David J Taylor
<david-> wrote:
> Ozgur wrote:
> > Marcin Gorgolewski wrote:
> >> Olympus E-500 or Panasonic DMC F-250 or SONY DSC R1 which one is
> >> better? I need it to take pictures of landscapes, night shots, shots
> >> from longer distance.
> >> Which one is the best? I mean noises, lens, practical menu.
> >> buttons and photos quality?
> >>
> >> Martin
> >
> > Panasonic FZ-50 has ***horrible*** noise ina ALL pictures, even in day
> > light. i do not know about the Olympus & Sony, but i can easily say
> > "do NOT buy Panasonic!"
> >
> > Ozgur
>
> Have you tested an FZ-50 yourself, making your own prints or looking at
> the results on the screen, or have you just read the pixel-peepers'
> reviews? There appear to be many users of this camera who are very happy
> with their results.
>
> To the OP: the Sony is a wide-angle camera, and the E--500 would require
> extra lenses (perhaps image-stabilised) to take more telephoto shots, but
> might achieve a better image quality.
I actually own a Panasonic FZ7, and recently an Olympus E500. Both of
which have reports of bad noise. For sure, there is some there, but it's
definitely better than using high ISO film, and can be easily adjusted
later on. There are a number of options regarding solutions *if* you
find the noise level a bit too high. There's Noise Ninja, and Noiseware
(which I use myself). Both can be used as a Photoshop plug-in, or a
standalone app.
However, my own tests show that keeping to lower ISOs gets you extremely
good images, you don't need to use higher speeds all that often. Not
unless low light and long exposures are your speciality.
Keeping the Panasonic under ISO200 works well, and you have to look
quite hard to see any noise at ISO400. If you research this a little
more, you will find there is a reason why some cameras have more noise
than others. It's a trade-off really, *all* sensors produce noise when
you bung the gain up to get a higher ISO, some are a bit worse than
others depending on the sensor used.
Most cameras use a filter, or post processing to remove it. This often
results in a loss of detail though. Panasonic chose to leave the noise
there so you can deal with it yourself later, but you get to keep the
detail if you want. Other cameras don't give you that choice.
Go and check some test images on various sites, two good ones are here:
http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/
The E500 is a massive step up, indeed I realised the FZ7 was the wrong
camera for me really. The image quality from a DSLR is far far better
than a compact. You can get the twin lens kit very cheap now, and you
get a very capable system with those - giving you a range of 28mm-300mm
(35mm equiv.) of focal lengths, in just two lenses.
I have some of my first test shots on the eclipse.co.uk web site in my
sig.
If you want to try some legacy lenses too, I have a collection of old OM
lenses myself, you can also get an adapter to use these (in manual
mode). Remember that the focal lengths are doubled on a DSLR though, so
a 50mm lens appears as a 100mm on the E500. I have a Vivitar 75-250 xoom
that gives me a 500mm lens on the E500
I have some test shots of all my lenses here:
http://www.thehewitts.eclipse.co.uk/...Lens_Test.html
I'll leave it for you to decide which is which for now.
Hope this helps.
--
Andy Hewitt
<http://www.thehewitts.eclipse.co.uk/>
<http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/>