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I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

...

On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, minnesotti wrote:

>I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
>a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
>with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
>good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
>in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
>that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
>do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
>LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
>larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
>be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.
>
>If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
>range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
>details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
>such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
magnitude.

I don't know about consumer cameras with CMOS sensors though.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, "minnesotti" <>
wrote:

>I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
>a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
>with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
>good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
>in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
>that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
>do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
>LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
>larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
>be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.
>
>If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
>range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
>details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
>such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

You'll never get it in a p/s. it's even hard with the full frame
Canons with CMOS sensors.

Check the Canon 5D or if you really want to go there the MF backs like
Phase 0ne and such.

Also when you do in camera jpg's you through away 1-2 stops of dynamic
range.




************************************************** ***

"It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin'
but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next.
Maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll
be forever. Some day, this country's gonna be a
fine good place to be."

"Mrs. Jorgensen"
from "The Searchers"

minnesotti wrote:

> I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
> a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
> with excellent quality.

No, high sensitivity will just give you lots of noise. For quality stick to
the lowest ISO with a long exposure.

> I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has
> a good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held
> it in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not
> really that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it.

Sounds like overly-agressive noise reduction. Avoid it.

> Besides, I do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say
> Panasonic FZ30 or LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired
> qualities should have larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor...
> which means the lens should be big, too... and I want a pocketable
> camera.
>
> If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
> range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
> details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
> such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

You need a camera that can save in RAW mode. You convert the RAW image into
a 16 bit per channel image then you can lighten the shadows to extract the
details you want.

The LX1 is an excellent choice of camera which is both pocketable and has
RAW mode. It also has a very good lens, but is a little noisier than other
cameras. This is probably due to less aggressive noise reduction - you can
always add your own later, but you can't take it away, so arguably it's a
good thing. One disadvantage is that the RAW files are exceedingly large,
16MB per picture, only 52 per 1GB card.

Still a good choice though, if you buy plenty of memory cards to go with it!

Paul

John A. Stovall wrote:

>> If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
>> range.

> You'll never get it in a p/s.

Yes, you will, any camera with RAW should do that. I measured 10-11 stops
with my G3 a few years ago. The darkest few stops look a bit nasty, but
they're quite acceptable provided you don't lighten the darkest shadows too
much.

You can always take multiple exposures and layer mask them if you want the
best quality.

Paul

"Hans-Georg Michna" <hans-> wrote in message
news:...

> The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
> they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
> magnitude.

<--- any URL to support your comment ? I thought CCD is still the way to go
for getting max DR.

In article <>, Hans-Georg
Michna says...

> The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
> they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
> magnitude.

That is true only for the non-integrative type, which has a logarithmic
response, but suffers from high noise levels (because you don't
integrate over time - exposure time is basically 0). All other CMOS
sensors which integrate the light over time don't have such a high
dynamic range.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330 and E500 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/

In article <>, John A. Stovall
says...
> On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, "minnesotti" <>
> wrote:
>
> >I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
> >a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
> >with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
> >good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
> >in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
> >that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
> >do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
> >LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
> >larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
> >be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.
> >
> >If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
> >range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
> >details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
> >such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.
>
> You'll never get it in a p/s. it's even hard with the full frame
> Canons with CMOS sensors.
>
> Check the Canon 5D or if you really want to go there the MF backs like
> Phase 0ne and such.

Have you tried carrying that cameras in your pockets?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330 and E500 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/

minnesotti wrote:

> I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
> a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
> with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
> good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
> in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
> that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
> do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
> LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
> larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
> be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.
>
> If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
> range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
> details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
> such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.
>
> ..
>
Dynamic range is controlled by how many photons a pixel
can collect and what the read noise is from that pixel.
See:

Procedures for Evaluating Digital Camera
Sensor Noise, Dynamic Range, and Full Well Capacities;
Canon 1D Mark II Analysis
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/evaluation-1d2

The Nikon D50 is here:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...tion-nikon-d50

To get high dynamic range, you need large pixels, which P&S
cameras generally do not have (typically 3 to 6 times less
photons than DSLRs). See tables 1, 2 and 3 at:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...ignal.to.noise
for some data on other cameras. Unfortunately, there is
not yet much data on P&S cameras compared to DSLRs.

Roger

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:07:18 +0200, Alfred Molon
<> wrote:

>In article <>, John A. Stovall
>says...
>> On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, "minnesotti" <>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
>> >a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
>> >with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
>> >good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
>> >in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
>> >that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
>> >do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
>> >LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
>> >larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
>> >be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.
>> >
>> >If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
>> >range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
>> >details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
>> >such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.
>>
>> You'll never get it in a p/s. it's even hard with the full frame
>> Canons with CMOS sensors.
>>
>> Check the Canon 5D or if you really want to go there the MF backs like
>> Phase 0ne and such.
>
>Have you tried carrying that cameras in your pockets?

Yes, and the 5D with anything up to a 400/5.6 fits just fine in the
inside pockets of my Domke vest.


************************************************** ***

"It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin'
but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next.
Maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll
be forever. Some day, this country's gonna be a
fine good place to be."

"Mrs. Jorgensen"
from "The Searchers"