Need help deciding on Digi cams.

[Kyle Barker]

my choices are down to teh Cannon Powershot a95 and the Nikon Coolpix 5400.

here is DP's Link to the comparison:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_a95%2Cnikon_cp5400&show=all

tehre are a couple things im not sure what they are, maybe someone here does?

on teh cannon side for Auto Focus :Ai AF TTL 9-point. on teh nikon side it says unknown. am i right in assuming this means there is no auto focus on the nikon? i like to have manual focus, but teh idea of not having auto focus worries me....im sure its somthing easy for teh pros, but manually focusing an animal moving seems like a hard task....

With the white balance....they say 6 and 5 positions. is this just like a "common situation" type of thing? somthing like "cloudy sky", night sky" etc..?

Minimum shutter speed. i dont get this really....they use seconds and thats thrown me off. im leaning towasrd the nikon cause tehir max shutter is 2 times faster (which im only assuming is very adjustable). that would come in handy for takign pictures of animals on the move.


thanks for anyones comments. i am now leaning more towards teh nikon. but we sahll see. would be great if someone with some know how could get into this with me :) be next weekend at the earliest that i am buying it...or longer if i keep learning more stuff...but im pretty excited so i imagine its going to be leave work go bank go store friday :D i have been without for over a year now:eek:



I went with the Nikon Coolpix 5400. Here are some pics from it. keep in mind i have had it for a matter of hours so i still dont know anything about it...so excuse my lack of quality:rolleyes:

also keep in mind these pictures were 2592x1944, but i had to shrink em down to 600x450 for the internet :(

random shot to give idea of colour and whatnot....i have started messing around with ISO, quality, and speed....but im a long way off.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/Picture-110.jpg

This is 90 feet away a tree with moss on it....my first telephoto shot....needs work.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/Picture-114.jpg

this is a bug that is about as long as a dime is wide. my first macro shot. in fact i didnt even knwo it was a macro till i got back home and read what the buttons i was puching did :p This picture looks INCREDIBLE on full size!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/Picture-116.jpg

What the heck, here is the above but i cropped the bug. this is almost unshrunk, just trimmed. i think photo bucket shrinks images to 250, this was 270 somthing.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/Picture-116-croped.jpg

Another tree.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/Picture-124.jpg

And my zoom comparisons. The one on the left is at 1/2 the optical zoom already. the one on the right is lookign on the other side of that tunnel at some people chillin (im a spy) at full tele zoom. that tunnel is i guess about 50ish feet through and i was about another 50 from that.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v478/kada/zoom-comp.jpg

so far i am VERY happy with my cam. i also picked up 2 512 mb cards. staples has them and 1 gig on sale now. 50 for the 512 and 100 (25 mail in rebate) on the 1 gb. i went for the 2 smaller cause they are the same price and if i loose one i still have some pics left. thats my logic anyway.


things that i find to be a pain now are teh flap that covers teh memory card opens really easily. adn the battery cover thing isnt spring loaded.

[Slannesh]

Can't speak for the Nikon as I have no experience with them.

But I know the A95 is a great camera. I know several people who have it and similar models and they're all very happy with them.

If you're taking herp pics a good macro is very important as well. But having all the options for white balancing and shutterspeed is good too for pics of other stuff.

One other thing you may want to check is if either will allow the use of a remote for taking pics. Especially when doing super close macro work it's very important for the camera to be very steady.

I guess something that would be helpful is exactly what are you planning on using your camera for? If it's primarily for taking close up pics of pet herps in controlled environments then the macro stuff is going to be the most important to you but pretty much any modern digicam can do that well. However if you also want to take pictures of stuff like say... stars or Aurora borealis then you want something that you can manually adjust the shutter speed.. the longer the better.

Personally i'm very happy with my Fuji Finepix A330. It's a step down from the A95 and is designed to compete with the A75-80. It takes crap pics of the night sky but does a good job on the Macro and 'general use' but has less manual adjustment ability than I would like. Then again it was $200 less than the A95 when I bought it a year ago too.

Something else I just thought of. The A95 uses a Compact Flash memory card which are very easy to find, but it is quite heavy for it's size. Also uses 4AA batteries if i'm not mistaken. No idea about the Nikon though.

My Fuji uses XD cards which aren't as common and somewhat more expensive than a similarly sized CF Card. but it only uses 2 AA batteries and is MUCH lighter than the A95 as well as somewhat smaller. Size and weight were important considerations for me when I was looking for a camera.

So what i'm trying to get at here is decide a few things first.

1) What are you going to actually use the camera to take pics of and under what lighting conditions?

2) Is size, weight an issue for you?

3) Batteries and media, what type and how many will it use?

[Slannesh]

Just took a look at the comparison chart.

Assuming that the price is about the same on both i'd go for the Nikon if you're doing close up Herp work. Better macro and the ability to use both a remote and an external flash will mean it's a much better suited camera for that task.

[Kyle Barker]

funny i had a long paragraph typed out about my uses...then thought no one wants to read this much...lol.

here are going to be my most common uses, but anythign in between as well.

out in the wild, long distance such as flying brids, deer etc...
also macros of my animals and expecialy bugs.
mushrooms
plants (think macros of flowers, but also landscapes of gardens)
LOTS of forest/tree type pictures (main use probably)
will have lots of water shots...rivers, lakes ocean etc.
caves...and lots of dark shots. not jsut night but forest floors and alogn those lines.

this is goign to be a camera i take hiking all teh time. so it needs to be able to do teh usual mountainscapes, sunsets etc etc....but also i need it for the fine pictures of say a frogs eye, or a mushrooms gills, or the fine details of the leaves in that forest. if that gives you any pictures in your head of the sorta deal im thinking of.

teh nikon is remote, the cannon is not. not a HUGE deal for me but it counts, for the reasons you said. they also both use compact flash cards. i will probabyl be getting 1 gig card and that should probably be enough. till sumemr at least when teh real vacation happens :) the nikon uses some fancy named battery i cannot remmeber teh name of....but it comes with a charger. not a big deal as i buy 3 sets as spares regardless.


the nikon seems to range in price far more than the cannon. on teh cheaper internet end its about the same. im willing to go 100 more than teh cannon (which is 500 here), if need be. but 600 is sorta my absolute max (as was 400 last month:rolleyes: ).

the other thing that is makign me lean towards nikon is they sem to have a good rep for lenses...but then i have heard good things abotu cannon as well...although i will jsut be getting the camera alone for now, i want the option to upgrade it. so lenses are a big deal to me....unfortuantly i know very little about them.

i cannot find any info on the cannon a95 lenses...other than it needs an adapter i cannot find tehm anywhere or get any info on them.

im calling around tomarow at the different places teh nikon site has listed as dealers.

thanks for the input :)

[Slannesh]

heh.. I know what you mean.. i'd LOVE to be able to afford the full meal deal of a properly set up Canon Digital Rebel.... I have a buddy who has one and it takes the most amazing pics.

But at a $1500 pricetag it's a bit out of my reach for the forseeable future ;)

The bug comment you made will lead me to suggest the Nikon. 1cm min Macro range instead of 5cm that the Canon has. My camera has a 10cm min Macro range and it takes nice pics... but not the "Hey look at this one scale" pics that we've all seen posted around :) The ability to add an external flash as well will help out those macro shots too.

For add on lenses i'd say the Nikon and Canon are probably about equal... both companies have been doing optics for a very long time and they both do it very well.

The big downside to the Nikon is size and weight. It's the heavier of the two and almost twice as thick. As I said before one of the big reasons I picked the A330 is cause it's 160grams fully loaded. Less than half the weight of either of the other two and somewhat smaller overall. It easily fits in a jacket pocket or fanny pack with plenty of room for extra batteries and what not.

[Big Mike]

From looking at the comparison, I like the Nikon better...and I'm a Canon guy. The flash hot shoe and more optical zoom are the options that stand out to me.

When talking lenses, both Canon & Nikon have a full range of quality. Both these cameras should be on par with most good point & shoot type cameras. Both cameras have fixed lenses so your only option would be adapters. From what I hear, most adapters degrade the image quality quite a bit...but you would have to judge that for yourself.

It's probably out of your budget and size limit but your best option would really be an SLR camera. Either of these cameras will not really be versatile enough to do a good job of all the things you listed. With an SLR, you can upgrade your system as your photography evolves. With a point & shoot...you are pretty much stuck with what you have. The only advantages that I see to these types of cameras, is that they are small and relatively cheap.

[Double J]

Nikon all the way. I have a coolpix 4100... and I can certainly say it is phenomenal.

[Kyle Barker]

cool thanks for the coments all. size is no biggy to me really....i hike a lot but im sure i can clear some room in teh pack for a camera.

ya i would LOVE a decent SLR camera...but alas they cost too much for me....never mind all teh add ons. from teh beginning i have sorta be planning on moving my up and get a good hang of cameras. photography is a growing hobby for me. so slr is next step. after more reading since i posted this im thinking the nikon. it seems like the better choice if im going SLR later (i cant remember for sure but one of the big online places called it an slr...or slr liek or somthing). but the nikon seems to be far more similar to the direction im headed. im going to call up a couple stores now for prices.

this camera will be like training wheels....

thanks for the advice all. if ya got any more info please share :)

good and bad news...seems it recently discontinued and most stores dont have them(nikon)....im calling around now and i got their price tand they are 500 as well....so im going for the nikon if/once i find one :)

[Raindog]

Howdy Kyle,
I'm a Nikon fan as well but would like to make another suggestion for a P/S in your price range. I have seen good results from the Panasonic DMC-FZ20. Many have claimed that the maximum aperture of it's Leica 432mm lens has a maximum aperture of 2.8 through the entire zoom range, quite amazing if true. Either way, the focal length amounts to a 12X zoom and the camera has image stabilization... wonderful for making use of the zoom.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Panasonic/panasonic_dmcfz20.asp

[Kyle Barker]

thanks for teh suggestion...unfortunatly i have already put a hold (and put money down) on the nikon....there was only 2 left i could find here (discontinued) so i rushed at it. also the panasonic is more money :( on dp it says 500 usd, im getting the nikon for 500 can.

but it does look liek a killer camera! thanks :)

[Kyle Barker]

bumpidy bump :) pics added....im getting better with the thing every minute i think....currently trying to get good macros of cacti seedlings inside at night.

[Slannesh]

Looks great so far Kyle!