<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13742078#post13742078 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nickb
I know that Titusville and I are providing conflicting suggestions
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Yeah no kidding…it’s a little frustrating. You are trying to treat this camera as a DSLR but it isn’t. All of the settings you have memorized are thrown out of the window here. There are still your basic Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO…but they are all blown out of proportion with this camera. Your advice is great for someone with a 50D, but this isn’t a 50D.
First off, the SX10 IS’s lens set to 100mm isn’t anything like the 100mm Macro lenses you are used to. It has specifically been and purposefully designed to imitate this one:
*not my photo, daughter, or (in my dreams) lens
Pictured above is the Canon 500mm f/4. The SX10 IS’s 100mm lens actually “zooms in†(notice the quotation marks…very important), even more than the lens pictured. The SX10 IS “imitates†going all the way out to 560mm. Now taking a picture of an aquarium with a lens like that is ridiculous. Taking a picture of an aquarium with the SX10 IS set to 100mm is just as ridiculous. He gets all the reach and the high shutter speed demands right along with it. This is why I told the OP to have a minimum of 1/600 when zooming in like that.
Now the SX10 IS’s lens doesn’t look anything like that mammoth beast of beige glory pictured above because it isn’t. This is still just a 100mm lens, and a rather small one at that. So, when he is zoomed all the way out to “560mmâ€Â, he still has the aperture properties of a 100mm lens. Well what about the wide end? Zoomed all the way out to 5mm, the SX10 IS imitates what you know as 28mm. It still has the aperture properties of a 5mm lens though. So, f/2.8 to the SX10 IS is like f/11 for us. f/8 for the SX10 IS is like f/50. I am making these numbers up but you get the idea.
What is the cause of all this? Go back to page 1 and count how many times I said the word “Image Sensorâ€Â. Hold on I’ll count. THIRTEEN TIMES! His sensor is 5.6 times smaller than 35mm film! This explains why the SX10 IS is able to “zoom in†as much as it can. It sacrificed just about everything else we hold sacred for this ability. I can imagine your DSLR has either a 1.6x (Canon) or 1.5x (Nikon) crop factor. Well the SX10 IS has a 5.6x crop factor! It also means everything you learned about shutter speed, and aperture, and ISO, and focal length, and depth of field, and most of the other stuff goes out the window. Everything is different here.
Here is what the SX10 IS does to get all this “zoom powerâ€Â.
I took this picture at an air show last weekend. It was taken at 200mm and as you can see I didn’t have anywhere near enough reach.
The SX10 IS would have seen the same image (pretend I took it at 100mm) but on EVERY image it takes what you see and cuts the edges off. I used a grid overlay to try to make this picture 5 times bigger (my own camera had a 1.6 crop factor). So you get this:
That is the image I would have gotten with about a 1000mm lens (accept with the quality of the original). So in essence you could consider the SX10 IS an all time 5.6x digital zoom with 100mm lens. Now the XS10 IS is till a 10mp camera, and it crams very one of those mega pixels into that tiny little space. High numbers of megapixels can actually hurt you here. This is, for one instance, why the ISO disturbance mentioned earlier is so bad. Now if a manufacturer backs off and says "you know, you would probably get an even better image with less mega pixles", they wouldn't be able to sell cameras because the other guys would add more. The OP said it himself "I really expected more coming from a 6mp camera to a 10mp camera". Now I'm not saying this camera would be better with less megapixel, but there is a point (not far away) where that will be the case. Much more importiant than the number of megapixles is the quality of those megapixles. When you cram 10,000,000 of them into a little box compared to a full frame box like the big picture...the quality really goes down fast. My camera is also 10mp but each
individual pixle's quality is vastly superior.
Now to the OP, if you are planning on taking pictures of airplanes with this camera keep it. If you just want to take pictures of your family and tank I think the G10 would be a much better option. The amount of zoom this camera has for a reef tank is so beyond overkill I can’t even explain it. Set your lens to 18mm and you have what almost every photographer on this forum uses for their tanks. A couple of the Nikon guys go all the way out to what you know as 26mm. A guy I know has a lustful 180mm Macro so that would be like 32mm to you. Beyond that you’re the only example I can think of. Some of us are lucky enough to own lenses like the one pictured with the little girl above, but unless you’re talking about great white sharks feeding on seals 300 yards off the beach, I don’t think any of them have ever been used to shoot sea life.
-Rant Over-