Canon G10 v Lumix LX3 v FinePix F200EXR

cannockwolf

cannockwolf

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Canon G10 v Lumix LX3 v FinePix F200EXR
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I have narrowed my snappy camera down to these three, now i am stuck!

They all seem to be top rated cameras in different areas, my main need is low light photography and i have a feeling that rules the G10 out, but the G10 was the camera I was going to have at first before I read up on them.

So which one to I blow my £300 on?!! :thinking:
 
I have the LX3 and for low light it is a very good choice, the only thing you lose is a large zoom range but if you don't need that then it's a fantastic camera.
 
"Snappy camera" doesn't describe the G10 at all!
I've got one and it's not a camera you'd want for snapshots - it's complicated and you're right - it's not the best in low light (although given that you have a D700 then any small sensored camera is going to be a massive dissapointment in low light).
 
all the cameras i have mentioned are 'complicated' and can be all be run in manual mode, they all have different merits too. I must stress i am not looking to replace my Nikon with this, i am looking for a camera i can take to parties, fun parks etc. where an slr is not practical, and i understand the difference in quality, thats why i refer to P&S as snappy cameras!
 
smurfettes said:
The pics ive got out the LX3 are amazing. Great low level, used at local nursery school, no flash, brilliant quality.
Sturdy, proper piece of kit too.
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i was leaning towards the lx3 for that reason, then the fuji details was released and got me thinking :thinking:
 
I woulod like to know a bit more about the LX3 because I have a G10, and frankly it is crap.

OK, maybe thta is a bit harsh. In good light it is fine - not much better than my 5 year old S70 mind you, but produces large files and as I need something that shoots RAW for publishing jobs, then I was restricted.

The G10 is OK to asa 200, go to 400 and you get a lovely, painterly effect of donkey's breakfast, with grain lines (not gritty blobs, LINES of grain) going in all directions, hazy edges and weird colour casts in highlights....CRAP.

If you are looking for low light use, DO NOT BUY A CANON G10.

If you want a point and squirt camera that is built strong enough to play cricket with, the G10 is fine. It is chunky, solidly built, fairly easy to master (once you have the manual that tells you where things live...NOT included with the camera by the way). It has a fine lens with a very useful focal range equivalent to 28-140. That is most things taken care of.

If you need speed of use, then the G10 is MUCH faster than the Powershot S70 that I needed to upgrade from, but the autofocus is slow and it is a bit slow on the uptake...and when it turns itself off in sleep mode, it resets all your focus points and stuff to the middle again....bloody infuriating. You need to move the focus point...again, slow and by then you have missed the moment.

If the LX3 is better in this regard, then it might be a better buy. For what I need the G10 for, it is 90% of the way there, but I wish they had put a better sensor in it, instead of just cramming it with more tiles.

CANON IF YOU CAN HEAR ME:- PUT A BIG SENSOR IN A COMPACT. CHARGE £1000 FOR IT. IT WILL SELL LIKE HOT CAKES. For a comparison for use - think Leica M5 or M6 and what we used to use them for....now make a digi compact along the same kind of lines.:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::

Ahh. I feel so much better now. :lol:
 
i must admit when i heard about the sigma P&S with the DX sensor i got excited but it sounds awful when you read the reviews :(

I would pay £500 for a compact with a crop framed sensor in it, i think it may be size / lens limitations rather than cost holding it back
 
I looked at the G10 in depth and following the AP test bought a G9 which I'm pretty happy with. It is a bit, well quite a bit noisey above 400 ASA but I was expecting that from Canon who seem to have gone pixel mad at the expense of outright quality. Overall though I'm happy with it and the control it gives me over picture taking. It is by the way my 5th 'compact' four of which I still have. Have to say though that the Panasonic range are very tempting due to their size and looks and would probably suffice for 70% of my needs.
 
ye already seen that ta
 
Pansonic LX3
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/panasonic/dmc_lx3-review/index.shtml

Canon G10
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_g10-review/

There are draw backs for both these camera, G10 not good for low light photography, the LX3 fairs better in these conditions because of the f2.8 lens, however, the focal range is pretty rubbish 24-60mm. Personally for the money, neither of these cameras really give you value for your $$$.

Have a look at the panasonic DMC-G1, just a suggestion
 
For low light the new fuji will probably be worth the wait. The F30/31 still out performs most newer compacts in low light and from initial reviews Fuji have been listening to customer demands with the F200.

It can combine adjacent pixels at higher iso to become a 6Mp camera producing less noise.
 
cannockwolf said:
i am looking for a camera i can take to parties, fun parks etc. where an slr is not practical, and i understand the difference in quality, thats why i refer to P&S as snappy cameras!
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It sounds more like you need one of the rugged Olympus P&S that you can drop in a drink/off a rollercoaster without damaging them to me!

cannockwolf said:
i must admit when i heard about the sigma P&S with the DX sensor i got excited but it sounds awful when you read the reviews :(

I would pay £500 for a compact with a crop framed sensor in it, i think it may be size / lens limitations rather than cost holding it back
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Big sensors need big lenses, which either means unwieldy 'pocket' cameras or slooooow lenses.

You might want to wait and see what Olympus are going to announce with the new Micro 4/3 system. There's rumours of a nice little pocket camera with interchangeable lenses and a big sensor.

Oh, and Lensflare has been massively down on his G10 since he bought it! You only have to look on flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/powershot_g10/ ) to see that it's far from crap!
 
Lensflare said:
I woulod like to know a bit more about the LX3 because I have a G10, and frankly it is crap.

OK, maybe thta is a bit harsh. In good light it is fine - not much better than my 5 year old S70 mind you, but produces large files and as I need something that shoots RAW for publishing jobs, then I was restricted.

The G10 is OK to asa 200, go to 400 and you get a lovely, painterly effect of donkey's breakfast, with grain lines (not gritty blobs, LINES of grain) going in all directions, hazy edges and weird colour casts in highlights....CRAP.

If you are looking for low light use, DO NOT BUY A CANON G10.

If you want a point and squirt camera that is built strong enough to play cricket with, the G10 is fine. It is chunky, solidly built, fairly easy to master (once you have the manual that tells you where things live...NOT included with the camera by the way). It has a fine lens with a very useful focal range equivalent to 28-140. That is most things taken care of.

If you need speed of use, then the G10 is MUCH faster than the Powershot S70 that I needed to upgrade from, but the autofocus is slow and it is a bit slow on the uptake...and when it turns itself off in sleep mode, it resets all your focus points and stuff to the middle again....bloody infuriating. You need to move the focus point...again, slow and by then you have missed the moment.

If the LX3 is better in this regard, then it might be a better buy. For what I need the G10 for, it is 90% of the way there, but I wish they had put a better sensor in it, instead of just cramming it with more tiles.
CANON IF YOU CAN HEAR ME:- PUT A BIG SENSOR IN A COMPACT. CHARGE £1000 FOR IT. IT WILL SELL LIKE HOT CAKES. For a comparison for use - think Leica M5 or M6 and what we used to use them for....now make a digi compact along the same kind of lines.:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::

Ahh. I feel so much better now. :lol:
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You are right you know! Canon took the G9 sensor and put it in the G10 which looked like a typical beancounters decision to me. If they had put a decent new sensor in the G10 it would have sold like hot cakes! This was the main reason I plumped for the LX3 and what a good decision that was! The LX3 was replacing my LX1 as my 'carryround' camera when I cannot be *rsed to hump my D700&24-70/f.2.8 around. Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 really is a corker of a camera and the macro is fantastic!:thumbs: Here is a comment and some pics I posted over on TZ-UK back in November. http://www.tz-uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60333&p=623357&hilit=lx3#p623357 :thinking:(Hope it is allowed to post cross-forum links)
 
No cannockwolf - you didn't, I did.

I would like to know where I am going wrong with it then, because it is churning out horrid, muddy, grainy, fringy pictures even at 200 ASA and at 400 it is unusable, for what I need anyway.

The LX3 - no good for me with that lens range. I don't want interchangable lenses, I want a G10 that works!

If anyone has any help with how I can improve the image quality from the thing, then I am all ears. canon can't - to be honest, they don't even want to know.

I haven't been "down on it" from the time I bought it - it is OK at 100 ASA, but no better than my powershot S70 which I bought to replace. That old camera produces "smoother" pictures than the G10...so, where am I going wrong.:shrug:
 
I tried an LX3 - lovely images but I couldn't get on with the handling at all. Too small and fiddly for fast changes on the fly. Is it better than the G10 in low light? Yes, but neither are really spectacular to be honest.

I got a G10 and much prefer it. If I can't use the camera fast enough then the IQ is moot. In terms of handling the LX3 doesn't see which way the G10 went. For me, that's crucial. YMMV.
 
thats true, i may be holding a lot of store in a low light capability that still isn't very good, as far as the G10 goes, is it wife proof if it is left in auto?
 
cannockwolf said:
thats true, i may be holding a lot of store in a low light capability that still isn't very good,
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You can use it creatively* in low light, but for snapshots it's not the camera for you.

*I quite like the grain you get from it. It's not horribly blocky...it can be almost filmic if you're careful with the PP. But I think you really need to think about each shot and set the camera up for the situation. The two manual C modes are handy for this. I've got one set up for mono with the lens set to manual hyperfocal distance at the shortest and widest.

cannockwolf said:
as far as the G10 goes, is it wife proof if it is left in auto?
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I wouldn't recommend it for an amateur. You can switch it to full auto on the dial, but there are other dials that can be moved accidentally. A relative was looking for a camera for his novice wife and I managed to talk him out of it. He though they could share the camera, but when I showed her the options on it she was horrified!** If you want a true point and shoot there's much better options out there.

I bought one because I wanted a camera I could carry everywhere that was still a creative camera. I was aware of the limitations of small sensors. I wish it had a big sensor, but being realistic, I wouldn't give up the small-ish size of the camera in order to have the big sensor. The Panasonic G1 is trying to fill that niche, but I think it's still too big to carry all the time.

**She also dropped it from about 4 feet onto a stone slab floor! :eek: Not even a mark on it. Still works exactly as it did before. It's definitely rugged!
 
WOZ - ok, so what is the C mode? I haven't found it yet.....the manual is big and I am slow! Also trying to juggle fitting in all the work I am catching up on...

also, what do you do for the PP with the low light to get acceptable results - I don't have Photoshop or anything like that, just the one that came with it, DPP I think it is.

I have no idea of what the noise reduction system is...never been shown it or found anywhere to read up on it. Maybe that is where the images are falling apart.....need a manual (NO not a CD or website - a book I can read while the picture is on the screen in front of me and do it by numbers!) Mostly I just straight process, stick on a CD and post to the picture editor....they do all the PP required, that is what they are paid for. Hence why i don't have photoshop...

All and any help gratefully received.
 
Lensflare said:
WOZ - ok, so what is the C mode? I haven't found it yet.....the manual is big and I am slow! Also trying to juggle fitting in all the work I am catching up on....
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On the mode dial there's two options at the end called C1 and C2. These are custom modes. If you set the camera up in the way that you want (through the main menu*) you can then go to the bottom of the first tab (the one with the camera icon) and choose Save. You can save those settings into either C1 or C2. When you turn to these options on the dial the camera will have exactly the settings you saved, right down to the zoom of the lens, the aperture and speed, modes etc. Even the focus distance if you set that in manual before saving. Hence how I've set the hyperfocal distance for the lens on one mode. I've also saved it with the screen set to off just to make it even more like a rangefinder!

*Note - this menu changes depending on where you have the mode dial set. You can't save the settings on the auto modes - just the creative ones.



Lensflare said:
also, what do you do for the PP with the low light to get acceptable results - I don't have Photoshop or anything like that, just the one that came with it, DPP I think it is.
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DPP is what I use.

Lensflare said:
I have no idea of what the noise reduction system is...never been shown it or found anywhere to read up on it. Maybe that is where the images are falling apart.....need a manual (NO not a CD or website - a book I can read while the picture is on the screen in front of me and do it by numbers!)
Click to expand...

I just get the RAW file off the card and load it into DPP then fiddle with it! Sorry I can't really give you a workflow because I'm not doing this commercially - I just play around until I like the image. DPP is pretty good though.
I think Radiohead probably uses Lightroom, which can be automated and is more powerful than DPP, but DPP serves my needs and I can't afford anything else!


Lensflare said:
Mostly I just straight process...
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Do you mean you take the jpg right from the camera? You should be using RAW if you want the best from the G10.
That said, one of my C modes is set to mono JPG but that's just self-imposed limitations.
 
Aha - thanks very much. I thought those were "idiot modes"...they are, and I am one!

I am shooting only RAW, and in Av - I can't work out how to do aperture and speed in manual. I can do one, or the other....I need to find it in the book, so instead, I use the exp comp dial,it is quicker!

Raw file, into DPP and just fiddle the exposure, shooting white balance etc, then go save and convert. jpegs sent to client (I only use the G10 for fishing, shooting and kayaking stuff - where I don't want or can't cart a bag of stuff. The G10 goes in my buoyancy aid when on the sea in a kayak, or my jacket pocket if doing shooting or fishing features.)

Everything else I use the slr kit - but trying to take that out on one of these is a nightmare:
Marlin006.jpg

skate.jpg


Thanks for your help - I will persevere. It was suggested to me that maybe mine is a bit duff...these weren't taken on it by the way - just to illustrate where and what I am up to with it!
 
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