Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ?

Beladi Nasralla wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Can you recommend me a P&S compact camera which will fit my
> requirements ? For work, I need to make the full pictures of equipment
> located in crevices of buildings. Or, say, full pictures of walls in
> the niches of buildings. In other words, the pictures have to be done
> from a short distance by a wide-angle camera. The LCD screen should be
> articlulated or flippable, so that I would be able to frame and see
> what I am taking, from an akward position (such as from floor).
>
> I used Nikon S4. Its screen is articlulated al'right. However, its
> focal length is 35 mm equivalent. (And I did not use the zoom which
> was 10x in this camera). I was not able to fit the whole equipment
> into the picture.
>
> I also have Panasonic LX1, and its focal length is 28 mm. I think this
> is not wide enough, but definetely better than a 35 mm camera.
>
> I checked the Canon and Panasonic line of cameras on dpreview.com ...
> nothing suitable came out. Maybe someonbe could advise me better ?
> Thanks.

I was looking for the same thing, but unfortunately there are no such
P&S cameras anymore. I love the articulating LCD on my G2.

What you should look for is a used Nikon Coolpix 8400. This has a 24 -
85 mm lens, and a flip out LCD.

There are add-on lens converters for some point and shoot models, but
these usually are 0.8x and will turn a 35mm lens into a 28mm. The bigger
problem is that even the best quality converter is still pretty lousy,
though from the description of what you need to do, the image quality
isn't all that important.

With Canon, you could get the discontinued A630 or A640 and use an
add-on lens, or the still in production S5 IS, and get the articulating
LCD, and use an add-on lens. The current S5 IS plus the Canon WC-DC58A
wide converter, plus the LAH-DC20 lens adapter, would get you down to 27mm.

The problem you have is that everyone that is serious about wide angle
photography has moved onto D-SLRs because the quality is magnitudes
better with a real wide angle lens than with the converters. You could
attach a Zigview to a D-SLR to achieve the capability you need, see
"http://www.zigview.co.uk/".
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

SMS 斯蒂文• å¤� wrote:

<snip>

> There are add-on lens converters for some point and shoot models, but
> these usually are 0.8x and will turn a 35mm lens into a 28mm. The bigger
> problem is that even the best quality converter is still pretty lousy,
> though from the description of what you need to do, the image quality
> isn't all that important.

I should have pointed out that there are even wider angle converters
such as the 0.66 Raynox, which would turn a 35mm lens into a 23mm, or
the 0.7x Raynox which would give you 24.5mm. The wider the converter,
the lower the quality, and none of the converters are all that great to
begin with (Olympus had one good one that was used by a lot of people
even on non-Olympus cameras, but it's discontinued).

The Raynox has 52mm threading. For the S5 IS, you could get the Lensmate
52mm adapter tube (not the Canon adapter tube which is 58mm), and then
get the Raynox DCR-6600Pro ($140), or the Raynox DCR-730 ($70). See
"http://www.lensmateonline.com/newsite/S2.html".

There are also 0.5x converters with 58mm threading, but again the
quality is really poor.

Note that the used Nikon 8400's tend to go for very high prices because
of its uniqueness as the only wide-angle P&S with a tilt/swivel LCD.
You'll probably spend less on and S5 IS ($343 at Amazon, $334 at
Buydig), the Lensmate adapter, and the Raynox conversion lens, but of
course the picture quality won't be as good with the conversion lens.
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

Beladi Nasralla wrote:
[]
> I checked the Canon and Panasonic line of cameras on dpreview.com ...
> nothing suitable came out. Maybe someonbe could advise me better ?
> Thanks.

Nikon Coolpix 8400. 24mm wide-angle. Full swivel LCD.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp8400/

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:51:26 -0800 (PST), Beladi Nasralla <nasra11a.RemoveThis@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Hi there,
>
>Can you recommend me a P&S compact camera which will fit my
>requirements ? For work, I need to make the full pictures of equipment
>located in crevices of buildings. Or, say, full pictures of walls in
>the niches of buildings. In other words, the pictures have to be done
>from a short distance by a wide-angle camera. The LCD screen should be
>articlulated or flippable, so that I would be able to frame and see
>what I am taking, from an akward position (such as from floor).
>
>I used Nikon S4. Its screen is articlulated al'right. However, its
>focal length is 35 mm equivalent. (And I did not use the zoom which
>was 10x in this camera). I was not able to fit the whole equipment
>into the picture.
>
>I also have Panasonic LX1, and its focal length is 28 mm. I think this
>is not wide enough, but definetely better than a 35 mm camera.
>
>I checked the Canon and Panasonic line of cameras on dpreview.com ...
>nothing suitable came out. Maybe someonbe could advise me better ?
>Thanks.
>

You'll probably have to check into many of the high-quality wide-angle adapter
lenses that are now available for a whole array of P&S cameras. You are right on
the mark about needing that articulating LCD. You can place the camera right up
against the opposing wall, flip the screen facing you, and frame and compose the
shot without even needing your head behind the camera, providing even more
distance between camera-lens and subject.

Since the wide-angle adapters will provide all you need, don't be too concerned
about the widest angle of the camera lens itself. Just look for articulating LCD
and that it has the capability for filters or add-on lenses. All adapter lenses
attach with a screw mount unless specifically designed for a particular make and
model of camera. Most newer cameras require a "filter adapter" that
bayonet-mounts to the camera body to which you can attach all your filters and
add-on lenses. If the camera has a filter-thread in the camera lens itself then
a filter/lens-adapter is not needed. You'll have to research which add-on lenses
will mate to the same size filter threads for the camera you chose. Or use
filter step-ring adapter to go from, for example, 52mm camera lens filter thread
to 58mm add-on-lens thread. Adorama carries a whole slew of inexpensive
step-rings and even many of the filter adapters for the more popular cameras.

You might also consider a camera with some decent zoom range on it and a
high-quality fish-eye adapter (my preferred method) because you can use the zoom
to decide how wide of an angle you want to capture, from a full 180 degrees up
to the widest angle of the camera itself just by zooming in on that 180-degree
view. Be reminded that you'll have to fix any barrel distortion in your images
later if using a good fish-eye lens for this purpose. Most every decent editor
has barrel distortion correction tools.

I don't have time to search them all out for you. There's quite a few models,
new and old, that will fit the bill. It takes me about 3 months of research any
time I am hunting down a new camera model for myself. There's that much work put
into it if you want the very best in options and quality. Don't reject older
cameras, some of them are still better than the newer models coming out.
Companies got caught up in the pixel-wars in the last 3 years, where there was
no more resolution nor quality to be had, just more money.


(I think I now see why dslr fans don't care to find the very best P&S cameras.
They don't want to have to do all the work to find the very best lenses amongst
the infinitely huge number of options in P&S cameras. They want their camera
company to tell them what they will need, and be limited to only what their
company provides for them with their dedicated overpriced lenses. How very sad.
How very lazy. How very immature. "Someone feed me please! I don't know how to
research all the lenses and options! Whaa!")
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

"Beladi Nasralla" <nasra11a.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:f881f817-96bc-48dc-be6c-d23db238a3a5@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Nov 26, 12:18 am, ItsNotThatEasy <wh....RemoveThis@why.org> wrote:
>
>> You'll probably have to check into many of the high-quality wide-angle
>> adapter
>> lenses that are now available for a whole array of P&S cameras. ...
>
> Thanks for advice and writing a lot. I was already suggested in the
> post above that the camera suitable to my needs could be Nikon Coolpix
> 8400. Yes, 24 mm is sweet. What is not sweet is its weight, 480 g. I
> would like to be able to crawl among the scientific equipment in a
> robe, and then whip out a compact camera out of my pocket, and take a
> snap. This likely eliminates the "prosumer" cameras (such as 8400). I
> need something compact.
>
> Having a wide-angle add-on lens (or a fish eye) is good from an
> optical point of view... but again, I do not want to take the camera
> out of my pocket, screw the wide-angle add-on lens onto the camera,
> and snap the picture... it is too cumbersome.
>
> I made a more thorough search on dpreview. They have Ricoh Caplio
> GX100... its focal length is even shorter, 24 mm. However, it does not
> have articulated screen... only sweaveable electronic viewfinder,
> which is a joke for my application.
>

WTF is "sweaveable"?
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

Yoshi wrote:
[]
> WTF is "sweaveable"?

Removable: see:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0703/07032801ricohgx100.asp

David
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

On Sun, 25 Nov 2007 15:29:29 GMT, "David J Taylor"
<david-taylor.TakeThisOut@blueyonder.not-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk> wrote:

>Yoshi wrote:
>[]
>> WTF is "sweaveable"?
>
>Removable: see:
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/news/0703/07032801ricohgx100.asp
>
>David
>
He also might have meant to write 'swivelable', if there is
such a word. Anyway the removable Ricoh viewfinder also has
a tilt mode, maybe this is what he means.
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

Beladi Nasralla wrote:

> Having a wide-angle add-on lens (or a fish eye) is good from an
> optical point of view... but again, I do not want to take the camera
> out of my pocket, screw the wide-angle add-on lens onto the camera,
> and snap the picture... it is too cumbersome.

It is _very_ cumbersome. I have the WA converter for my G2, and I don't
rarely use it. First, you have to remove part of the camera, screw on
the tube, and then screw on the lens. Also, the converters, be they
telephoto or wide angle, are not nearly as good in terms of picture
quality as using the camera's real lens. I bought the best converter for
my G2, and it's still not great. The low-end converters are downright
horrible.

> I made a more thorough search on dpreview. They have Ricoh Caplio
> GX100... its focal length is even shorter, 24 mm. However, it does not
> have articulated screen... only sweaveable electronic viewfinder,
> which is a joke for my application.

Yes, the Caplio GX100 is the only point and shoot currently on the
market with 24mm at the wide end, but as you found, the removeable EVF
won't work for you. The problem now is that since so many people are
going to D-SLRs, the selection and features of P&S cameras has been hurt
because there's not much demand for a high-end P&S anymore.

I don't think any camera exists that will work for you as sold. Here's
one thing you could do:

Get the Canon SD800 IS which is 28mm at the wide end, then connect a
little 2.5" LCD TV to the video-out jack, which turns off the camera's
LCD display and shows you the image on the TV's LCD. Voila, you have a
remote LCD display.

See
"http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Axion-2.5-inch-Portable-Rechargeable-Handheld-TV/2655248/product.html"
for one suitable TV, for $43. These little TVs are widely used by video
professionals as portable monitors when doing installations. I used
something similar when installing a satellite dish.
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

Moron Corrector wrote:

Dear Mr. Corrector

> Please refrain from broadcasting your ignorant misinformed opinions.
[...]
> To correct more of your lame information and ignorance, some of these
[...]
> Get your facts straight or turn off your computer. You're wasting the
> valuable time of experienced people when they have to constantly
> correct all the blatant BS that you spew out into the world.

Sir, your parents found a very fitting given name for you.

Sincerely

jue
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

On Nov 25, 11:10 pm, "David J Taylor" <david-tay... DeleteThis @blueyonder.not-
this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk> wrote:
> Beladi Nasralla wrote:
>
> []
>
> > I checked the Canon and Panasonic line of cameras on dpreview.com ...
> > nothing suitable came out. Maybe someonbe could advise me better ?
> > Thanks.
>
> Nikon Coolpix 8400. 24mm wide-angle. Full swivel LCD.
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp8400/

Gee. It looks like I have to use Nikon 8400. It fits the bill
completely. Except that it weights too much (almost 0.5 kg). And I
expected a P&S camera of a mass of about 200 g.

Sigma DP-1 could be what I am looking for... but no, its lens is not
wide enough (28 mm), and it does not have a swivelable LCD screen. Oh
well.
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ? 

Beladi Nasralla wrote:
> On Nov 25, 11:10 pm, "David J Taylor" <david-tay....RemoveThis@blueyonder.not-
[]
>> Nikon Coolpix 8400. 24mm wide-angle. Full swivel LCD.
>>
>> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp8400/
>
> Gee. It looks like I have to use Nikon 8400. It fits the bill
> completely. Except that it weights too much (almost 0.5 kg). And I
> expected a P&S camera of a mass of about 200 g.

I think you will find that at least some of the weight is simply a
reflection of the build quality. Pick up the camera and see what I mean.
I hope it will do the job for you.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Advise me P&S camera with wide angle and articluated LCD ?