I am torn between the Canon SD750 and the Canon SD800 IS. One of the differences is that the SD800 has a wide angle lens and the SD750 doesnt. But for these kinds of point & shoot camera will it really make a difference?
Thanks for any advice!
Best answer:
Answer by holacarinados
It depends on the difference between the widest focal lengths and what you plan to use the camera for. The best thing would be to check out both cameras in a store and ask if you could look through the viewfinder (ask the salesperson to accompany you to the front door of the shop if he/she gets suspicious). Explain that you want to get a sense of the difference in focal lengths. It's really the only way to decide since people have individual preferences. Also, If your point and shoot cannot be put on manual setting, there would be less of a need for the wider angle.
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How wide an angle you need depends on what you want to photograph. Clearly if you like to do group shots of large groups a wide angle lens is desirable. It's useful too for large landscapes and for architectural stuff.
ReplyDeleteHowever, these days that's not as big an issue as in the past. If you use a product like Photoshop, you can take a series of pictures about twenty degrees apart and then stitch them together in your computer to create a seamless panorama shot with no loss of quality in the process. So if the lens you choose isn't wide enough, and in many cases it never is regardless of how wide it actualy is, that's a neat way to overcome that problem.
By contrast, at the telephoto end, you use a telephoto to bring distant objects closer. You can overcome a short telephoto by croping your picture but unfortunately that also frequently affects the quality of the resulting image.
Personally I would prefer to err on the telephoto side than on the wide angle side since it is possible to create wide angled shots without a loss in quality by using the computer later.
Go here http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/476181737/ and look at the two frames labeled 18 mm and 24 mm. Click on "All Sizes." The 35 mm equivalents for these are shown in the parentheses – 27 mm and 36 mm. The two cameras you are looking at are 28 mm and 35 mm (35 mm equivalents) at their widest, so these two frames are almost an exact comparison between the two focal lengths you are asking about.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to consider... The SD800-IS has a slightly wider angle lens, but the reviews say, "there is a slight, but noticeable drop off in sharpness towards the edges and corners in some circumstances." You might find that you zoom in that first step to avoid the soft focus on the edges and then you wouldn't have such a wide angle anyhow.
As long as you are looking at spending the money on an SD800-IS, how about getting an SD700-IS? The SD800-IS only zooms to an equivalent of 105 mm while the SD700-IS goes to 140 mm.
While I'm spending your money, maybe you can wait until you see the new SD850-IS on the shelves. It's an update on the super-popular SD700-IS. The 850 has the newer Digic III image processor with face detection and it's 8 MP instead of 6 or 7 MP. You know how to read these charts, I can tell, so look at this and see what other improvements there are. Be sure to note that the lens zooms to an equiv. 140 mm. The difference between 105 mm and 140 mm is MUCH more interesting to me than the difference between 28 mm and 35 mm.
Yes.
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