Two Great Pocketable Cameras
Posted by bilofsky on December 04, 2009
Looking for a pocketable camera this holiday season? Your timing is perfect, and I've got a great deal to recommend. (Updated March 19, 2010)
Two fabulous cameras came on the market in 2009. One, the Canon Powershot S90, is primarily for fairly serious photographers. David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, called it "the best pocket camera made".
The other, which I consider the perfect travel and all-around camera, is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3. Costco stores (not on line) have it on sale for $250 through December 20 (see update below).
Here are my tips in brief:
o If you're a serious photographer looking for a pocketable, consider the S90.
o Otherwise, grab the ZS3.
o To research cameras, use the web site dpreview.com. It gives the good and bad points (though it is reviewing fewer point and shoot cameras than it used to.)
Now the details:
I am a big believer in pocketable cameras. It doesn't matter how great a photo your big, heavy camera could take if it's back in the hotel room when you need it. That's why all the photos in my travel albums were shot with pocketable cameras.
I don't like the paper thin credit card sized cameras; they lack features. These two are jacket or pants pocket size, about 5 by 2.3 inches and 1 1/2" thick, and weighing a tad over 7 ounces.
The Panasonic DMC-ZS3 is my top choice for these reasons:
o Fabulous zoom range: 25mm to 300mm.
o Good automatic software
o Takes HD video with good features
Zoom Range: The 300mm zoom is useful when you're far away from your subject, and is also great for wildlife photos and picking out architectural details. But what's more important - though many people don't understand this - is the wide end.
If your trip photos clip off the tops of buildings, or the beautiful landscape doesn't quite fit, or you've yelled "Scrunch together!" at one too many groups, then your camera probably doesn't go any wider than 35mm. Panasonic's line of travel zooms - of which this is the fourth generation - has had 28mm for the past three years. The ZS3's 25mm is rare and special.
But it gets even better. Many cameras have a 16:9 aspect ratio to fit wide screen displays, but usually they only chop off the top and bottom of the frame. With Panasonic, you get a shorter photo, but it's also wider. So with 16:9 you get down to a whopping 23mm in width, at the price of losing some height. On every trip, I find myself resorting to this setup for some buildings and landscapes.
Good automatic software: Panasonic has an Intelligent Automatic mode that looks at the scene, checks for moving subjects, and sets the ISO (sensitivity) as well as the shutter speed and aperture. Generally it's best to keep to low ISO for the best quality images, but in low light or with moving objects, you need to sacrifice quality to get any usable shot. In my experience with an earlier version in this line, the TZ3, Panasonic's cameras do a good job of making those decisions. Plus, if you know about ISO and don't want to go too high, you can give the camera an upper limit.
HD Video: No still camera does as good a job at video as a video-only camera, but they are getting better. The ZS3 is about as good as it gets in something pocketable. It takes 720p HD video, with stereo, that'll look and sound great on your digital TV.
While shooting a video clip, the ZS3 lets you zoom (though slowly), and will adjust the focus and exposure as the subject changes. This might seem obvious, but most pocketable digital cameras are poor at video and don't do some or any of these things.
Canon Powershot S90: So if the ZS3 is that great, why do aficionados think the S90 is the ne plus ultra this year? Its 28mm - 105mm zoom and lame video can't come close to the ZS3. But it lures advanced photographers for two reasons: picture quality and manual controls. Canon is known for great color, and the S90 is exceptional for its performance in low light. The reason has to do with something that's long overdue: the end of the megapixel race.
For years, manufacturers used advances in sensor technology to offer ever more megapixels. Tiny cameras took 8, 10, even 14 megapixels. Lousy photos, of course, but lots more pixels, which are rarely if ever useful.
In the S90 (and its larger brother, the G11), Canon uses a sensor wich is larger but has fewer pixels. It has about half the pixel density of almost all other pocketable cameras. This, plus a lens that's a stop and a half larger than the ZS3 at the wide end, allow it to take clear photos in really low light.
The other benefit of the S90 is its wealth of manual controls. If you like adjusting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO setting, and making exposure adjustments on the fly, the S90 will let you. It also shoots RAW mode, which lets advanced users make tweaks on their computer that can rescue some - not all - bad exposure decisions back at the time of the shot.
All this tempts more experienced photographers to go for the S90, and I did. Even then, it was a tough choice versus the ZS3. If RAW and all the controls don't ring your chimes, its low light performance shouldn't be enough to lure you away from the Panasonic.
The S90 hasn't been reviewed yet on dpreview.com, but the Panasonic ZS3 was the winner among a group of four compact zoom cameras reviewed earlier this year.
Update (March 19, 2010): Panasonic has announced an updated model, the DMC-ZS7. But my recommendation stays the same - buy the ZS3.
As of this date, the ZS7 is just appearing in stores, so the price of the ZS3 should drop. The new model has the same lens, so no improvement there. Worse, Panasonic's unfortunate decision to add two unnecessary megapixels, and the ZS7's heavy-handed image processing, mean that its image quality is visibly worse than the ZS3, according to early reviews and users.
The ZS7 introduces a built-in GPS that can record the location of each shot. But the GPS, when enabled, will be another drain on the battery. Unless this feature grabs you, grab the ZS3 when the price drops, while it's still available.
Two fabulous cameras came on the market in 2009. One, the Canon Powershot S90, is primarily for fairly serious photographers. David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, called it "the best pocket camera made".
The other, which I consider the perfect travel and all-around camera, is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3. Costco stores (not on line) have it on sale for $250 through December 20 (see update below).
Here are my tips in brief:
o If you're a serious photographer looking for a pocketable, consider the S90.
o Otherwise, grab the ZS3.
o To research cameras, use the web site dpreview.com. It gives the good and bad points (though it is reviewing fewer point and shoot cameras than it used to.)
Now the details:
I am a big believer in pocketable cameras. It doesn't matter how great a photo your big, heavy camera could take if it's back in the hotel room when you need it. That's why all the photos in my travel albums were shot with pocketable cameras.
I don't like the paper thin credit card sized cameras; they lack features. These two are jacket or pants pocket size, about 5 by 2.3 inches and 1 1/2" thick, and weighing a tad over 7 ounces.
The Panasonic DMC-ZS3 is my top choice for these reasons:
o Fabulous zoom range: 25mm to 300mm.
o Good automatic software
o Takes HD video with good features
Zoom Range: The 300mm zoom is useful when you're far away from your subject, and is also great for wildlife photos and picking out architectural details. But what's more important - though many people don't understand this - is the wide end.
If your trip photos clip off the tops of buildings, or the beautiful landscape doesn't quite fit, or you've yelled "Scrunch together!" at one too many groups, then your camera probably doesn't go any wider than 35mm. Panasonic's line of travel zooms - of which this is the fourth generation - has had 28mm for the past three years. The ZS3's 25mm is rare and special.
But it gets even better. Many cameras have a 16:9 aspect ratio to fit wide screen displays, but usually they only chop off the top and bottom of the frame. With Panasonic, you get a shorter photo, but it's also wider. So with 16:9 you get down to a whopping 23mm in width, at the price of losing some height. On every trip, I find myself resorting to this setup for some buildings and landscapes.
Good automatic software: Panasonic has an Intelligent Automatic mode that looks at the scene, checks for moving subjects, and sets the ISO (sensitivity) as well as the shutter speed and aperture. Generally it's best to keep to low ISO for the best quality images, but in low light or with moving objects, you need to sacrifice quality to get any usable shot. In my experience with an earlier version in this line, the TZ3, Panasonic's cameras do a good job of making those decisions. Plus, if you know about ISO and don't want to go too high, you can give the camera an upper limit.
HD Video: No still camera does as good a job at video as a video-only camera, but they are getting better. The ZS3 is about as good as it gets in something pocketable. It takes 720p HD video, with stereo, that'll look and sound great on your digital TV.
While shooting a video clip, the ZS3 lets you zoom (though slowly), and will adjust the focus and exposure as the subject changes. This might seem obvious, but most pocketable digital cameras are poor at video and don't do some or any of these things.
Canon Powershot S90: So if the ZS3 is that great, why do aficionados think the S90 is the ne plus ultra this year? Its 28mm - 105mm zoom and lame video can't come close to the ZS3. But it lures advanced photographers for two reasons: picture quality and manual controls. Canon is known for great color, and the S90 is exceptional for its performance in low light. The reason has to do with something that's long overdue: the end of the megapixel race.
For years, manufacturers used advances in sensor technology to offer ever more megapixels. Tiny cameras took 8, 10, even 14 megapixels. Lousy photos, of course, but lots more pixels, which are rarely if ever useful.
In the S90 (and its larger brother, the G11), Canon uses a sensor wich is larger but has fewer pixels. It has about half the pixel density of almost all other pocketable cameras. This, plus a lens that's a stop and a half larger than the ZS3 at the wide end, allow it to take clear photos in really low light.
The other benefit of the S90 is its wealth of manual controls. If you like adjusting the aperture, shutter speed and ISO setting, and making exposure adjustments on the fly, the S90 will let you. It also shoots RAW mode, which lets advanced users make tweaks on their computer that can rescue some - not all - bad exposure decisions back at the time of the shot.
All this tempts more experienced photographers to go for the S90, and I did. Even then, it was a tough choice versus the ZS3. If RAW and all the controls don't ring your chimes, its low light performance shouldn't be enough to lure you away from the Panasonic.
The S90 hasn't been reviewed yet on dpreview.com, but the Panasonic ZS3 was the winner among a group of four compact zoom cameras reviewed earlier this year.
Update (March 19, 2010): Panasonic has announced an updated model, the DMC-ZS7. But my recommendation stays the same - buy the ZS3.
As of this date, the ZS7 is just appearing in stores, so the price of the ZS3 should drop. The new model has the same lens, so no improvement there. Worse, Panasonic's unfortunate decision to add two unnecessary megapixels, and the ZS7's heavy-handed image processing, mean that its image quality is visibly worse than the ZS3, according to early reviews and users.
The ZS7 introduces a built-in GPS that can record the location of each shot. But the GPS, when enabled, will be another drain on the battery. Unless this feature grabs you, grab the ZS3 when the price drops, while it's still available.