I'm Ready for a NEW camera, Looking for help in comparison...

[Hermosa11]

I have enjoyed my Kodak CX 6330.
I am your average-Jane-Photographer. I would like to enjoy a HIGH Zoom capibility and be able to take photos indoors and at night.
I am considering the following:

Canon PS S2 IS Canon

Panasonic Lumix
Lumix

Kodak P850
Kodak

Can someone provide comparisons and then WHY this is better than that....

I am ready to order online this weekend. Need practice before end of Aug. trip to Disneyland.

Thank you soooooooooo much for your advice, etc.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Canon S2 IS.

 

[manning]

Panasonic FZ30. Discounting should begin shortly if not already as it is out of production with rumors of an announcement this month of the FZ40 or FZ50.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz30/

Go to this panasonic forum site and look for threads with FZ30 in it. There are loads of pictures there taken with this camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz30/

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I'm still against Panasonic for their overly strong noise reduction making ISO 400 and 800 looking like painting.

here's a sample of Canon vs Panasonic vs Canon cleaned with Imagenomic freeware

 

[Kelly Grannell]

if after looking at that comparison you still want to go with Panasonic, then I'll have nothing else to say.

 

[manning]

What cameras are you comparing??

 

[Charade]

if after looking at that comparison you still want to go with Panasonic, then I'll have nothing else to say.

I'm confused.

You show three pics of the same image and state they are from the Canon, Panansonic and "cleaned up". Doens't make much sense. There should be 4 sets of pics per image. One for the Canon and Panasonic and one each for the cleaned up version from each camera.

I'm assuming the "cleaned" version is the one in the middle? If so, yuck. If not yuck for whatever camera that came from.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

the one the left are pics from Canon as-is
the one in the middle are pics from Panasonic as-is (the internal noise reduction can not be turned off)
the one on the right are pics from Canon but AFTER being cleaned up with a freeware.

I hope this clarify things.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

What cameras are you comparing??

Canon S2 vs Panasonic Lumix FZ 27

but it doesn't matter which models. The Panasonic uses the same sensor and same Venus engine for their entire line, just like Canon uses the same sensor and same DIGIC II engine for the entire line

 

[DebºoºS]

Wow, that clears it up for me. Weird Panasonic would put that in all their cameras Thanks Kelly

 

[jann1033]

i looked at all three and reviews aside the canon felt the best to me...the kodak, well just seemed too easy share like to me, the panasonic was awkward in my hand...imo go someplace and hold them play with the dial etc...if you hate the way it feels you aren't going to want to use in

 

[Anewman]

the one the left are pics from Canon as-is
the one in the middle are pics from Panasonic as-is (the internal noise reduction can not be turned off)
the one on the right are pics from Canon but AFTER being cleaned up with a freeware.

I hope this clarify things.

Hmmm what ISOs are you comparing?
The Canon S2 only goes upto ISO 400 and the Panasonic shots look like some ISO 800 shots on default settings for "some" pannys.

Canon S2 vs Panasonic Lumix FZ 27

but it doesn't matter which models. The Panasonic uses the same sensor and same Venus engine for their entire line, just like Canon uses the same sensor and same DIGIC II engine for the entire line

I could not find any mention of a Panasonic Lumix FZ 27

I was not sure if you meant the FZ 2 or 7, so I sampled the one in the middle(fz5).
Or you could have meant the FZ xx series which consists of the FZ 20 or FZ 30, I sampled the FZ 20 since it is currently $299 at Amazon.

It should not matter since they use all the same sensors and engine.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I got the number FZ27 from dpreview site.

 

[manning]

It's got to be the FZ7. There isn't any FZ27 on the dpreview site. When I looked at first glance it looked like a 27.

Anewman's comparisons shows Panasonics looking better than the Canon, IMHO.

Anewman, has any of your pictures looked like paintings?? I am using a TZ1 and haven't come across that situation.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

My mistake, it is FZ 7.

and yes, the pictures from Anewman, they look better than the Canon. However, here's the straight screen grab (without re-compression done) and the results are quite different.

See pictures below, from left to right: Canon S2 IS, Panasonic FZ 20, Panasonic FZ 5

 

[Kelly Grannell]

from the direct image grabs (without recompression), it's clear that the FZ xx series is the worst of the bunch, S2 IS is in the middle, with FZ x series to be the best out-of-camera pictures.

here are S2 IS vs FZ xx series vs FZ x series after default auto noise supression using Imagenomic Noiseware Freeware.

the FZ xx series is cleaner but looking very watercoloury.
S2 IS and and FZ x series is about as clean with sharpness goes to the S2 IS

(especially pic 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6; the rest are a toss up)

 

[Anewman]

from the direct image grabs (without recompression), it's clear that the FZ xx series is the worst of the bunch, S2 IS is in the middle, with FZ x series to be the best out-of-camera pictures.

I could agree just not as clear cut as you had made it sound in your earlier claims, not all canons are created equal neither are all Panasonics.

Still wondering what the middle picture you posted was from, you compared it to the S2IS that shoots upto ISO 400. I imagine it must be a Panasonic ISO 400 shot, but it does not look like any panasonic ISO 400 from any samples at DPREVIEW.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

The middle picture from the original set I posted:
I downloaded that Panasonic ISO 400 shot from dpreview several months ago, can't remember exactly which model.

The middle picture from the second set I posted:
I lifted that from FZ30. The reason being is that for the same pics (FZ20 vs FZ30) the image quality is exactly the same, so for the sake of easier comparison between all three cameras, I use FZ30 ISO 400 shots.

But again, IMHO, the S2 IS yield the best quality. Now I can't talk about pricing differences because the pricing in the US vs Canada is just crazy different.