Photography / Camera chat thread.

[keith_d]

I think you've discovered one of the problems with long exposures - thermal noise.

Below a second or so, the noise is much less than the signal from the light striking the sensor. But as we take longer and longer exposures the noise mounts up and eventually results in grainy looking pictures.

Camera manufacturers have recognised this problem and some take a second exposure straight after the first with the shutter closed. The second exposure is subtracted from the first to try and reduce the noise. This helps to hide particularly noisy pixels, but can't remove the random element.

Keith.

[Jimmy2Feet]

Ok. Well at least i know i am not doing anything wrong. That is a good start. Is there.nothing.i can do.to be able.to.reduce.it? Or it photoshop really going to be the best tool?

[TC3]

while photoshop is ok there are better plug ins/stand alone programmes that do a better job of retaining detail while reducing noise. for example neat image is one i have used in the past... google it.

[Filipe M.]

Also make sure you have Long Exposure NR turned on in your settings (I don't know where it is in the D3100 as Nikon just loves to scramble stuff around, especially in consumer bodies). This is the setting Keith was saying will take a second blank exposure and subtract it to the first one. The camera will seem to be locked after the first exposure, but it'll be in effect processing the second exposure, so nothing to worry about (except if you need to shoot in rapid succession...).

[grimey121uk]

Hi,

I have been trying to work out what i have been doing wrong, to try and put it right, (if anything)

In low light photography i have been getting a really grainy result. i have been able to get rid of it mostly through photoshop when it does happen, but there must be something i am doing that is causing it.

Is it a setting? technique? or my equipment?

I am trying to keep my ISO setting as low as poss, normally 100 or 200, but is there something i am missing.

As an example went out in the lightning tonight and got the following pic, but as i am sure you will also see there is a lot of grain/noise in the photo.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3456/5694553914_842314234a_b.jpg


Taken with:

Nikon D3100
18-55 kit lens @ 24mm
F/8
Shutter on bulb mode, total exposure 6.3s
ISO 200

Cheers in advance

Stunning photo by the way

Its not really to do with the camera, the noise is amplified due to the lack of light in the photo, when you have little light noise will always show. Its a bit like a stero, turn it up when no music is playing and you will hear the background hiss/noise. Basicaly you image has little in terms of light to hide the background noise. This is just a limitation of what the camera can do.

Thermal noise isnt really an issue until you get very long exposures, ive taken many pictures with 30+ second exposures and the amount of noise is limited to how well exposed the shot is.

If you have an editing package try lowering the exposure on the shadows a tad.

Avoid the inbuilt noise reduction, it lowers noise but introduces artifacts and pixelation

Was this shot raw or jpg? - if it was jpeg then te camera will try to rectify the exposure, it may think the shot is underexposed and then boost the exposure which will amplify any noise massivly - all of my night photography is done raw

[DarrenSV650S]

I take it you wouldn't get noise on a film camera?

Couldn't you slightly over-expose the shot slightly then edit it darker? I've taken shots of my garden when it was a full moon and in the pic it almost looks like daylight.

[grimey121uk]

I take it you wouldn't get noise on a film camera?

Couldn't you slightly over-expose the shot slightly then edit it darker? I've taken shots of my garden when it was a full moon and in the pic it almost looks like daylight.

You can get noise (grain i should say) on film depending how its processed (if its pushed harder while processing etc)

As a general rule though film can withstand extremely long exposures a lot better than digital

[Filipe M.]

Its not really to do with the camera, the noise is amplified due to the lack of light in the photo, when you have little light noise will always show. Its a bit like a stero, turn it up when no music is playing and you will hear the background hiss/noise. Basicaly you image has little in terms of light to hide the background noise. This is just a limitation of what the camera can do.

You're slightly contradicting yourself here ;) . It is to do with the camera, some cameras are just better than others at dealing with noise, both thermal and shadow noise, but you are absolutely right in saying it's only really visible due to the (lack of) light.

Thermal noise isnt really an issue until you get very long exposures, ive taken many pictures with 30+ second exposures and the amount of noise is limited to how well exposed the shot is.

Again, that will depend on the sensor, some will start developing thermal noise much sooner than others. I believe the D90 will allow people to use Long Exposure NR on every exposure above 8 secs, which means it might be a concern from such "short" long exposure times. I don't know what the cutoff limit for the D3100 is, but given the higher pixel density I wouldn't be surprised if it was lower.

Breaking News: I've just looked it up, and apparently the D3100 doesn't have a different setting for Long Exposure NR or "normal" NR; anyway, if my thinking is right, if you shoot RAW and leave NR on, the camera will only be able to use Long Exposure NR, but there's nothing like trying. Turn it on, shoot a 15 sec exposure and see what happens after that: if the camera seems to lock up for the same amount of time with "processing NR" or something to that effect on the screen, it's doing it's thing.

If you have an editing package try lowering the exposure on the shadows a tad.

Avoid the inbuilt noise reduction, it lowers noise but introduces artifacts and pixelation

"Normal" noise reduction will do this, leading to a loss of detail (the image will look smeared), and it will only affect jpg output. Long Exposure NR on Nikon cameras will, as explained before, create a second "blank" shot right after the first one to get a noise profile from the sensor, which will then be subtracted to the original image. Since this is not the normal noise reduction process, instead being a pixel by pixel thing, this won't affect detail as much as the normal NR (if any), and that's why it also works with raw.

Was this shot raw or jpg? - if it was jpeg then te camera will try to rectify the exposure, it may think the shot is underexposed and then boost the exposure which will amplify any noise massivly - all of my night photography is done raw

I'm not sure the D3100 will try to rectify anything, even in jpg, unless you have Active D-Lighting on. If you do, then if the meter detects a high contrast scene it'll lower your exposure by selecting a faster shutter speed than normal (up to 1 stop faster) to preserve highlight details (and avoid blowing everything to white), and then apply an inverted S-Curve to the final jpg to bring the shadows back to where they should be. Depending on how underexposed your shadows were in the first place, this will increase shadow noise.
If you shoot raw, then this is a setting you will want to turn off and make sure it stays like that, for the reasons mentioned earlier.

I take it you wouldn't get noise on a film camera?

Couldn't you slightly over-expose the shot slightly then edit it darker? I've taken shots of my garden when it was a full moon and in the pic it almost looks like daylight.

The camera meter will always react to the amount of light it sees, without paying any attention to the time of day (or night). It's used to seeing the world in 18% grey, so that's what it will try to bring it up to, effectively making it look like daylight because it doesn't know it's supposed to look dark. It's up to the photog to use the exposure compensation button (negative, in this situation) and tell the camera that it's flippin' dark out there and not supposed to look like that! ;)

You can get noise (grain i should say) on film depending how its processed (if its pushed harder while processing etc)

As a general rule though film can withstand extremely long exposures a lot better than digital

Err, you will get grain with film anyway you process it, because that is how film is made in the first place ;) . Different processing will only make it more or less visible, but every film will have it's own different grain signature, and people who know their stuff will often use specific film stock for specific jobs depending on how much or how little grain they want.

As for the long exposure bit, I beg to differ. Film won't develop thermal noise (since it doesn't have any electronic components), which is a plus, but there are other downsides, that are to me worse than dealing with thermal noise:

- reciprocity failure: with digital, twice the time is twice the exposure; with film,... well, let's try to read the table that you might actually have with you to know exactly how much extra time you need to get twice the exposure ;) and since it's dark (otherwise you wouldn't probably be taking a long exposure), good luck reading it without finding a small flashlight! :lol: Ok, that's annoying but can be dealt with. It just means a you might need a 30 sec exposure to do what a digital camera (at the same ISO / aperture combination) would get in 10 sec;

- colour shifting: with digital, there's no colour shift in long exposures; with film, your colours will start shifting because some colour layers are more sensitive than others, and this will be different depending on exposure length. Obviously not a problem for B&W film, but with colour film you might have to use filters to get your colour balance right (and I'm not even talking about colour temperature). That alone kills it for me.

... and then the usual digital advantage. When shooting long exposures, instant feedback is even more valuable to me than in a normal daylight situation, because it allows me to calibrate my exposures to what I'm seeing at the time. Film? Not so much, and it might mean wasting a lot of it to get decent results.

As much as I love film (and I've recently fallen in love with Kodak Ektar :smt007 ), long exposure work is not what I would use it for. ;)

[grimey121uk]

As for the long exposure bit, I beg to differ. Film won't develop thermal noise (since it doesn't have any electronic components), which is a plus, but there are other downsides, that are to me worse than dealing with thermal noise:


This is very dependant on the type of scene, the shot posted had no external light (other than the lightning), so with the correct aperture the film could of been exposed for long periods of time without ill effect, after all it doesn't know if the shutter is open or closed, if there is no light nothing will be recorded.


I know tonnes of people who shoot film for under ground work, "torch paining" the scene for up to 5 mins, however with digital noise creeps in ever so slightly around the 1min mark and increases fast.

[Filipe M.]

This is very dependant on the type of scene, the shot posted had no external light (other than the lightning), so with the correct aperture the film could of been exposed for long periods of time without ill effect, after all it doesn't know if the shutter is open or closed, if there is no light nothing will be recorded.


I know tonnes of people who shoot film for under ground work, "torch paining" the scene for up to 5 mins, however with digital noise creeps in ever so slightly around the 1min mark and increases fast.

Fair point! :cool:

[Jimmy2Feet]

Wow!!!!!

Not had the chance to check up on this over the weekend!!! lots of information! i will read through it all properly tonight and try to digest it all!

Yes it was shot in RAW, i do everything in RAW,

Filipe, NR is something that i hadn't even come accross up to now! i will have a look at that tonight and see what its all about, i dont know if it is on or off!

Grimey, cheers for the editing tip, i will play around with the exposure and see what i come up with.

What i dont understand however, is i took one of the moon a little while ago, and got no noise at all?!? why is this? because the moon is so bright? and the exposure was that much lower?

[Filipe M.]

What i dont understand however, is i took one of the moon a little while ago, and got no noise at all?!? why is this? because the moon is so bright? and the exposure was that much lower?

Most probably, yes. Even when it's pitch black down here on Earth, the Moon is still a sunlit object in space, and it's distance to the light source isn't much different than ours. What this means is a correct exposure to the full moon will be within 1 stop to a "Sunny 16" rule exposure (shutter speed= 1/ISO @ f/16 or equivalent exposure), making the sky next to it pitch black.
If the sensor isn't getting any light from all that blackness, all that will get registered is electronic and thermal noise, and again, since your exposure was so short in the first place, thermal shouldn't even come into it (except if you're shooting in an unusually hot night ;) ), and electronic noise should be low enough not to be noticeable.

[Jimmy2Feet]

that makes complete sense, i did think that was the case, but now i know! everything is starting to make sense with this photography game, only 4 months now with a camera, and i am actually following what you are saying filipe........i remember when i first got the camera, a lot of what you were writing went straight over my head! :)

[Milky Bar Kid]

Arrrrgh. I am on the verge of giving up on all this because the theory behind is just so god damn complicated! Really struggling to get my head around it all.

[Filipe M.]

Arrrrgh. I am on the verge of giving up on all this because the theory behind is just so god damn complicated! Really struggling to get my head around it all.

It isn't, really. You don't need to know half of this stuff to get really good pictures. You only need to know where to point the camera and what you want it to do for you (and that is where some of the theory comes in handy, but certainly not all of the stuff we talk about here). ;)

[Milky Bar Kid]

But I don't know how to get it to do what I want it to do. That is my issue. Grrr.

If I can't do something pretty much straight away, I don't like it. Too much of a perfectionist.

[Filipe M.]

But I don't know how to get it to do what I want it to do. That is my issue. Grrr.

If I can't do something pretty much straight away, I don't like it. Too much of a perfectionist.

One step at a time then. You're pretty much dealing with only 4 "technical" variables at any given time (aperture, shutter speed, ISO - the exposure triangle - and lens focal length), and most of the time you'll only be in direct control of one of the triangles corners and focal length, so learn what each one does to the artistic part and start from there. Allow the camera to do the heavy lifting, that's why they have a CPU inside. ;)

[mattneighbour]

Filipe, you forgot focus ;-)

The beauty of digital cameras is that you can experiment and see the results straight away, when I learnt there would be a week delay as the film was processed!

Perhaps you'd benefit from a good book on photography, I'd even consider old books geared towards film cameras because the principles are the same and they won't distract you with the other variables such as white balance, noise reduction etc, rather they should cover the basics of aperture, shutter speed, focal length, ISO.

[Milky Bar Kid]

I did ask Anna to set me "exercises" to do a couple of times and I did enjoy that but then I kinda forgot about it....

[Filipe M.]

Filipe, you forgot focus ;-)

I consider focus to be more of an artistic decision, rather than a technical one. ;)

I did ask Anna to set me "exercises" to do a couple of times and I did enjoy that but then I kinda forgot about it....

Back to it then ;)

[Milky Bar Kid]

Get her told to get her thinking cap on then!

[Filipe M.]

Get her told to get her thinking cap on then!

lol okay :cool:

[anna]

Get her told to get her thinking cap on then!

Then how about taking part in this weeks comp thread ;)

[Milky Bar Kid]

That's too difficult. So there.

[Filipe M.]

That's too difficult. So there.

What's so difficult about shooting an egg?






... actually it isn't easy, but there's nothing like trying and see where you're going with it. :p

[Bluefish]

Any of us can take a pic of an egg, it's the making it look good that's not working ;)

[TC3]

Any of us can take a pic of an egg, it's the making it look good that's not working ;)

yep and also coming up with a different pic to what others post. Not sure it is really a good topic as it is a bit limited but that could just be my brain :)

[Bluefish]

How doo peeps, i have been hired to take the pics of a couples wedding, and to put the pics on a disc for them, the question is, what format to take pics in?, now i would assume Raw, but if i do that then they wouldn't open up their normal Photo viewer, windows pictures or what ever, so should i take in Raw and Jpeg, and then transfer the Jpeg's onto a disc for them?.
Any other tips for taking pics at weddings greatfully received, cheers andy.

[Bluefish]

yep and also coming up with a different pic to what others post. Not sure it is really a good topic as it is a bit limited but that could just be my brain :)

I have been struggling with this theme, i have an idea, but i'm not gonna tell ;)

[TC3]

How doo peeps, i have been hired to take the pics of a couples wedding, and to put the pics on a disc for them, the question is, what format to take pics in?, now i would assume Raw, but if i do that then they wouldn't open up their normal Photo viewer, windows pictures or what ever, so should i take in Raw and Jpeg, and then transfer the Jpeg's onto a disc for them?.
Any other tips for taking pics at weddings greatfully received, cheers andy.

Something as important as a wedding has to be shot in RAW in my opinion. Personally it is all i ever shoot now and create jpegs from them.

Get to know where the location is for each stage so you can plan ahead for where you want to plonk yourself down. Grab as many candid pics as you can of guests and the couple and make sure you know ahead how you want them to pose. Discuss that with them so that they will be at ease and you get the pics you both want.

Off camera flash is the way to go if you must use flash or at least use bounce flash etc.

No pressure but dont mess up :)

[Bluefish]

Lol, yeah we have just done a run through tonight, so as long as it don't rain on the day, things should be ok :rolleyes:, so i should set the camera to take in raw and jpeg as this saves time converting each file, you obviously get less pics out of a card but still plenty, and if the jpeg's are ok put them on the disc, but if any need altering, alter the raw file then convert to jpeg and place on the disc, simples yes?

[TC3]

Lol, yeah we have just done a run through tonight, so as long as it don't rain on the day, things should be ok :rolleyes:, so i should set the camera to take in raw and jpeg as this saves time converting each file, you obviously get less pics out of a card but still plenty, and if the jpeg's are ok put them on the disc, but if any need altering, alter the raw file then convert to jpeg and place on the disc, simples yes?

In my opinion you would likely be able to better most if not all the jpegs with some sort of post processing which is why i dont bother with em and just shoot RAW. No harm in doing it how you want though. A pic i am not be happy with you might think is great so all comes down to personnel taste.

What camera and lens you using?

[Bluefish]

Okey dokey, that makes sense, am using d90 with 18-105 lens, took a few pics tonight to just get an idea of scale, distances and things. It's not for a few weeks yet, this is being done on the cheep as it were, as they cannot afford the £1000 required for a pro's standard package, and they were told £600 for some one to do the same as i am doing for them, but for a whole lot less than that.

[TC3]

Okey dokey, that makes sense, am using d90 with 18-105 lens, took a few pics tonight to just get an idea of scale, distances and things. It's not for a few weeks yet, this is being done on the cheep as it were, as they cannot afford the £1000 required for a pro's standard package, and they were told £600 for some one to do the same as i am doing for them, but for a whole lot less than that.

Well you have a good camera and a fair lens. Have you thought about adding the 35.1.8 for low light pics? They could buy you that as a thank you ;)

[Bluefish]

Well that would be nice, won't hold my breath though ;)

[Filipe M.]

I'd probably try to rent (or borrow) an 85 f/1.8 or a 50 f/1.4 (or 1.8 ) for headshots. The wide aperture will allow you (like TC3 said) to shoot in low light but also to blur the background to oblivion for those creamy portrait shots.
If you're able to get your hands on either of them don't forget to practice a lot before the day, though. Shooting wide open will allow you much faster speeds than you're used to with your 18-105, but there's no VR and you simply have no margin for error on focusing, especially with portraits. The eyes always need to be in focus, period. If the person is slightly sideways, then the near eye must be in focus.
If you're shooting at a slightly bigger distance and can't really focus on people's eyes because they're too small on the frame, if they're standing up you can focus on the chests as they'll be in the same plane as the eyes (and stop the lens down a bit to allow for some margin).
In low light this might actually help you, because the camera will have a harder time focusing; aim for contrasting lines, and whenever possible use the centre sensor (it's more sensitive) and then recompose.

Set the camera on continuous drive (3 or 4 fps will do) and when in doubt (like when your shutter speeds drop too much) shoot in small burts of 4 or 5 shots; you'll eat memory cards and battery like this (take more!), but it might save your ****.

And like TC3 said, no pressure, but don't screw up :lol:


Oh, and please avoid using the built-in flash in low light, unless you want red eye paradise and flat light on people's faces. If possible, get your hands on an external unit and bounce it. And don't be afraid of using it in broad daylight to lift shadows (again, practice before the day).

[Bluefish]

Thanks for the info there Filipe, but doubt i'm going to get hold of one of those lenses, they are doing this non pro, very non pro lol, although hopefully i will come up with some decent shots, Though if it's peeing down and shots have to be taken inside then this will present some problems, although the test shots i took seemed to come out ok, i guess you can't really tell untill it's the real thing, still off to the camera shop in the morn.

[Filipe M.]

Okay, so while we're all here arguing about cr@ppy 12 and 16 MP DSLRs like D90's and D7000's, there's some people out there playing with nice toys with funny names like Hasselblad, capable of stuff like this (http://www.hasselblad.com/promotions/h4d-200ms-jonathan-beer.aspx).

Choose 1 shot on the left hand side and go full zoom on the car's rear tyre. Then choose 6 shot on the right hand size and try and match the zoom. Bearing in mind that the left hand side picture is already 50 MP, I have to say I'm ever so slightly impressed with the 200 MP results... :shock:

For the tech geeks among you, they get the 200 MP by taking 6 shots while shifting the sensor and then extracting every possible bit of information out of it and combining the results into what you can see there.

And it can be yours for a measly €32.000,00 plus taxes! 8-[

[TC3]

Filipe that is some amazing technology! However it is obviously for specialist application but i wonder how well it works if the camera and subject are not perfectly still. The D7000 is only 4 mp more than my old D90 yet you need a steady hand as the extra mega pixels do show any slight camera shake you would otherwise might not see on the D90 at similar shutter speeds. They must have a brilliant kind of stabilization system.... did not read it all :)

[Filipe M.]

Everything has to be perfectly still for that to work, both camera and subject. If either of them is moving, then you should be shooting in the piddly "default" 50 MP mode :lol: (single shot). If on the other hand you have a perfectly static subject and what I can imagine has to be a very sturdy tripod (or the camera screwed into a concrete pillar...), then you can use the 6-shot 200 MP mode, where the camera will basically (and this is where it gets clever) take 6 shots with the sensor in the original position and 5 others, shifted by 1/2 and 1 pixel ( :shock: ) and putting everything together.

Thinking about it, it's a damn ingenius way of capturing boatloads more of information with a single sensor. Since we're still talking about a colour filtered Bayer sensor (like every DSLR except for the Sigma Foveon-based ones), this means the "default" 1-shot mode will only capture either red, blue or green colour information per pixel, and then use black magic, I mean, clever algorithms to extrapolate the other 2 colours from the surrounding pixels. Of course this kills detail, accuracy and micro-contrast, which is only offset by the fact that we have bucketloads of pixels to choose from (Foveon sensors capture all 3 colour information at every pixel).

By shifting the sensor by 1 pixel to the side, then up, and then up and to the side, with the help of very, very precise piezo cristals (we're talking microns here! :shock: ), they are able to capture all of the color information for each and every pixel. Take for instance a very small bit of the image, captured by a square of 2 by 2 pixel:

- starting with the default shot, we have the typical bayer matrix:

R G
G B

- if we move it one pixel to the side, we get:

G R
B G

- back to the original position and up:

G B
R G

- and then finally one up and one to the side:

B G
G R

This way every pixel gets every colour information, meaning we get 50 megapixel x 3 colours. This will be their 4 shot method.

If then we take another couple of pictures, but instead of shifting the sensor 1 pixel we only do it by half ( %/"k me, that's even more impressive....), then we're able to get twice the spatial resolution on the bottom row. Shift it up by one and to the side by 1/2, and we get the same for the top row. And since we already have full colour information for every surrounding pixel, it's quite easy to use these new pixels only for detail, and extrapolate colour from the original ones, resulting in effectively 50 MP x 2 colour + 50 MP of detail per row. Times 2 rows, and there you have a perfectly usable, if slightly gigantic 200 MP file.

Why didn't I think of this first?! :rolleyes:

Of course, Hasselblad say they'll convert previous H4D-50's to this new system and the owners only have to pay €7.000,00 (plus tax). :mrgreen:

[Bri w]

Filipe that is some amazing technology! However it is obviously for specialist application but i wonder how well it works if the camera and subject are not perfectly still. The D7000 is only 4 mp more than my old D90 yet you need a steady hand as the extra mega pixels do show any slight camera shake you would otherwise might not see on the D90 at similar shutter speeds. They must have a brilliant kind of stabilization system.... did not read it all :)

This maybe why I'm seeing some blurry shots. I've been disapointed with some of my shots using the sort of shutter speeds I used to use. I'd pretty much decided to ramp up the SS just in case, and your post also goes some way to confirming that.

[Filipe M.]

This maybe why I'm seeing some blurry shots. I've been disapointed with some of my shots using the sort of shutter speeds I used to use. I'd pretty much decided to ramp up the SS just in case, and your post also goes some way to confirming that.

Increased sensor resolution could (and will) be a factor for blurry shots, and your technique will be put to the test, but other possible causes might be:

- If you're using VR lenses, you have to make sure to allow them enough time to settle before taking the shot (1 sec is usually enough);

- Still related to VR lenses, some specialists say you should turn it off entirely when shooting faster than 1/500 s (this value is related to half the sampling frequency of the VR system while it's tracking your movement). If you go above the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling frequency), you will get aliasing errors that might actually do more harm than good.
VR works by decentering one lens element to counteract your motion. By definition, an off-center lens element will hurt your Image Quality; the reason why VR works is because it's always better to have a slightly degraded IQ than a completely blurry low light shot. In good light, this principle gets turned on his head, and if you have enough shutter speed, there's no reason to sacrifice IQ, especially if you're running the risk of the VR element being less than perfectly aligned due to a sampling error;

- High resolution sensors will also push some lenses past their limits, and the D7000 will put a lot of the otherwise very competent DX lenses to shame. The 18-105, which is perfectly decent on 10 - 12 MP bodies, will start showing it's limitations on a D7000... the 16-85 or 17-55 f/2.8 will be better matches.

[rictus01]

Sigma AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC macro lens, anyone got one? views ?

looking for a replacement for a canon 18-85mm, I've the opportunity to pick one up for £120, I don't need a long lens, just a walkabout.

Cheers Mark.

[TC3]

Sigma AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC macro lens, anyone got one? views ?

looking for a replacement for a canon 18-85mm, I've the opportunity to pick one up for £120, I don't need a long lens, just a walkabout.

Cheers Mark.

Yeah I tried 2 of them and was not very happy with either. Both had very poor sharpness in corners when used at 2.8 so I would check it out first real carefully.

[rictus01]

well I'm picking it up next week as it's from a mate and I get to borrow it for a week or so, I'll have a play with it and see how I get on.

but cheers for the feedback.

[pookie]

I was after opinions on a compact camera. I see a lot of references to the panasonic range.

I was looking at the tz20 / tz18 and the Canon IXUS 230 HS.

I like the larger zoom of the tz and the hd video recording is a bonus. Its probably the best pic quality in a reasonable package that I can slip into a pocket without crushing it. Budget is 150 - 200 are there others I should consider. Cheers

[dyzio]

Thinking of selling my 18-250MM F/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM Canon lens.
2 years old, very good condition, no problems whatsoever. Complete with box and manual.

Looking for 200 + postage.

If anyone's interested, drop me a pm, it'll go on evilbay otherwise.

Ta.


Some pics taken with it are here (the crap ones are from a mobile):
http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=179986



http://imageshack.us/a/img401/3135/dsc7054.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img706/8821/dsc7042l.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/1853/dsc7039copy.jpg