What camera should I buy? - General Chat - CHDK Forum
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What camera should I buy?

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Offline lucmovel

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  • SX110 IS
What camera should I buy?
« on: 26 / January / 2012, 02:10:19 »
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I am afraid of asking this question here. Perhaps members of this forum are sick of this "what should I buy" thing over and over. I wouldn't know, because I have been away from this forum for two years, I don't really participate. Hey, one more reason for everyone to ignore me...  :(

Still reading? OK, thanks. So I have an SX110 IS. Not the greatest piece of technology ever produced by the human race, but a pretty capable point-and-shoot. The two of us have had a lot of fun together and captured some really beautiful moments. But now I feel it's time to upgrade. Translation: I have a few extra bucks burning a hole in my pocket.  ;)

What I really like about the SX110 IS:
- 10x zoom!!!
- small size, really good to carry around
- it's a point-and-shoot, but gives me plenty of means and opportunity for manual tweaking
- limited, but still able to produce some beautiful pictures if I am skilled enough
- it's a Canon so it has CHDK  ;)

What I don't like about the SX110 IS:
- it sucks in poor lighting conditions: too many blurred pictures
- anything above ISO 200 (400 tops) looks bad, awful or unusable
- man, I wish I had more than 10x zoom
- no burst mode

So now I have my eye on the SX40 HS. It has 35x zoom :o, burst mode and reviews say that the new Digic 5 chip results in much better pictures even with high ISO such as 1600 or 3200.

I am torn. On the one hand, I can hardly wait to get my hands on that 35x zoom. On the other hand, I love taking pictures at night and wonder if I shouldn't get an SDLR instead. I sometimes take gorgeous long exposure shots with my SX110 IS, but I also lose many shots where long exposure is not an option. An SDLR is sure to produce beautiful, clear shots with little light, but an SDLR is a lot bigger and a lot more expensive. Even more expensive if I would go as far as buying an extra lens that would give me the super zoom.

What should I do? What should I do?
« Last Edit: 26 / January / 2012, 02:12:25 by lucmovel »
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Offline Mr_Speedy

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Re: What camera should I buy?
« Reply #1 on: 26 / January / 2012, 05:45:13 »
Personally, if I had the money to get a DSLR, I would get one.

One great thing about getting into DSLR cameras are the lenses that you can buy and interchange. More importantly, the lenses you buy today will still be good in 10-20-30+ years. You might decide to upgrade your DSLR in 5-10 years, but you can keep your lenses. With point and shoots you throw away everything and buy it all again.

If you are interested in low light shots, buying the cheapest lens will absolutely blow away any point and shoot in terms of sharpness and wide aperture: Canon 50mm F1.8  $95

For your low light shots, do not only think about increasing the ISO, think about avoiding high ISO in the first place with a fast lens like the one I mentioned. (Fast in comparison to point and shoots and zoom lenses).

At 50mm and F1.8 (combined with a 1.6 crop factor), gives you 80mm at F1.8, the mentioned lens will let in over 4x more light than your point and shoot at 80mm at about F3.7/F4.0  (you need to zoom in to get 80mm on your sx110). So you can use ISO 200 and ISO 400 in situations where you needed ISO 800 and ISO 1600 up until now.

I am regretting getting my SX130IS, I should have gotten an old second hand DSLR.

Whatever camera you end up getting, make sure the aperture is relatively fast.

Did you know that the SX110IS and SX120IS both have the same lens, which is faster than the lens on the SX130 and SX150IS ?  I would trade in my SX130IS for a SX120IS any day. I should have known.

SX110IS/120IS  F2.8 @ 36mm to F4.3 @ 360mm
SX130IS/150IS  F3.4 @ 28mm to F5.6 @ 336mm 

At full zoom, the SX110/120 reaches further than the SX130/150, and the lens lets in nearly twice as much light = you can use half the ISO!

Anyway, I'm sure the SX40 is a much better camera than the SX110, but neither can compete with the $95 Canon lens in low light.

Think about what you need. Every camera is a trade-off, unless you have unlimited cash for multiple cameras and lenses.

Whatever you do, make sure you are not buying something similar or worse than what you already have (do not get the SX130/150 IS !).
« Last Edit: 26 / January / 2012, 05:48:41 by Mr_Speedy »
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