Paul Tremblay wrote:
Follow up:
I bought the Canon camer with the view finder because many here stated that the LCD didn't work in sunlight.
I took the camera out in bright sunlight (though not beach sunlight), and with the LCD brightness on default mode, I found I could see the LCD well enough to frame my subject. When I brightened the LCD to its maximum brightness, I found I could see the LCD perfectly. This surprised me.
So I am considering sending the Canon back and getting the Nikon, since the LCD seems more than adequate in direct sun.
However, perhaps under more challening lighting, my LCD might not allow me to see my subject.
Well, there's one way to find out! Some on this and similar threads have said they have no problem using an LCD under virtually any conditions; others of us have had difficulty a sufficient number of times to make having an optical viewfinder a priority. People are also different in what they can put up with. I visited someone in sunny San Antonio who had an older Sony Mavica, and I took along my identical Mavica for the trip. I got plenty of nice pictures with it, but it was frustrating to me to often only be able to see, at best, the vague outline or pattern of one or two objects, make a guess at the framing, and hope for the best. The other person saw the same things with his camera, of course, but was not in the least bothered by the minimally informative view.
Unfortunately, the Canon does not have a beach mode. I knew this already, but it frustrates me that it does not have the one mode I need, thought it has other gimicky modes, like toy camera affect. It does have a snow mode, but I don't think I can use this the beach, since snow mode adjusts for the blue tint of snow. Am I wrong about this?
One of the problems with camera manuals is that they are not very informative about exactly what the various modes do. I've read that with some camera's snow modes, they do indeed try to adjust for too much blue. Also, both snow and beach modes might increase exposure to ensure sand/snow is adequately bright, as well as reduce contrast to avoid washing out bright areas.
The Nikon has a lot more control over picture parameters than the Canon, as you'd expect when comparing a camera with a suggested list price of $329 with one selling for $109. The Nikon allows you to individually adjust contrast, sharpness, and saturation, which I find a tremendous help in getting pictures out-of-camera the way I want them. Of course, it's quite possible that these controls are overridden when using the scene modes. Most of the time, scene modes don't give you choices over very many things, often not even metering pattern.
Other things to like about the Nikon are its Active D-Lighting mode and its step zoom and zoom memory features. I take almost all my pictures at a 50mm equivalent setting, and the Nikon lets you program the camera to always zoom to your chosen focal length at startup. It also lets you program in particular focal lengths to jump to; for example, I might program it to use just the 35, 50, and 85mm focal lengths, but always start at 50mm. For me, its almost a must-have feature, but others would never use it even if it was there.
A little over a year ago I took a trip to the coast with friends. It was not exactly sunny, but was more what a person might call "cloudy bright." Our mix of Ricoh, Panasonic, and Fuji cameras all had tremendous difficulty letting us see well enough on the LCD to enjoy taking pictures, and it wasn't the first trip this happened on. It was immediately after that that I bought the Nikon P7100. It has all of the control I desire in a compact camera as well as an optical finder, which has proven its worth to me time and again since buying it. Unless its a shirt-pocketable waterproof model, I don't plan to ever again buy a camera without an optical viewfinder.
It's hard to make a choice and know you'll be happy with it. Every camera has its limitations, and only by owning and using one for a while will you discover what you can and can't live with. If you're thinking you can live with an LCD, the Nikon gives you more control over how your pictures will turn out. On the other hand, you've already got the Canon and know that its optical viewfinder is workable if needed. It might take great pictures for you even without the level of control offered by the Nikon. Trouble is, there's simply no way of knowing in advance.
By the way, don't be too quick to abandon the evaluative metering pattern. I was used to using a handheld spot meter to get more consistent results with my older film cameras, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the high percentage of times the evaluative mode gives great results.
