anybody use the canon s5is?

I am still trying to decide between this camera, the G9 or wait for the Sony DSC-H50 coming out in May.

What sold you all on this camera over say the G9? I have not been a big fan of Sony, but the new specs for the H50 look pretty good.
 
I didn't really do any research on that Sony camera.....I bought this one a few months ago and didn't want to wait 6 months for something to come out. I think what really sold me on it was that so many people on RC were using it and posting great pics. It fit my criteria perfectly....I wanted something with a lot of flexibility, but did not want to go DSLR. I wanted at least 10X optical zoom and at least 8MP. When I bought it I was somewhat dissapointed with it's MACRO capabilities, because I couldn't get good focus unless the subject was extremely close to the camera, which is not always possible with aquarium photography. The add-on macro lens solved that problem though. I love this camera....and I trust Cannon over Sony as far as cameras go. I'm sure either would work fine though.
 
Here are a few of pics from my new S5 IS:

Male Lyretail
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Blasto Merletti
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Clowns
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That last picture of the clowns was with the Actinics only, before with the other camera it would have not been possible.
 
in all honesty, i think the way to go is the external flash with a wireless trigger and putting the flash up top, like i did in my last pic post. i learned this from aquaticphotography.com. since we have the hotshoe with the s5, might as well take advantage of it. got the trigger for $35 on ebay and had an old external flash from my grandpa. you can get a sunpak 383 (which i may buy here soon) for like $75 from amazon.com. allows you to take pics at almost any aperture and like 1/500 shutter speed! pretty nice if the fish cooperate!
 
Are there any tricks to this manual focus? It is killing me, I get it focused in and then when I press the shutter button half way it auto focuses again and then it screws the shot up! I did order the Raynox DCR 250 from Lensmate so we will see how that does!
 
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I generally get the subject in focus, press the shutter button halfway down, and then adjust the camera a bit to get focus back. It seems to happen more when the F-stop is at the 2.7 or 3.5 range.
 
Ah so you use the Manual Focus while pressing the shutter button halfway? If so, I think I need more hands!

Also, what ISO do you shoot most often in, right now I am shooting in ISO 80 the most.
 
No, I don't use the manual focus with the shutter pressed in halfway. I have found that if I use the manual focus to get the subject in perfect focus, and then push the shutter down halfway, the subject may become somewhat blurry depending on the settings I am using (expecially when using the macro lens). If this happens i do one of 2 things.

1) with the shutter still pressed in halfway, I move the camera slightly further (or closer) from it's originial location until the focus looks correct.

2) I use manually focus to set the subject slightly out of focus, and then when I press the shutter down halfway the subject becomes more in focus.

I find method #1 much eaiser.....this really only happens to me when using the macro lens, and with the macro lens I don't rely as much on manual focus as it is much more effective to just move the camera further from or closer to the subject with the shutter held down halfway to get the proper focus.

Also, I prefer to not use flash, so I generally can't get away with ISO 80....depending on how well lit the subject is I'm generally at 100, sometimes even 200. (Wish there was a 150)
 
Yeah, so far the manual focus being adjusted after pressing the shutter button halfway is my only beef with the camera, kind of defeats the manual part of manual focus. Is there a setting you can turn of to get rid of this?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12076242#post12076242 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IndyMatt
Yeah, so far the manual focus being adjusted after pressing the shutter button halfway is my only beef with the camera, kind of defeats the manual part of manual focus. Is there a setting you can turn of to get rid of this?

Don't know....but if you find one let me know
 
Got my DC150 lens today and all I can say is WooHoo! It's nice having both the 150 and the 250, but if you can only buy one, definitley go with the 150. I can now take decent shots of thing way far back in my tank, and as a bonus, I am able to achieve better focus when taking pics of things closer in my tank. I just took it out of the box and snapped it on and took a few pics. I didn't really mess with the white balance, etc, so they're not the best pics, but I'll post them anyway. Most of these corals I have never been able to get decent shots of before...

This xenia is the farthest item in my tank...
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I've never been able to take any sort of pic of this SPS before...
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And with the other lens I have to take a pic of the entire frag of this Bali Green Slimer....with this one I can zoom way in.
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This is the first time I've ever got a good shot of my flame hawk as he's always towards the back of my tank
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The next time I post pics they will be better as I will take some time to mess with the settings, but I was excited and just wanted to snap some pics real quick. Here's the rest of what I took. BUY THIS LENS!!!

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Well, I took the plunge and bought this camera from B&H Photo. I seem to really suck at taking pictures. I guess, I just need to practice. Any quick tips?

I hope to get some time this weekend to play with it.
 
It just takes some getting used to...what problems are you having in particular? The add-on lenses at lensmateonline really help.
 
Mainly the MF thing others have mentioned. I think is really a bad design to have MF, but then after pushing the shutter button half way is uses AF to 'improve' the focus.

I will look into getting the 150 macro lense.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12135249#post12135249 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jdokos
Mainly the MF thing others have mentioned. I think is really a bad design to have MF, but then after pushing the shutter button half way is uses AF to 'improve' the focus.

I agree....it would seem like there should be some way to disable this feature.....maybe I'll have to pull the manual out again and investigate
 
Ok, here are a bunch of pics I took of my tank with the new lens. This time I used my tripod and set my white balance, etc.

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