Nikon Leica Carl Zeiss Cameras and Video

Review by Savvy shopper:

I recently purchase the Nikon Coolpix L20 after lots of shopping.

I have used only Olympus cameras only up to now.

This time I wanted a smaller pocket sized camera, that still took the AA batteries, and that still gave great photos with all the features I was used to.

This camera fit the bill!

It takes 2 AA batteries, inexpensive SD memory cards and yet still delivers fantastic photos.

I have already tried all the features, and was completly happy.

I love using the different scene settings, and could not live without the video feature.

Both still and video capture worked well in both bright light and low light.

The sound playback via the camera is hard to distinquish (live music), but fine once uploaded.

I didn’t really require the smile feature, but tried it out on my 3 year old, and was blown away….it really works!

The blink feature is also quite ingenious. The camera actually asks you if your subject blinked when they do, but not when they don’t. This is particularly handy when taking photos of children. I would have loved this feature when I was still my daughter’s yearbook photographer.

What can I say, fabulous price and awesome quality!!!

Definately worth the money.

Comparibly priced camera’s that we have used, produce grainy shots…..but have not found this with this camera at all.

I would recommend this camera to anyone!

Review by C. Scanlon:

This is a professional camera capable of crystal clear prints worthy of publication or gallery display, up to 16×20.

And it is incredibly inexpensive for a camera of such value.

Ok, so its 3.6 optical zoom won’t pick sand off an eagle’s beak at a thousand yards. Okay, so it won’t blow up to billboard size without loss of definition. In the real world however and everyday use this is a fine and professional level camera that will do a far better job than you expected. Better than a cell-phone.

Disguised as a point and shoot. That’s what makes it very effective; people are not intimidated by it. You can get right up to them, and it looks like any other camera. Yet, it is more.

In fact, the generous three inch LCD screen means you do not have to hold it to your face. There is no optical viewfinder in any case. So you can hold it at your hip and glance down at it to compose, and snap shots while engaging the subject in small talk comfortably. I have done this effectively with Tarahumara Indian children in northern Chihuahua who normally run quickly from any camera. It works, and came out great. And that large LCD screen has a high-contrast, anti-reflection coating which keeps it clear even in strong sunlight.

This camera is an improvement over the earlier, wonderful Coolpix, such as the great 8 megapix Nikon Coolpix L18 8MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Ruby Red) mainly because it has ten megapix capability. The earlier accessories such as the AC adapter, the Nikon EH-65A AC Adapter, are transferable if you have a long shoot to do in one place (like a schoolful of children, which I have done) or other reason to go off-battery. Nevertheless, a pair of Energizer® e2® “AA” Lithium Batteries For digital cameras, portable audio players, and more last in here last forever.

Your old Coolpix camera pouch also still fits; use it and protect your investment. I like the Rokinon Compact Digital Camera Padded Carrying Case for Canon Powershot, Casio Exilim, Fuji Finepix, (GE) General Electric, Kodak EasyShare, Nikon Coolpix, Olympus FE Stylus, Panasonic Lumix, Pentax Optio, Sony CyberShot and Samsung Digital Cameras.

Also new here, aside from the greater megapixels, is the new Expeed image processing system specially fine-tuned for the Coolpix series “to render natural-looking pictures of incredible quality and quick response” as if the earlier system of digital processing was not fine enough! Amateur enthusiasts will find their photos reaching a new magnitude of quality; even the professional will leave his camera bag and lenses at home (okay, so she might miss her long lens, but macro here gets in to two inches).

The ISO settings are phenomenal, stretching from 64 ISO all the way out to 1600. Over twenty years ago when I was doing photo-journalism in Nicaragua, we used 64 for our slide film and 1600 was just coming on the horizon, very grainy but with a special charm for low light situations, like oil lamp, etc. Here you can do very low light and candlelight (if you do not mind some grain effect), and in fact there are special pre-sets which employ the faster ISO’s effectively.

This is another expansion over the prior Coolpix L series. You can choose instead of Auto (with own its user-selected options) to use the pre-set “Scene” selections quickly and efficiently. The Scene modes now include: Portrait, Night Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Party, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Night Landscape, Museum, Fireworks Show, Close Up, Copy, Back Light, Panorama Assist, Food. Food is one of the new ones, and you food photo-journalists might want to try it very inexpensively yet quite well here. The rest of the modes you can figure how they are set from the title and how you might apply their settings to similar situations; know that the Nikon impression of party might be much more sedate and candle-lit than the Animal House idea. This is not cheating, to use pre-sets; this is using the tool that you have in the way it was designed. Cheating would be setting this to its auto-scene setting in which it selects the Scene mode according to

prevailing conditions, automatically. Yes, this can do it.

The panorama assist is great. You can take a series of photos in a row in either of four directions (left to right, up and down, etc.) overlapping by one third (I really appreciate the rule of thirds grid which you can bring up on the LCD, keeping the camera straight and well composed), and then unite them with the included software into one long (or tall) file. I had reason to do this the other day at a long new school. Things do not build vertical out here in the desert, but there is plenty of room for horizontal, and a special Cinerama style long photo framing. In fact you could line up your whole town along the sidewalk standing and take one long photo of everyone in town. Just find printer and paper!

With the built in macro mode you can jump right into that cactus blossom from two inches away and have perfect focus. Take a photo of that baby’s toes and blow them up to 16×20. Come in close to that ant stealing cracker crumbs on your picnic. This strength of macro was recently unimaginable, and yet here you have this power within a humble, tiny and inexpensive package.

What I really love and appreciate is the SDHC compliancy. I can use as standard memory card a regular Sandisk 4GB Secure Digital SD HC Memory Card (SDSDB-4096, BULK, No Reader) and have room for 500 shots at maximum resolution. You can truly, as we used to say a quarter century ago “shoot a roll; keep a shot.” Take all of the shots you can, and then pick one out to use and delete the rest. For someone who used to burn through boxes of film (at 36 shots each max) and then do the darkroom processing all night, and then find a free way to get more, this is like living in another, finer dimension. Of course, you can put even larger SD HC memory cards in here and if you ever do fill one up and have nothing more to put in there and no time to delete, this camera comes with a generous 20MB internal memory on hand.

You can hook it up to the USB port of a computer directly and use the included software, or simply pop out the SD card and plug it into a reader and into the computer. Whatever works for you, although I do not like opening and closing the battery/card hatch too much. It is very strong and durable, but in the olden days I had a habit of snapping such things and putting them back together with duct tape. This one looks remarkably resilient nevertheless and has stood up to me.

Speaking of shooting a roll to get the one picture, have you ever taken a shot to discover your subject blinked? This camera lets you know. Yes, this camera sees when your subject blinks, and lets you know, using the Smart Portrait system. It also automatically fixes your red-eye special. You’ll never see red eye again. It finds faces, and automatically focuses on them, up to a dozen at a time. It can also snap the shutter automatically when someone finally dares to smile. And the D-lighting will save those details otherwise lost in darkness.

As you can see, this camera does everything for you but serve as photo agency selling your work to Vogue or GQ. A great camera at a small price. What can go wrong?

The most amazing thing for me, of course, an old still shooter, is that this tiny camera is also a video camera, with built in mike, and a built in speaker for playback. You can make movies with this at two different resolutions, either for television playback at 640×480 or laptop at 320×240 (good for e-mailing). These home movies are truly sharp, with the same excellent back to front focus as the photos, and surprisingly high quality sound. The length of the movie is limited only to the size of your SDHC card; you could easily go for feature length! Using .AVI files, it can easily be edited as well.

Of course, this camera comes with the standard sized screw input for mounting on a tripod. I have used it on my Targus 66-inch heavy-duty tripod. Looks a little small up there, but it works great. You will really appreciate the steadiness a tripod always brings, and the freedom, no less with this great camera, which so thoughtfully has a tripod screw-in.

Hey, for the same price, this is way better than a cell phone!

Too bad this one is so, well, red!

Review by Omar Siddique:

The SD1200 has some big changes over its predecessor SD1100, and is the smallest, best designed Elph I’ve used thus far.

I’ve owned many models of Elph, this is my 6th or 7th, so my review is aimed especially at other serial Canon owners. I mostly compare the SD1200 to the SD1100.

* The big changes: Digic4 and a larger CCD sensor. The slight increase in CCD size (1/2.3″ vs 1/2.5″) should make for “cleaner” photos. And Digic4 promises faster/cleaner shots also.

* You get 10MP vs 8MP on the SD1100, and “medium” (M1) size is now 6MP. JPG quality is down to 2 setting: Fine or Normal.

* SD1200 is only slightly smaller than the SD1100, but feels notably smaller by virtue of curved edges and the LCD being flush with the body (no bump-out).

* The 1200 now feels as small as this design can shrink. Good news: my average-sized male hands can still comfortably hold it, barely not covering lens, flash, or resting on the LCD. But the round power-button is now almost too small to press if you had big fingers and no fingernails.

* 1200′s new battery is a higher capacity 1000mAh (vs ~760mAh for SD1100). There’s also a new charger (not compatible with the old batteries), a glossy white-colored model to blend into your wall.

* The buttons and menus are streamlined. There’s now a button for review mode, pressing it a 2nd time takes you back to the previous state. Handy. The slider has dedicated AUTO and Manual settings, no longer need to use menus for that switch.

* Continuous mode and ISO now are in the Function Menu (on the SD1100, they had dedicated buttons).

* A SD card is no longer included. This makes sense to me, a 32MB card is barely useful, and with the downward pressure on electronics prices, I can’t imagine Canon wanting to bundle a more expensive/bigger card. Some people will find this lack annoying.

* The A/V output is gone, and the USB connector now serves both purposes (both kinds of included cables now have a USB-end)

* A new version of Canon software is required for this model, Zoombrowser 6.3. Canon typically requires a new release for each new family/season of cameras. Unfortunately, the CameraWindow software has been intentionally dumbed-down in the 6.x software and no longer offers the options to delete your photos (have to go through the OS), nor to chose custom naming for the downloads. I say intentionally, since I asked Canon customer-support about it and they stated the changes were not bugs. The last Canon software to still have that functionality was 5.x, corresponding to the SD1000 and other cameras released that season.

* In casual indoor tests, the 1200 seemed more ready to go to ISO400 (often too “noisy” to be useful) when the SD1100 would have chosen ISO200.

* The SD1200 and SD1100 have identical specs on their optics. However, I noticed a more pronounced barrel-distortion on the 1200 at extreme wide-angle. (still only noticable in close-up shots of straight-edged items at wide-angle)

* In a casual speed test, the SD1200 took/stored photos notably faster the SD1100 (same scene, continuous-mode, same brand SD card), despite the 1200′s image size being larger.

* Canon’s paper manuals have been shrinking steadily. With this model, the only manual included is a quick-start guide, the rest is on CD-ROM.

* The packaging is even more efficient than before, about half the size of the SD1100′s box.

* Sadly, there is no HD video mode, although all of the other Elphs released this spring had HD. SD1200 owners are stuck with 640×480 video.

Canon has several sub-series within the compact Elph line, varying mostly by asthetics and optics. The SD1200 is successor to the series that included the SD1100, SD1000, and SD600. These all favor a classic, slim design. If you’re unfamiliar with Canon’s Powershot cameras, there’s lots of good material out there on camera sites such as dpreview.

In general, the small sensors and optics in all ultra-compact digital cameras lead to some optical quirks (such as barrelling), chromatic aberrations, over/under-exposure in bright sunlight/shade, and underpowered flashes. That’s intrinsic to the size of camera, and vendors try to correct these effects in their on-board processing. My opinion is that Canon does a good job of correcting for these issues and the Elphs including the SD1200 take very good photos for their size.

It’s questionable that a SD1100 owner would specifically find this a compelling upgrade other than the Digic4, but this is an excellent compact camera in all ways. Apart from the noteworthy quirks: the lack of HD and the limited features in the download software, this camera is Highly Recommended.

Review by S. Craig:

I’m a professional photographer. I got tired of dragging my D3,D200 or other large cameras around, and worrying about it getting damaged. I decided to buy a camera just for fun that could fit in my purse and I wouldn’t have a heart attack if it broke. Well I didn’t hold that high of expectations of the camera, but after getting it, I’ve had a lot of fun with it. Not the most amazing pictures come from it (I am used to very high quality pictures), but they are good enough shots of my family. It’s easy to use, really easy to set, FAST, and good low light. You don’t always need the flash. It’s very small, and can fit easily in my purse (that are all quiet small purses actually). This is a perfect camera if you just want some fun shots that are clear, and you want an easy to use fast camera. This is NOT good for “professional” type shots (why do people write reviews of these cameras and get all down on them for not being professional grade cameras? They never claim to be!).

Review by amazonaddict:

This camera is incredibly easy to use, but offers enough advanced features for the average point-and-shoot user. I bought the camera for my older parents who needed a simple camera. I was choosing between the Kodak M1033 and this camera, but decided to go with this camera because it is slightly easier to use. Kodak describes the C series as a line of easy entry-level cameras, and that’s definitely true.

PROS:

- Easy for first-time digital camera users

- Large LCD screen

- Large amount of megapixels

- Many “scene” settings pre-programmed for different types of shots

- Very low price

- Compact size

- Plug and play sharing via EasyShare

CONS:

- No viewfinder

- M1033 has a couple extra features (i.e., panoramic stitching)

- Uses AA batteries vs. charger (although this is mitigated by a good set of rechargeable batteries

Buy this camera if you’re looking for an affordable, compact, easy to use camera. It will meet the needs of most point-and-shoot users. Do not buy this camera if you’re looking to customize your shots beyond pre-programmed settings (i.e., adjustments in ISO, f-stop, shutter speed, etc.), but that should be self-evident, as this is a point-and-shoot.

Review by E. Josephs:

Bought this one for my 12yo niece. I try every piece of electronic equipment before I give it. I was surprised. It took me only 2-3 minutes to get familiar with the camera’s operation out of the box (no instruction reading). I found it’s set-up to be very intuitive without the massive confusing menu system of – oh – lets say the CANNON POWERSHOT A560.

Set up the camera mode on a dial switch.

turn flash on/off/auto at a single button.

point-click-picture. And nice ones too.

small problem – the picture stabilization mode only seems to work when the fash is used. When the flash is on, you can violently shake this camera all over the place and it will capture the crispest image when it goes off, even your shoes or ceiling if you’re shaking it that violently.

Using a 4GB sandisk sdhc card, on maximum 10mp, the camera says it will hold just under 2000 pictures on the counter. On minimum 1.2mp setting, the counter stops at 9999. Yes, nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine. The numbers don’t add up to me for MP size and # of photos, but if upscaling is used ( as I’ve read from others) , then these picture quantities do start to make sense.

Between the Cannon power shot and another hard to use upscale Sony camera, both wanted this one for ease of use. What they actually want.

My neice looooooooooooves this camera.

Takes about 45min of video too.

If you want wall sized pictures – this is not for you.

Full page picture – It can handle pretty well.

4×6 memories – I don’t think anyone can go wrong.

Review by Petra Springer:

I am no expert when it comes to photography but enjoy taking good pictures of my family and friends. I have kids in sports and I like to take my own pictures for picture giving. I read many reviews (for hours) on various cameras and endet up with this one here. I first was going to get the DSC-H50 (one step up from the DSC-H20). When I went to the store to buy it, however, it was to large for my taste. It was to big to fit in a pants pocket and even for my small purse it was quite large. Here are the main reasons why this camera is awesome!

This camera here is not as compact as your typical slim camera (due to the 10x zoom), but it is small enough to fit in a purse or even a jacket/pants pocket if need be.

This camera has a burst mode so you can hold down the shutter and the camera will take numerous pictures, thus making it ideal for action shots. I took it to a Volleyball tournament and got unbelievable shots of my daughter serving and hitting! I cought her in mid air more then a few times…just what I had hoped for. I also took pictures at a track meet and got kids jumping hurdles…the pictures look almost like magazine shots!

This camera is extremely easy to use in the easy and auto adjust mode! It tells you everything on the screen. You can start shooting pretty much right away…it’s that easy! The manual is good to have for reference and questions and if you really want to get to know your camera.

The zoom is great and plenty! I took pictures from the mezzanine onto the Volleyball courts and could get nice close up shots! 10x is plenty for me!

The battery life is also impressive, as long as you keep your screen on a regular bright setting. First I had it set to “bright” and the battery didn’t do well. Then I set it to normal and it lasts a long time. I took about 150 shots and not a single bar was missing from the battery!

It has a rechargebale battery so you don’t have to keep buying regular batteries. Also, it does say that you can get a international charger so the battery charger can be plugged in anywhere in the world. (Still have to get that myself). What a nice option.

The quality of the pictures is also great! I took a team photo and my daughter took it to a practice to show the others. They choose the picture to use in a frame as a gift to the coaches. It turned out so good and all I did was push a button!

When shooting pictures, it has a option for the file size you select. If you know you want to email pictures, or for example if you sell on eBay and want to download pictures onto the ebay site, you select the small file size and shoot pictures that way for working with them online. For pictures that you use for portraits for example, you choose a larger file (pixels I guess), and that way it does not distort the picture when you enlarge it. That is also extremely easy to figure out!

Last but not least…I plugged it into my pc with the supplied USB cord and retrieved the photos the same way I always did in the past. I have not yet added the picture cd that came with it, but my guess is that it will work very good. I also took the 2GB SD card to Wal mart and made nice prints (you have to purchase the pro duo stick seperate…look for the “Sony pro-Duo Stick” cost about -). The 2 GB is plenty for me, I think it holds about 400 pictures).

Great camera…I have not found a flaw yet!

Review by TechGeek:

I bought this camera for a two week trip I was about to take. I also purchased an extra extended battery and an 8GB memory card for the camera. The main reason I purchased the camera was for its ability to take pictures quickly. I looked through consumer reports and this one was one of the top rated cameras. The cost is very good for this quality camera. I could take a picture withing a couple of seconds after turning the camera on and I could take a picture again less than a second later. This camera also has great battery life. Even if you just use the included battery, you can still get around 3-400 pictures (assuming you are not using flash). The zoom on the camera is great. It is a 10x optical zoom and additional 7x digital zoom. This gives you the power of a 17x zoom. If you take your picture at 17x zoom, you can then zoom in on your picture another 8x under the “review your pictures” menu. This camera is also small enough to fit into a small over the shoulder camera bag. It fit into my old camera bag that I used to have a small Olympus camera in. I recommend this camera for ages 16 and up. It is a great camera that it comparable to any SLR camera. I think it is better than a SLR because it is so much smaller than any SLR you could purchase.

Review by U. Wilkins:

I just purchased this Canon on a whim, earlier today at Best Buy. I have been tinkering with it for the majority of the evening. My previous SD300 is still working like a champ, however I have been considering a video camera for some time…after some peering at the video camera counter I wandered over to the point and shoot table… what initially drew me in to the SD780IS was its appearance on the display stand. The sleek matte-black body is very eye-pleasing…then I looked at the specs. and realized that it shoots video in HD! (1280×720) Then all the other attributes made me realize that it was time to update my “everywhere, anytime” camera.

I proceeded to check out some of the other Canon SD cameras. The SD960 became the other candidate…it has a little more glass(4x)zoom, over the SD780′s (3x)zoom. The SD960 has an appealing f2.8 apeture over the SD780′s f3.2. The SD960′s screen is more tailored for the HD video capture as it has a 16:9 ratio LCD panel. (Kinda nice for instant viewing ON THE CAMERA)

After some thought I went with the SD780 for these reasons:

1. The HD video capability is awesome and comparible with the SD960. It has a HDMI jack. The traditional 4:3 screen does not bother me, because the video is ultimately going to be viewed on a HD TV.(There will be an upper and lower bar on 16:9 playback through the SD780′s LCD).

2.The weaker 3x zoom is not a big deal as this camera is for general shooting(out w/ freinds, bars, random afternoon at the beach, mountain biking, etc.)and with this camera EASLIY fitting in my jeans pocket or camelbak, the portability is what gives me the opportunity to document those moments, that would otherwise be missed. The SD960 is a little bulkier(but still small). I do also shoot with a Canon 40D, accompanied with L optics, but the weight and bulkiness do not lend to certain shooting circumstances. (as mentined above)

3. The user interface on the SD780IS is like most (if not all?) preceeding SD cameras. While there is not much control in the way of shooting settings, feature buttons like flash override, AE lock, AF lock, and exposure compensation are present on the camera body. The SD960IS has two buttons and a jog wheel, which lend to swims in the menu. I’m sure the new interface on the 960 is intuitive, but I liked the 780 due to its similarity to my old SD300.

I am very happy with the results produced thus far with the SD780IS. The HD video is excellant, however it should be known that once recording you can only zoom digitally. Low light cabilities and sound in video mode are excellent. The stills I have taken look great. Also, to the budget-minded who are upgrading from older digital point-and-shoots, a class 4 minimum 4GB or 8GB SDHC card would be well suited due to the demanding memory of the 12.1 million pixels, and HD video. Also, most old card readers will not process the the SDHC cards so you may have to purchase a new card reader as well.

I have to mention it again…the small size of the Canon SD780IS is mind-blowing…and the functionality actually mirrors its beauty.

Review by W. Chan:

OVERVIEW

Canon SD780IS is the perfect travel/everyday camera. It weighs a little over 4 ounces. The size of the camera is astonishing. It is smaller than my iPhone 3G and my wallet. I love the new 720p video recording HD feature on the 2009 Canon P+S line. The image stabilization for video/image stills is a winner. The clips are sharper and clearer than the clips from the Creative Vado HD and the Flip Video MinoHD.

PLAYBACK ON COMPUTERS

For video playback without choppiness on the computer, you need to have at least a Core 2 Duo 1.66 GHz or higher processor on Windows (Vista/XP SP2/XP SP 3) or Core Duo 1.66 GHz or higher processor on Mac OS X (v10.4-v10.5)

MEMORY CARD

You should get at least 8GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC (Class 6 or higher) memory card for the camera. 4000×3000 resolution images can quickly fill up your 2/4GB SD memory card.

CONCLUSION

+ Quick Continuous Snapshots

+ 720p HD Video Recording with Image Stabilization

+ Lightning Quick Startup

+ Ultra-Compact Point & Shoot Camera (Thin + Light Combo)

+ Beautiful Design

+ Great for Beginners (Very Easy To Use)

+ Bright LCD Screen

+ DIGIC IV Technology

+ Blink Detection

+ Can Edit Video Clips on the go

+ Scene Detection Mode works Flawlessly

- No Optical Zoom in Video Mode while Recording (You can Digitally Zoom)

- Monotone Sound in Video Mode

- Only 3x Optical Zoom for image stills

- View Finder is Useless

- Little Noisy/Grainy when Using Higher Than ISO400 but Acceptable

SCORE/VERDICT

09/10: Recommended