2007 compacts vs dSLR from a few years ago.

skankmaster

skankmaster

skankmaster

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Comparing the current state of the art in 6-8 megapixel compact cameras with a DSLR such as my 6mp 300D from a few years ago, has the gap closed enough in terms of picture quality to be able to pick a compact as a worthy alternative? By compact I mean something that can slip into a trouser pocket.

Has anyone bought a compact camera recently and found the quality to be comparable to their DSLR of a few years ago? I plan to travel later this year and need to decide if a modern compact will travel with me, or my trusty dSLR. In terms of lenses, I never take more than 3 lenses with me anyway.
 
From what I've seen, most of todays compacts still have poorer IQ than DSLs. Just because the compact is 8MP, it doesn't mean those pixels are any good. Bigger sensor + more glass = better IQ. DLSR for the win man, compacts are horrible to use!
 
Not quite I wouldn't say, the bigger sensor wins still. That said, I have a Leica D-Lux 3 which is very good indeed, it's not a replacement for my D200 but it's pretty good for throwing in my bag when I'm going out for the afternoon.
 
bigredshark said:
Not quite I wouldn't say, the bigger sensor wins still. That said, I have a Leica D-Lux 3 which is very good indeed, it's not a replacement for my D200 but it's pretty good for throwing in my bag when I'm going out for the afternoon.
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Yeah, but it's a £350+ compact! You'd expect good quality from that. My opinion was formed on the Casio Z500 (which I have, and it's crap!) and a Canon IXUS, can't remember the model but it's fairly recent. Those are average price compacts; £130-200
 
A good compact is a good camera , it just doesn't normaly have the flexibility in controls (never mind lenses) that a DSLR has . People with "Point & Shoot" cameras used to regularly win or score highly in the Forum Competitions.

I believe Canon are doing a "cash back" just now on their compacts, very good deals for very good cameras
 
Most point and shoot cameras are noisy as hell, with the obvious exception being the Fuji F31.
They are also very slow to use when focusing, changing settings, navigating menus etc
 
The biggest downside of all compacts and bridge cameras today and at any time in history, really, is that they are tailored to universal appeal - it usually means loads of electronics, often expensive, long range zooms and lenses which you can't swap and were made to be the cheap element of the equasion. As most DSLR users will agree - resolution and lables are all for naught if there is no quality glass to go with it. And good glass is usually more expensive than any compact. In todays turn of events everything is for sale and so you will see good name of Carl Zeiss dragged through mud by mobile execs trying to convince the world it's all about the Megapixels on front label of a bulky cell phone.
But the truth is - while I often took better pictures with my old 5Mpixel S2IS that looked better than my friends snaps from 300D and pretty awful kit lens, even today, you will look at pictures from 8 year old D30 with good lens and despite the fact its mere 3.1Megapixel resolution should easily be beaten by just about anything today you will have a hard time producing images of similar smoothness and clarity, free of fringing and chromatic issues on any of the *teen megapixel compacts today...
 
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robertgilbert86 said:
Yeah, but it's a £350+ compact! You'd expect good quality from that. My opinion was formed on the Casio Z500 (which I have, and it's crap!) and a Canon IXUS, can't remember the model but it's fairly recent. Those are average price compacts; £130-200
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thats completely true, however it's heavily based on a panasonic design which is a lot cheaper, and almost as good, leica just added their own glass and image processor as i recall.

Still, it's as expensive as a 350D nearly, but it's pocketable, which is why I have it.
 
I remember an article comparing I believe a D70 to a Fuji F30. When setup for static shots in a studio, there really wasn't anything like as much in it as you might expect.

However...and this is where the issues start. It was quite obvious that the AF was nowhere near as good, response times (hitting the shutter to actually taking a photo) was worse, performance under low light was worse, and the lack of ability to swap lenses is a very obvious drawback.
 
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