Fujifilm or Panasonic??

[hukari]

I am looking at buying a new camera (P&S) and have narrowed it down to two: Fuji s5600(AKA s5200) and Panasonic Lumix FZ7.

Here's the differences that are impeding my decision:
The Fuji is cheaper (€299 instead of 349), has RAW, but no image stabilization vs. Lumix TIFF and IS. It is 10x zoom vs. 12x for the Lumix. The Fuji has 4AA batteries (to me, really an advantage if you are on the road) and an XD card, the Lumix proprietary Lithium Ion and an SD card. The reviews are good on both, with few cons.

Has anyone got either one and can give me a tip, or is there a pro (or advanced amateur) out there who can point (& shoot!;)) me in the right direction? I would be willing to reconsider my choices if someone
is thrilled about a good zoom camera in the same price range (Note the prices are in Euros!).

Thanks for any help you can give me!

[e-mailsucks]

Hello Reka. As far as batteries go, I would go for the Lithium Ion instead of plain old double A's. You're going to pay lots for batteries, even if you go with rechargable's and charger. Make sure your zoom is optical zoom and not digital. As for the features, don't buy just because of all the features that you'll probably never use. It appears to be a sellers market right now on P&S Camera's. There's lots out there, and they all have a lot of no use features. Just find one that you like the feel of and basic photo comfort.

Brian :)

[LeeOtsubo]

Not exactly the models you've selected but did you read my wife's report (http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20863) from PMA 2007? She evaluated 5 different cameras from a woman's perspective. That may help you narrow your decision.

[Digitalone]

Hi Reka - I cannot comment on the Fuji as I have never had a Fuji camera but I am now my second Panasonic. I am very happy with the 12x Optical zoom but of course I wanted just a bit more.....so I bought a telephoto lens, the old Olympus B-300 which they no longer make. As for the bells and whistles the ones that jumped out at me was the Stabilization, the higher ISO and the zoom. I had the Z30 and now have the Z50.....all lens, flash and filters were compatable so there was no "additional" items I needed to purchase. Now those who know the Panasonics will ask, why did you change from the 30 to the 50. The answer is simple. The 30 died two days before Thanksgiving and I needed a camera for the holidays....grandkids and such. I had bought the camera right at Christmas time of 2005 so the camera was not a year old. Come to find out when calling for the cost of repairs, there must of been a few 30's out there that just up and died as the entire electronic system was replaced at no charge what so ever. Usually the standard warranty is 90 days labor, 1 year parts...its the labor that is going to kill you! So, all I ended up paying was the shipping of the camera to IL. My suggestion is the same as the other reply.......pick out what features are important to you and go with them. With editing software, anyone can make a Color into a B&W or bring up shadows or tone down some highlights. Pick out two or three important features you like and go with that camera.

[hukari]

Thanks fro the replies. Let me add a bit of background: I need to get a replacement for my CoolPix 4300, which is in the process of dying, but which I wanted to replace anyway. I am looking for better zoom, resolution and speed. My other camera, which I still love dearly, is an old Pentax P3. In between I had a Kodak DC240.

I don't let myself be impressed by the "bells and whistles"; in fact, I couldn't even tell you which these models have. I assume they both have a macro mode, and that is about the only one I ever use. What I am looking for is a reasonably priced camera with a good zoom which takes good photos. I have seen sample photos from both and am satisfied. The only problem both have is lens shadow when using flash in the macro mode, but that can be adjusted for. Both go from A to M fully, with aperture and shutter priority.

I am worried about shake when using the 10x without IS, and don't want to have to rely on a tripod all the time. Would I need it at 10x w/o IS?

Aren't TIFF files larger than RAW? How is this going to effect storage capacity on a 1 or 2GB card?

Anyone know if there is a difference in speed or quality between the SD and XD cards? Does it pay to shell out extra money for a high-speed card? Will it make a difference in shot-to-shot speed?

Brian, your comments on the AAs is true, but it would also mean getting an extra battery to have on hand at the tune of 70 Euros. I could recharge quite a bit for that price. Would the lithium give me a lot more photos per charge?

Lee, thanks for pointing me to that report. I see she also liked the FZ8. I have held both and like them both, something that I wouldn't have thought of before reading up on the forum. If I had the money, I would go for the latest model, but unfortunately that isn't the case.

Linda, it is good to hear you are satisfied with your Panasonic. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

Hope there are some more tips from you guys coming!

[pixlbandit]

I also have a Panasonic FZ30 with the 12X optical zoom. I like it. I like the zoom and the close up ability in the same camera. I like the short shutter delay time, ability to shoot RAW if I ever become less of a dolt with a camera. I leave it on automatic pilot and it mostly does a very good job. One of the things I like about the FZ30 (dont know if this is true about the FZ7) is that the zoom lens doesn't change on the outside, only the inside--supposedly this is one of the reasons for the short shutter lag times--less time to move machinery and optics. I need to change it from center to matrix metering and learn to use manual focus if my background has a lot of detail because autofocus will grab that and not where I am pointing. Check Adorama for their prices and their prices on replacement batteries--they have alternate batteries for the Panasonic cameras at a lower price than the "genuine." The batteries are rechargeable and come with a charger. I have noticed no difference between the genuine battery and the spare bought at the same time as the camera--good battery life on both.

I had (well, still have) a Fujufilm A330 3.2 mpix which I bought several years ago without knowing a thing about digitals, and what a stinko of a litle camera it is. Hate it--taught me all the things I didn't ever want to have in a camera again. One of the things that made me nuts was that the on/off switch was sliding open the cover over the zoom. Turn it on/slide it open and the lens would move out--slow. But the real problem was when the battery was dying (didn't necessarily immediately notice in a frenzy of shooting) was that the battery would go and the lens would be stuck out and I could not shut the cover, so couldn't really turn off the camera. It would take 2, 3, 4 or 5 tries to get the lens back in, waiting each time to get enough battery juice to move it at all. Argh! Bad design, that one. But that says nothing about the newer and better Fujifilms.

My 2 cents....
Vicki

[hukari]

Thanks, Vicki. I looked at the differences between the FZ7 and FZ8 and it seems to me I couldn't go wrong with the FZ7 as it is quite a bit cheaper and the only really important difference (for my priorities) is the increased resolution on the viewfinder on the FZ8.

As to Fuji, the reviews have stated that the quality has gotten much better in this series. I have seen lots of positive opinions on the s5600(s5200) from users.

Thanks for the Adorama tip, but unfortunately their good prices are not applicable since I am in Italy. :(

[hukari]

Well, I made my decision: the FZ7. It's coming tomorrow! I can hardly wait...it is spring and I don't have a camera to take pictures of all the spring things! I may give it a whirl even before the battery gets fully loaded!!

Thanks for everyone's help.

[EJB]

I've had an FZ5 for over a year now. I moved from my old trusty film SLR. I am extreemly please with every aspect of it.
Good Luck:)

[Chuck S.]

Aren't TIFF files larger than RAW?

Yes! Here's a comparison of sizes from my 7 MP Canon G6:

JPEG (Large Superfine): 2.5-3.2 MB
RAW: 7 MB
TIFF: 21 MB

TIFF takes a lot of room, particularly if it's in-camera.

Chuck

[hukari]

Chuck, stupid question coming: what do you mean by "in-camera"??

[Chuck S.]

Reka, what I meant was that TIFF is most often used to store images after they've been downloaded from the camera because TIFF is a 'lossless' format that doesn't get compressed into a small file. Very few cameras store TIFF files in the camera as you take pictures because the files are so huge. Instead, most use a compressed format: JPEG. JPEG compression does cause some quality loss, but it's not a big deal in the camera; JPEG only starts to be a problem if the image is edited outside the camera in your computer and then re-saved as JPEG.

Long answer to a short question. Short answer: a TIFF saved on your camera's memory card will take up a lot of space.

Hope that helps.

Chuck

[hukari]

Okay, so now you've got me really confused! I'm usually brighter, but this one has me stumped. The FZ7 can record in TIFF or JPEG. So I should record them as JPEG and save them on the HD as TIFF????

[LeeOtsubo]

JPEG is what's known as a "lossy" algorithm (formula). Each time a JPEG file is edited and saved, the algorithm kicks in and recompresses the file all over again and data are lost. Eventually, the file will be damaged beyond repair. Rotating a JPEG image is one of the worst things you can do because it "touches" every pixel and causes the compression algorithm to affect the whole image.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a "lossless" algorithm that can be edited and saved without any quality loss. The trade-off is size.

The reason people recommend saving in TIFF is to avoid degradation due to repeated edits/saves. That's never made sense to me since a JPEG has already been compressed to a tiny fraction of its original size in the camera. The most damage is already done at that point. That's another reason why RAW is the preferred file format. The reason a camera might support TIFF is because it doesn't have RAW.

I recommend to my students that they save the original JPEG files on a CD or DVD, a non-rewriteable medium. That way, the file is preserved exactly as it came out of the camera and no further damage can occur. If the copy on the HD is damaged, the original JPEG can be restored from the CD/DVD.

Your questions illustrate why it's important to learn the whole process instead of bits and pieces. It's important to see the entire picture rather than just a tiny snapshot. (Sorry, slipped into my pedantic mode! :D)

[hukari]

Lee, I realize the difference between TIFF and JPEG. I(Thanks for the warning about pedantic mode - which I fully understand, being a teacher myself.:p) I finally realized that Chuck was probably assuming that I could record in RAW, which is the only drawback I saw in buying the FZ7. I only have the option of TIFF or two quality levels of JPEG. So that was what I didn't understand. I thought he had seen the rest of the post where I discussed the pros and cons of the two models. And I couldn't understand why anyone would want to record as JPEG and then save as TIFF. Like you say, that doesn't seem to make sense.

With a 2GB SD card I can save at least 100 photos in TIFF (approximately, of course) so I think that will do for my needs. And when I am on tour I usually have my laptop along, so I can store photos there if I need to free up room on the card.

[Chuck S.]

Reka, I was wrong to imply that you should convert the JPEGs immediately (i.e., before editing) to TIFF; sorry about that. Storing JPEG originals (archiving) in JPEG is fine, as Lee said; there's no advantage to converting them to TIFF or PSD until they've been edited.

With respect to the camera doing TIFF or JPEG, there's a huge difference in size that has to be factored into your storage needs, especially on the camera's memory card.

Chuck

[LeeOtsubo]

Something else to consider is "write time". Huge TIFF files take forever to write to a memory card. I once played with an old digicam that took 6-8 seconds to write a TIFF file to memory. I could have a cup of coffee and read the paper waiting for that camera! Hopefully, the newer cameras with faster memory cards are much faster but even a 1-2 second delay could be very annoying.

Addendum: Just for grins, I looked up the specs for the FZ7 on DPReview (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz7/page4.asp). It takes 3.5 seconds to write a TIFF and DPR says that's fast for current processors. The review doesn't measure buffer speed and, interestingly, it doesn't rate TIFF Continuous speed so I'm led to believe it can't do more than 1 TIFF at a time.

It would drive me crazy to wait 3.5 seconds for a file to be written. That might be fine if you're a landscape photographer but even a portrait photographer would find it excruciatingly slow. Photos like Reka previously posted of her son in a marching band would be near impossible. By the time the camera finished writing the first file, the band would have moved 15 feet. Assuming the band marches at 3mph and you need 3 clear shots to get a "keeper", the band would move over 45'. ((5280*3/60)/60)*3.5*3) in 10.5 seconds.

Bottom line, I don't think TIFF is useful unless you're doing landscapes or still life studies.

[TonyW]

Remembering the days when I had an Olympus that would give JPEGS or TIFFS I do recall comparing the two and not seeing any difference, other than the file size. Admittedly that was a low megapixel count camera. I think the big difference between RAW and TIFF is that RAW is not processed in the camera - so things like white balance correction haven't been applied - you basically get what the sensor sees with minimal adjustments applied - you can then do those adjustments outside the camera. TIFFS are the image before any JPEG compression is applied so has all the in camera processing except the last JPEG conversion step. So the only advantage would be eliminating any artifacts caused by JPEG compression. Whether it's worth doing that is up to you but I'd compare the same scene with the same settings in the highest quality JPEG and TIFF and compare them and see if the file size difference is worth it. My guess would be probably not.

Tony

[hukari]

Addendum: Just for grins, I looked up the specs for the FZ7 on DPReview (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz7/page4.asp). It takes 3.5 seconds to write a TIFF and DPR says that's fast for current processors. The review doesn't measure buffer speed and, interestingly, it doesn't rate TIFF Continuous speed so I'm led to believe it can't do more than 1 TIFF at a time.

It would drive me crazy to wait 3.5 seconds for a file to be written. Photos like Reka previously posted of her son in a marching band would be near impossible. By the time the camera finished writing the first file, the band would have moved 15 feet. Assuming the band marches at 3mph and you need 3 clear shots to get a "keeper", the band would move over 45'. ((5280*3/60)/60)*3.5*3) in 10.5 seconds.

Well, that didn't get me grinning! I didn't think of write time. Speed is one of the reasons I wanted a new camera anyway, so maybe I will stick with the JPEGs. I don't think the band would stand still just for me to take a picture!;)

Tony, I will take your suggestion and try taking the same picture with TIFF and JPEG. Practice is always better than theory, right?

Thanks to all for the discussion. It made me take into consideration things I wouldn't have otherwise.

[LeeOtsubo]

...I don't think the band would stand still just for me to take a picture!;)...

That's always been my problem. When I used to photograph the Tour de France, I would always ask the sprinters to slow down at the finish so I could get better photos but they never cooperated.:D