Digital Camera

This might not be useful but I'm bored while I wait to go tramping tomorrow, so I'll babble about my camera for a while since you've opened the door. I had a Canon Powershot A710IS for 18 months since the end of 2006 (in the $350 range). It's not a specifically marketed outdoor camera, but I also don't go to unreasonable lengths to protect it from the elements. (I bought it specifically to take lots of photos when tramping, so it doesn't stay hidden away.) I'll always have it secured to something to reduce the dropping risk, it lives in an often sealed zip-lock back inside the camera case on my hip-belt, and I do my best to shelter it when its out and dry it off, but it comes out in the elements whenever I want to take a photo. I do stash it during major river crossings. Obviously everyone's different, but I find it brilliant for the type of photos I like. It weighs about 200 grams, 2 rechargeable AA batteries get me comfortably through a weekend and the resolution's good, and if I get stuck away from home without a charger I can buy more. Most importantly for me though, it comes with nice optics, the image stabiliser's very useful (esp since I hate using a flash), and the AI makes good automatic decisions when you let it, especially once you learn a couple of tricks to give it hints about what you're looking for. That sort of thing is great when there's not much time to set something up, which suits me well because my favourite photos are those with people candidly in them... and people aren't good at looking candid for long when there's a camera out. The photos it takes seem to stand up quite well against people using some of the more specialised SLR cameras out there in the odd tramping photo competition I've entered things in to, so it's been something I've found really worthwhile. In mid-2008 the LCD of my A710 died, maybe from too much condensation or something of that nature. That was 7000+ photos later so I think I had my money's worth. Within a few days I bought a Powershot A720IS, nearly identical, because I was so happy with the photos I was getting. I think the current "equivalent" model is the Powershot A2000, but they've done away with an optical viewfinder which I dislike. I barely use the viewfinder, but it's valuable in very bright light when it's impossible to see the LCD. A few months ago when overseas, someone else dropped my A720 from an elephant, and it landed hard open lens down onto muddy ground, which irked me because I don't often let others touch it unless I trust them to look after it as I would, and that was one of the very few times when the wrist strap wasn't being used. I think they might have thought less of it because even after just a year, it looks so weathered on the outside. Despite hard knocks and durability not being in its marketing profile, though, it's still going strong. When I was researching things in late 2006, I didn't like the photos produced by some of the others. Point and shoot cameras of that type get marketed on a small number of buzz-words like "megapixels", or the colour of the camera, or something else clear and obvious at the point of sale. I think less obvious things like optics often get sacrificed to cut corners, so it's definitely worth researching them as you seem to be -- especially if the camera you want has its main marketing point as shockproof or waterproof.

They got rid of the viewfinder entirely from the A series now....... I wish they would get rid of the LCD screen and have a nice big viewfinder instead. Just checked, The A1100IS has a optical viewfinder, but the next model down the A480 has none :( Canon's are the only compacts still with Optical viewfinders, a few of the other manufacuters make a camera with Electronic which is just as good... I hope they do not go away entirely.

They are not waterproof, and probably not even water resistant but there are a few compact dSLR on the market now and they (minus lens) are lighter then a few of the bigger compacts. The Panasonic DMC-GF1 and Olympus E-P1 are examples.

I quite like using the LCD to help with accurate framing, but definitely find a viewfinder (optical or electronic) useful when it's too bright. I noticed the A1100IS having a viewfinder, but then you have to go from a 6x back to a 4x optical zoom, and I find that extra optical zoom tremendously useful. I'd rather have a smaller LCD and get a viewfinder as a backup in any case. According to some reviews I've found, they've also cut the manual controls, and no support for attaching conversion lenses. It's not a genuine replacement. I asked a guy in one of the shops why they'd lost the viewfinder, and he spouted something about improvements to LCD technology meant they didn't need it anymore. There may or may not be some truth to this but from his composure I think he didn't have a clue and just wanted to sell me something.

That is something I struggled with using the point-and-shoot. Not having a view finder just left me guessing what I was taking in most daylight. My wife has a wonderful older Olympus Mu with the epic optical zoom and lovely image quality. Something like that 'environment' proof would be wonderful.

For what it's worth on my 720 I've found I can nearly always use the LCD. It's just once every couple of months when the sun's in a very bad place and I can't. That said, I also tend to take three or four photos sometimes with slightly different settings on many occasions (memory's cheap these days) and filter out the less successful ones afterwards. I don't exactly look at the LCD and expect it to give me an accurate representation of the final photo (besides framing), and for that reason I also almost never delete stuff because I often find photos I thought were bad can look very different on a better display.

I am the opposite, I take 98% of my photos using the Viewfinder and only resort to the Screen for a few strangle angles. . I beleive there is two main reasons for removing the Viewfiner, the first is to save money to keep the accounting department happy. The second is to allow for a even bigger screen which keeps the marketing department happy.