How I Chose a P&SMay 13 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line First decide why you want a P&S, choose your "must-have" features, then do your research. Remember there is no such thing as the "one perfect camera". Step 1: Determining why I want a point and shoot camera. I am taking a hiking trip to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park soon and wanted a point & shoot camera that would easily fit in a small hip pouch for easy access. I did not want to have to take off my backpack and dig around for a camera if something caught my eye. My significant other is lugging around the serious SLR photography equipment for us to set up, but in between walking from the camp site to the photo site, I wanted something low maintenance. Step 2: Determining what features I want. There is no such thing as the "perfect" camera. So, it was important for me to make a mental note of features I absolutely had to have in a P&S. Everything else I could compromise on in order to reduce price (see Step 3) or were "nice to haves" but not important enough for me to worry about. For my trip, I decided it was absolutely crucial that I have different flash modes. My old p&s basically had one mode - on. This wasn't too difficult to find. It seems that most p&s these days have at least 5 different flash modes. My other "must have" option was I wanted a f4 or below. My "nice to have" list included zoom lens, continuous shooting, mid-roll rewind, bulb sync, and exposure compensation. 3) Determining a budget. After figuring out what it was that I wanted from a p&s, it was time to determine how much I was willing to pay for it. I decided $300 was my maximum budget. 4) 35mm or APS? It has been a while since I bought a new camera. My old Vivitar, while not world-class, had served me well enough. It is still functional with nothing wrong with it, but I had determined that its always-on flash was a bit outdated and would not be well suited for my trip. APS was not available at the time I had last bought a p&s. I ruled out APS after some research and talking with some friends more versed in photography technology than myself. APS has some very nice features to it - easy film loading, mid roll film change, being able to imprint the date on the back of the print, and print cartidges. However, the rest of the APS "features" didn't add up to much more than hype. "Panoramic" mode is nothing more than artifically blacking out the top and bottom of a picture with shutters. APS film processing is more expensive, and the "Panoramic" prints are significantly more expense. It is far better to have a whole image, have your developer blow up the image, then crop the picture the way you want. It is too late if you get the film developed to find you didn't get enough of the image when you snapped the picture. I was looking at the Canon ELPH 370Z, and I must say, I was half tempted to talk myself into trying an APS camera. It is VERY small, light, has a 23mm wide angle zoom lens (I drooled thinking about the shots I could get of the Canyon rim with that much image!), plus all of the benefits of APS film. However, APS film is very limited. There are only two manufacturers who make APS film - FUJI and KODAK. Types are also limited. There is B&W, 100, 200, and 400. I talked with a local camera shop photographer who said APS seemed to be wanning in popularity, and haven been bitten by the DISC format flop, that played a big part of me deciding to stick with 35mm. 35mm isn't going anywhere soon, and if caught in a pinch without film, souvenir shops can be counted on to have a supply (even if it is low consumer grade). I don't know how the APS supply is in the small towns we'll be visiting. 5) Research. Now prepared with the knowledge of what features I was looking for and how much I wanted to pay, it was time to do some research on the internet. I went to BHPhoto and started browsing down the list of possible 35mm p&s cameras. My two primary canidates right off the bat were the Yashica T4 Super and the Olympus Stylus Epic. The T4 boasted a Carl Zeiss lens under $200 (!!), but the Epic has a f2.8 for under $100 for the basic version. Incredible for a p&s! It's not hard to see why these two cameras are incredibly popular among hard core photographers looking for an everyday camera - other p&s cameras this good cost upwards of $600+. The "drawback" to both of these cameras was they are fixed length focus (though this is not really a drawback - compromises must be made in order to fit zoom lens in a compact camera). If I decided to go with the Epic Deluxe with a price tag of around $100, I'd have money left over to possibly buy another p&s camera with zoom and still be within my budget. So, I added some zoom p&s cameras to my shopping list. I added the Samsung 170SE, Samsung 140S, Canon Sure Shot 135, and a Minolta Freedom. Armed with this list, I printed it out and took it to my favorite local camera shop. 6) Time to buy. As a general rule, I only buy from online retailers if I am absolutely, positively sure about what it is I am going to purchase. In the case of buying a new camera, I had narrowed down to some cameras I liked, but I wasn't positive about which one I wanted. So, it was best to visit the retailer where I could talk to someone I knew about them, hold them in my hands, and be able to return the product easily if it didn't work out as I hoped. I decided to go with the Olympus Stylus Epic because after playing around with, I was amazed at how simple yet elegant it was in the design. The clamshell opening would reduce accidental opening (a problem that drained many batteries in my Vivitar) and it had several different modes for flash - which was on my must-have list. The selling points that kicked it over the top of the T4 was the price of $100, and the f2.8. Since this was a fixed focus p&s, the fast appeture means optimal versatility. With about $200 left in my budget, the camera shop salesman steered me away from the Samsung for a zoom camera. Although they boast a Schneider lens, his opinion was Samsung blew their money on the lens, and the rest of the construction was lacking. He instead recommended the Pentax IQZoom 928M (one that I had missed in my shopping list). I did decide to go with this one because it is one of the few p&s with the wide angle lens, from 28mm - 90mm, and it has the bulb sync mode for night shots, which the Epic is lacking. It is usually not a problem to get closer to a subject when framing a shot, but sometimes in close quarters it is not so easy to back up, so I decided the 28mm would give me maximum versatility. In general, zoom p&s with many levels of zoom sacrifice some quality in order to add more zoom lengths. 38mm-170mm zoom looks good at first, but will it look good on paper? Some zoom cameras of this class have aperture of f5 or higher. The Pentax I bought has f4.8 on the 28mm zoom, so I will be using faster film, but I bought the Olympus with an incredible aperture, so I was willing to compromise for the wide angle zoom. 7) Conclusion. For the kind of versatility and options I wanted, I had to buy two p&s camera. Thankfully, the Epic was such a bargain to make that possible! Good luck, and happy clicking!  |
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