info on the Canon Powershot series? mixed use.

[Sk8r]

I'm looking at this for a Christmas gift, so there's time: the Powershot as advertised has many excellent points, but outside of taking pix of little flitty, fastmoving fish and detailed pix of corals, one use it will be put to, so would like recommendations on that---it will also be doing some indoor sports photography, and having a digital that has a fast autofocus under zoom in lowlight conditions is really important, too.

Can this one camera do both jobs, and how fast is its autofocus? THe one we have takes forever to click the shutter.

Any info, experience would be very welcome.

 

[gregr]

Generally speaking low light and fast autofocus don't go together. Almost every camera has trouble focusing in low light to some extent. Regarding the sports pics- most people look for a long telephoto lens for sports, a long lens and fast aperture (f2.8 is better than f4... the smaller the fnumber the faster the lens). All those big black and white lenses are pro sports events are 600mm f4 lenses- that's what the pros use. Which Powershot are you looking at?

 

[Sk8r]

THe S5. I know what you mean about the autofocus problem, especially with these mathematically-calculated 'zooms.' Our other is---I think it's an Olympus---that takes 3x as long as my monster Canon Eos, and that little camera is the one that needs replacement. Since we're photographing at rinkside of a small arena ice, the distances aren't as extreme as, say, a Mariners game, but the action is fast and if you wait for that little camera, you've missed it. It also can't possibly catch fish, its other job---the Eos is like an elephant gun---takes an elephant to carry it, and steadying it is a pita, so having a light, small camera to do both jobs would be a real convenience. Lugging the monster to the rink is another pita, and a risk to the camera that I don't like to take---I use it more for on the road travel, where I can stow it and bring it out at photo op. I don't know if the difference in performance between the two is insurmountable, in the fact that the Eos is a true replace-the-lens camera, and the other is a built-in zoom? But even for the built-in zooms, we have to have one of the world's slowest actions, and would like to do significantly better.

 

[gregr]

I hear ya. Most if not all the point and shoots have a bit of a delay on the shutter release button. You can try a work-around though, and it works pretty well once you get the hang of it. The trick is to get the autofocus locked on-- so aim the camera at the area where the picture will be taken (as best you can) and press the shutter button halfway to get the focus locked. Keep the button pressed halfway and wait for the composition to be what you want and then press the button the rest of the way to take the pic. There won't be a significant delay that way. Of course it's not a perfect solution but it does help a lot.

 

[Sk8r]

THat's so. I think the real answer is to take said recipient down to the mega-camera-store and try some cameras. I'd hoped to save some money online, but this sounds like one of those 'all are bad but some are badder' kinds of problem in this one respect. The camera we've got is not the world's best focus, either, so we'll be looking at sharpness of focus as well as speed. It's probably a case of, too, if I didn't have the big Eos in constant comparison to this little camera, we might be more satisfied with its performance. It's NOT a big camera, and there's a reason it didn't cost as much as the big guy. Sigh.