Zen Cohen wrote:
> I've tried a number of ultracompact cams with VGA 30 fps movie mode (Casio
> EX-Z750, Kodak V550, Canon SD400, haven't tried the Sony DSC-M1 yet) and
> am not that impressed with any enough to replace my year-old Sony
> DSC-P100. Are there any others worth considering? Ideally it would have
> MPEG4, optical zoom while in movie mode, good low light capability, large
> LCD, and small/easy to handle. Thanks
I have been searching round for the same thing!
Up to yesterday, the best MPEG-4 is from Sanyo C4 and C5. Yes, dual purpose
or 'hybrid' cameras. Download the sample clips from their reviews in
Steve's Digicam site. Be prepared for a surprise!! They are like coming
from a miniDV.
We are talking about pocket sized cameras......OK, palm sized. Canon S2 IS
is good but is too bulky for me. So, further search found a well regarded
one, Casio Z750. But.... The pool with the sprinkler looked like water
falling on black *ink*! Also the same unreal image was painfully obvious in
that clip where there are swans (?ducks) sauntering about. It appeared to
be consistent with the plastiky look in some of its still pictures. On the
other hand, P505 from the same stable looks much better, but the colours are
just too saturated, and worst of all, the skin tone of the Japanese model is
far too yellow! However, the clip on the two penguins is superb, maybe
because there is hardly any red/yellow in there. That from Samsung i5 on a
scene in a backyard is also superb. Here, it has the benefit of the Zoran
COACH signal processor (V700 has it too, but oddly it is absolutely dire --
all Samsung models from V700 on have this Camera On A CHip processor). All
the above mentioned are MPEG-4 except the Canon S2 IS's, which is Motion
JPEG. Now, I have yet to find a Motion JPEG satisfactory, they make my eyes
ache with all those flickering ('choppy'), except Sony P150, Fuji E550 (just
OK), Panasonic LX-1, and of course the bulky Canon.
The acceptable MPEG-4 in pocketable cameras for me form the *ones I have
examined* are: Casio P505, Samsung i5. Until, that is, I came across the
clips from the two Sanyo's. Still photos from these two are also very good,
not de-noised to the extent that details are erased. When one examinines
the still photos, it is at once obvious which one is superior. Compare
these photos to those from Canon S70, e.g. the rack of canoes on the beach
(same scene from the two on steves-digicam.com), which look like all the
different colours in the photo are *painted* in acrylic paints -- totally
unacceptable.
Just before then, my attention was drawn to JVC GZ-MC500. Its (MPEG-2)
colours, sharpness are good, and its still photos (up to 5MB) are very
good.....alright, maybe a tad too saturated and sharpened. It has one
advantage over the Sanyos, videos shot indoor in the evening with just one
60W light in the room are acceptable (just), in where the Sanyos
are "dreadful" as one user described.
All the clips mentioned can be located, using the search engine, on
steves-digicam.com, the respective forums on dpreviews.com, or
dcresource.com.
--
Lin Chung
[Replace "the Water Margin" with "ntlworld" for e-mail].
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