I had originally thought. its nice to be able to turn the lcd around and hide the display to protect it. using the evf display isn't so bad and actually helps when its too bright out to use the lcd large display.
- there is manual focus on the canon but not on the fz5. however the man focus isn't so easy to use as the lcd displays don't really have enough resolution to really get a fine control over the focus. still, its nice to be ABLE to force a set value on the focus and not have it change from under you. I've found that the canon isn't super accurate on its auto focus and on an extreme (like when the zoom range is all the way toward one extreme) I have to force the focus to that end to stop the hunting and inevitable mis-focus. my only other experience with decent auto-focus is my nikon d1 and $1k lenses. its not a fair fight and the nikon wins, but still, this canon is years and years later in tech than the old D1 is. I think the canon loses points for its hunting and not 100% reliable autofocus. otoh, its probably not far out of line with what other mid-priced cams are, in terms of its target market.
- as I mentioned a bit, above, the button placement is better on the canon. the zoom lever feels natural and so does the shutter release button. the fz feels unnatural here.
- the canon has a manual flash flip up/down and by setting it manually, you _force_ the flash to be on or off. I like this, as when I fold the flash down, I _know_ it won't come on by itself, or by its own choosing.
I realize most of that review was about the camera's operation.I will comment more on its picture quality once I've run more varieties of shots thru it and gotton used to its metering, more.
/bryan
some thoughts on why I chose the canon:
- AA batteries. its good and bad, though. the good is that its easily available and lowers the cost of ownership. the bad is that it really weighs the camera down with 4 AA's. if they only used 2 AA's, it would have been a much bigger win.
- 2 speeds of zoom. the pany took too long to zoom from end to end of the zoom range. the canon can zoom in 'ultrasonic mode' (pretty quiet) or faster mode that is noisier but gets the job done faster. annoyance: the USM motors has this high pitched squeal that is audible as you use the camera and it goes thru a focus hunt cycle. wish it were a bit quieter, but I'm probably picking nits at this point.
- better hand grip and button positions. the fz5 didn't feel natural and the buttons felt kind of cheap (the zoom button, especially). otoh, the canon's release button is spongy feeling, like a rubber membrane keyboard, sort of. not a major downside but it could have had a more sharper 2-stage press feel, I think.
- canon seems to have no remote shutter release - you have to use the one on the camera. the fz5 has a connection for a wired remote. the canon should also. shame on canon for leaving this out.
- the fz5 has a live histogram. the canon has only a static one that shows _after_ you shoot the pic.
- the fz5 says it takes only dos formatted (fat16) sd-cards. the canon seems to only take fat16 and fat12 (verified by booting into linux and forcing the partition to be fat12/16/32 via fdisk.) also the fz5 makes mention that it has a 1gb limit on media size. the canon doesn't list this limit but I can't verify since I only have 1gig sd-cards, myself.
- the flip lcd. a LOT more useful than I had originally thought. its nice to be able to turn the lcd around and hide the display to protect it. using the evf display isn't so bad and actually helps when its too bright out to use the lcd large display.
- there is manual focus on the canon but not on the fz5. however the man focus isn't so easy to use as the lcd displays don't really have enough resolution to really get a fine control over the focus. still, its nice to be ABLE to force a set value on the focus and not have it change from under you. I've found that the canon isn't super accurate on its auto focus and on an extreme (like when the zoom range is all the way toward one extreme) I have to force the focus to that end to stop the hunting and inevitable mis-focus. my only other experience with decent auto-focus is my nikon d1 and $1k lenses. its not a fair fight and the nikon wins, but still, this canon is years and years later in tech than the old D1 is. I think the canon loses points for its hunting and not 100% reliable autofocus. otoh, its probably not far out of line with what other mid-priced cams are, in terms of its target market.
- as I mentioned a bit, above, the button placement is better on the canon. the zoom lever feels natural and so does the shutter release button. the fz feels unnatural here.
- the canon has a manual flash flip up/down and by setting it manually, you _force_ the flash to be on or off. I like this, as when I fold the flash down, I _know_ it won't come on by itself, or by its own choosing.
I realize most of that review was about the camera's operation.I will comment more on its picture quality once I've run more varieties of shots thru it and gotton used to its metering, more.
/bryan