You’ll Get What You Need

My Canon S90 Compact was and continues to be a fine digital camera. However, it is now more than 7 years since it was released and my particular unit is well over 6 years old. Since I have long ago decided I’m not hauling a heavy digital SLR and a quartet of lenses aboard ship, it’s important to me to have a smaller, versatile, good quality camera to come with me. I don’t want to mess up a cruise vacation with a camera failure though.

The S90 has always taken fine images even when the light was low. It didn’t become a victim of over mega-pixillation and its sensor was pretty good for the time. The only problem it has is that it is a little short in the telephoto range for seagoing photos. I did well in earlier trips with a 28-300 mm Fuji bridge camera but again it was large and heavy. Was it possible to get something that:

  • Has a decent enough telephoto range.
  • Focuses and makes images a bit faster than the S90 – that one is a bit of a dog when it comes to fast moving objects.
  • Is a good quality unit.
  • Does not go overboard with megapixels.
  • Gives value for money – I am not interested in paying more than I would for a digital SLR and some of the deluxe compact digicams certainly are priced that way.

You can’t always get what you want..but if you try sometimes, you’ll get what you need. (M. Jagger)

And after extensive research, this might be it.

Panasonic Lumix ZS-50.

Now this is last year’s model and if I had been interested in the replacement Lumix ZS-60 I would have waited a while to get one. Unfortunately the older model is rapidly disappearing from the retailer sites, so I acted fast.

The lens, viewfinder and layout of the two models are identical. The newer ZS-60 has a touchscreen, is a bit faster in taking a sequence of photos and shoots 4K ultra high definition video – none of which interests me much. What sold me on the ZS-50 is that it has a 12MP sensor (my S90 has a 10 MP sensor.) The new camera features a similarly sized sensor with 18 megapixels, which is better for HD video but introduces more noise and poorer low light performance. I’ll take the 35% savings and better still photo capability.

I’ve always been  Canon and Nikon guy – you know, real camera makers. Panasonic always meant CD players and microwave ovens. What sold me on the Lumix was its lens – designed by Leica and built by Panasonic to Leica standards. Leica knows a thing or two about camera optics, and combining their expertise with Panasonic’s lens manufacturing and electronics prowess makes a very nice package indeed.

Of course even with a great lens you make some compromises when putting such a zoom range in a pocketable camera. To have this sort of versatility in a “full frame” DSLR would require 3-4 lenses, about 15 Kg in weight, and probably enough money to buy a compact car. Not exactly the solution for a one day stay in port.

A pocket camera needs a small sensor and a relatively slow lens to get to where it is. This means you cannot avoid some noise in photos and relatively poor low light performance (use the flash indoors, dummy!) Also a small camera can be hard to stabilize at extremely long photo lengths – you are unlikely to put it on a tripod, now are you – so a bit of camera jitter and lack of sharpness will be expected. The answer here is to keep your telephoto settings to about half the 30X zoom range if you can.

But hey, you’re on holiday. You are off to experience Toulon or Barcelona – not photograph it for National Geographic. And that’s where the awesomeness of the Leica lens will come in. Sunny ways, my friends. For bright light situations the Lumix is king.

I plan to take the tiny Canon S90 camera along too as a vacation backup. It’s a bit better for low light situations if I find I need it. Either way my total camera weight will be less than 500g. I think I can deal with that.

The Canon isn’t that shabby when it comes to photos either.

Sometimes it’s best to stop obsessing about your equipment and just look for the light and press the button.

 

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