OT Question for Laurence

musicvid10 wrote on 2/2/2012, 10:42 PM
I was looking for a Canon point-and-shoot or maybe slightly better with a wide-angle lens to shoot some estate furnishings in tight quarters, This is a project in two homes that will take the better part of the winter to catalog everything, working in spare time.

To make a long story short, the range of Canon models with a wide-angle lens is staggering. We got Powershot, Sureshot, Elph, some IIS models, and so on.

Laurence, what do you suggest, working from the least expensive on up? I don't know enough about these models to even know where to start. Great HD video would be a bonus, but is not a prerequisite. Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Comments

Laurence wrote on 2/2/2012, 11:11 PM
You know, the Canon SX1-IS is pretty nice. I hadn't really like any of the newer ones until the SX40 came along.

My SX1-IS is mixture of great and terrible. What's great is that outdoors the video looks fantastic. Not a really shallow depth of field, but very nice looking none-the-less. No moire or aliasing that I can see (tiles and bricks look like they are being high passed). Great autofocus which can follow faces. Smooth aperture changes. All the stuff that the DSLRs don't do well, this seems to shine at.

The bad is that the image falls apart in low light. The SX1 shoots at 30 fps instead of 29.97 but that is easy to fix in Vegas. I imagine the SX40 is 29.97 as it should be. I have no experience with it aside from reading reviews and specs.

As far as other models go, I don't have experience, but I my sister-in-laws Nikon point and shoot produces some fine video in bright light.

No mic input. It amazes me how far ahead the PlayTouch and Zi8 are in this regard. I've done some interview stuff with this camera that looked just fine. I wish that everyone else didn't cripple their audio the way that they do.
musicvid10 wrote on 2/2/2012, 11:37 PM
I forgot to say that this project is all stills. Video for my own use yeah, but not the main reason for purchasing. Just need something with a quality wide-angle lens, sensor and flash.

We both like our Kodaks, and I can't wait to get my hands on this one. 1080 60p, 720 120p, 12 megapixel sensor, unfortunately it may be the last in the line.
http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/PLAYFULL_Dual_Camera/productID.242455100
John_Cline wrote on 2/2/2012, 11:48 PM
I have a Sony HX100V 16-megapixel camera, which has a 27-810mm wide angle lens and an amazingly powerful flash and also shoots fantastic 1080-60P video. It has an HDR (high dynamic range) function that I use ALL the time, it takes three exposure bracketed photos in rapid succession and merges them into an HDR photo.

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666297852
Laurence wrote on 2/2/2012, 11:49 PM
Well the SX1-IS shoots RAW and RAW and jpeg at the same time if you like. The built in lens goes quite wide but the still image quality is several notches below a DSLR, even in bright light. I don't see any mention of RAW on the SX40, and I just noticed that it only does 1920x1080 at a max of 24fps. I'm not a fan of 24p. It looks too juddery as compared to 30p.

For stills, the point and shoots just don't have big enough sensors to capture shallow depth of field so I never use them for anything that is supposed to look like photography.

As far as the flash goes, on the SX1-IS I have an external flash that can be pointed up on the ceiling so that you don't get that annoying shadow right behind the person you are shooting. Built in flashes suck for everything except filling in shadows outdoors.

Why don't you look at the 4/3rds cameras? They look very good on stills and have relatively large sensors.
Laurence wrote on 2/3/2012, 12:01 AM
That Sony looks really cool John. I am thinking about these cameras a lot lately since they are strong in all the ways that the DSLRS are weak (moire, aliasing, jumping aperture, auto-focusing etc.

On my current project, I am shooting some buildings and the moiré problems with the DSLR were simply unworkable. The point and shoot could do what the DSLR could not, that is get a good image of siding, shingles, wood grain in a dock, etc. The SX-1 is a really nice outdoor b-roll camera. I also like that the stills can be formatted 16:9. That is so handy.

One thing I hate about the SX1-IS is that it uses AA batteries. I have some high capacity rechargeables but they still don't last nearly long enough. The Sony or the new Canon would be a lot better in this regard.

Here's a bit of the Sony posted by Cameralabs. No way you could do that with a DSLR... and that zoom... not many video cameras can zoom in 30x and hold a steady image hand held...
Laurence wrote on 2/3/2012, 12:56 AM
The Panasonic Lumix FZ150 is what I would get if I was buying one of these point and shoots now. Full auto settings, RAW photos, and an external mic input with manual settings or AGC. Not better in every way, but the mic input alone would make this one my choice.
John_Cline wrote on 2/3/2012, 2:17 AM
There are actually a lot of capable camera choices, too many probably.

One piece of software that I use a lot for stitching together interior shots is Kolor AutoPano Pro. I put it right up there with Izotope RX and NeatVideo as software that I can't live without.

http://www.kolor.com/
Laurence wrote on 2/3/2012, 9:12 AM
Are you talking about stitching together interior still panoramas then animating camera moves in Vegas? I've done that a time or two and been very happy with the results. I use Zoner for both quick photo editing and stitching together panoramas. I like that I can stitch together RAW pics with Zoner.