Digital Camera for lighting work

[boac]

I recently bought a Casio Exilim ZX-40 which I am very happy with. It has all sorts of settings to play around with, although I'm not sure if it has full manual control of shutter speed (at some point I might RTFM). You can set it to equivalent of different film types - but I thought this was called the ISO setting not ASA. Two names for the same thing maybe?

 

I like it because it's really small (fits comfortably in your pocket like a phone) yet has a massive screen on the back and is packed with loads of cool features. The battery lasts for ages too and it comes with a cool USB docking port.

 

I got mine for £260 including a 128MB card but that was in Japan so it'll be more expensive here. I think there was a guy selling them on ebay for a reasonable price but then you've got to add p&p from the US. Or you could go for the ZX-30 which has 3megapixels instead of the 4 on the ZX-40.

 

Great camera!

[nick_field]

I scooped up a Fuji S7000 a few months back, it's the business, would recommend it to anyone. The real killer is the low light performance, which is almost on a par with a 35mm SLR. The only downside is that, now I'm not paying for processing, I shoot photos like there's no tomorrow and have to spend ages picking through them on the PC afterwards...

 

I was looking for properly printable image quality, but didn't want the hassle or cost of a true digital SLR. I looked at a few in the £400-500 range, the Fuji won out for a couple of reasons - Awesome image quality, proper manual controls, really long exposures, long battery life and a manual focus ring.

 

A microdrive with at least 1GB, some high capacity Li-ion batteries, a pucka tripod and a tough carrying case are essential to make the most of the camera; so allow a couple of hundred quid on top for the extras.

 

The S5000 looks quite attractive as well, not so much image quality, but 10x optical zoom, and the same cool looking package for a very good price.

 

Nick

[Jon]

peter (and all others :huh:)

 

I got a Canon IXUS II at Christmas time and it has served me very well so far. It's quite small considering the quality of the photos and the outside body is very sturdy. All the usual settings can be changed (ISO, Shutter Speed etc) and it photographs lighting work really well.

 

Canon IXUS II

 

To get the best price use Kelkoo and also upgrading to a minium of a 128MB SD is a MUST!

 

 

 

Good luck!

[Paul J Need]

Wouldn't swap my EOS 1Ds for anything..... probably out of your price range though !! :)

[gareth]

OK, topic resurrection time! :unsure:

 

In the new year, I'm going to get a camera which makes a better job of taking photos in low-light and stage lighting situations than my little Canon compact digital (bless it!). I don't want to go down the dSLR route (cost, lenses, possibility of getting dirt into the sensor) so the "pro-sumer" bridge cameras in the sub-£400 price bracket are what's looking appealing. I think I've narrowed it down to two - the Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 and the Fuji Finepix S9500.

 

Now, the Fuji goes up to ISO1600 (Konica only ISO800). The Konica looks to be a little noisier than the Fuji on equivalent ISO settings. The Konica has image stabilisatin, though, which the Fuji doesn't - shooting hand-held in low light, it sounds as though the IS is sufficient to make a decent job of shooting with a slower shutter on a lower ISO. So in their own way, it sounds as though they'd both do the job.

 

Has anyone got either of these two beasties? If so, have you taken any production shots (or anything else in a similar low-ish-light situation) with them? Care to share your experiences? Would be most appreciated! ;)

[Guest lightnix]

I haven't really road-tested it yet, but so far I'm very pleased with my new Olympus SP500UZ :unsure:

 

6 Megapixels, 10x optical zoom, focuses down to 3cm and runs on 4x AA batteries (a major plus for any piece of kit IMO). I've banged off over 100 pics so far and the batteries are still over half full ;)

 

When it comes to low light shooting, I rarely hand-hold or use flash and whenever possible sacrifice shooting convenience for quality images. A stout pocket tripod is a constant companion whenever I'm in shutterbug mode, with a middle-sized, fold-out one in my rucksack on holiday; the self-timer then guarantees a shake free pic. Otherwise I put up with a bit of shake and do something "arty" with it in Photoshop, if I like the image ;)

 

OK, so that's maybe not so good for "capturing the moment", but I've never really been into action photography and most of the stuff I do now is landscape and still life.

[mac.calder]

I have a dSLR (Olympus E300) - a birthday present to myself. There is minimal problem with dust thanks to Olympus' ultrasonic dust cleaner (the one thing that made me choose it over other cameras). I got twin lenses, 2gb CF card, second battery and a "semi-hard" case for AU$1700. I have not yet used it in a theatre for taking photos of lighting, but I have used it at a 10 pin bowling bar/night club and the photos are exceptional with no flash and without the ISO boost on (because I forgot to set it). My 2gb card fits almost 6000 images on it in standard quality 1280x960, or 400 at 3264x2448

[rob_pocock]

<_< I used a Nikon D70 to take pics of last year show, and its the best shots I ever taken, from a tripod at the back of the stalls (a long way from the stage at the New theatre, oxford), with a 70-300 lens on I could fill the frame with a single person on stage, and with the small lens I could get the whole stage in. Had the camera set on auto, but cancelled the flash, and just let the camera do it stuff. with a 1 gig card, and res. set to full I could get 400+ pics on a card (more then enough).

I have since had some of the shots printed at poster size 20*30 inch, and they just take you breath away.

 

I now you said that you dont want to go down the dSLR route both the glass used in the lens is just so much better

 

Rob

[gareth]

OK, thanks for your thoughts, chaps - but let me say it again. I've pretty much narrowed my choice down to just two cameras (Fuji S9500, Konica DiMage A200), so it's just those two that I'm interested in hearing about peoples' experiences with. As I've already stated, I'm not going down the dSLR route, so there's no point in telling me how great they are.

[Paul J Need]

:) I find this combination works a treat!! :(

 

£1500 lens and £6000 camera body probably a bit over budget tho perhaps??? <_<

 

http://www.pauljneed.co.uk/CANEOS1DS.jpg

 

http://www.pauljneed.co.uk/CANEF7020028LUIS.jpg

[TommyToad]

ASA?

It's called ISO I think.

[zorka]

Hello

We would like to recomend the camera that we bought recently for our company picture documentation. It is the µ DIGITAL 600 from Olympus. The camera's assets are:

 

- small size - fits into your pocket

- cheap

- 1600 ISO

- fairly good resolution

 

The weaker sides are that it does not have the manual mode, but who cares for that when you can make a good photo of using a program. We use it with a tiny tripod which fits into another pocket cause without it some photos were blurred.

 

Should you wish to see the outcome of the camera's work, visit our website http://www.groda.pl there in the GALLERY>CORPORATE you will have the "Ball of the Three Wise Men of the Internet". The photos on the site are at 600x450 (originals 2816x2112 at ISO 1600).

Other photos on our website are taken with Olympus C4000 and various dSLR cameras. If you need further information we will be happy to answer the questions.

 

 

Malgorzata Ostrowska

http://www.groda.pl

[agermich]

Hi

just yesterday I recieved my brand spanking new Nikon D50 with sigma 18-50mm and 55-200mm lenses and it is amazing! The picture quality is far superior to my old fuji S304. I've tried it out in various low light conditions and it is fantastic. This is the the first time that I've used an SLR camera and I am very impressed. Just looking forward to getting it in the theatre to try it out! The appeture priority and shutter priority modes seem really usefull. I got up early today to capture the sunrise (large net required, asbestos gloves recomended) but there was too much cloud so it didn't so much rise as making the clouds a little less grey.

 

Mike

[goochr96]

Hi agermich,

I was thinking about buying one of those. What do you think to it so far, have you found anything bad or annoying about it? Would you be able to post a photo on here so we can have a look at the quality, or email it to me please?

Many thanks.

[gareth]

The D50 was my other choice, apart from the Dynax 5D. The things that swung me towards the Minolta were : anti-shake built into camera, rather than into lens (therefore any lens will work with AS system) ; longer focal length range on 'kit' lens ; slightly more flexibility in terms of manual functions ; reviews on the internet seem to give the Minolta a slight edge over the Nikon in most respects (although much of the time there's little to choose between them).