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I need some advice... Anonymous
I'm looking to buy a new digital camera. My current one is just a snap shot camera (SD300) which is exactly hard to work with. I've been looking a lot, and, so far, the Canon S3 IS is impressing me. 12x optical zoom, 6MP, flip and twist LCD, among other features. Does anyone have this camera? When I was looking, I wanted a manual focus ring so I could have complete control of the camera's focus. The S3 IS have a manual focus, but it's a box on the screen that you place. Is this efficient? Some major advice/information is needed! Thanks in advance!

(Btw, my wallet is too shallow for a DSLR.)
>> ac
Manual focus on point&shoot digital cameras sucks. Better to just get good with the autofocus.

Lots of people here have the S3IS, and the general impression I've gotten is that it's one of the best non-SLR digital cameras out there.
>> Anonymous
So would a camera with a manual focus ring be a nice thing to look for? I wasn't sure how great the "focus box" would work (didn't sound too good). There are some... Pansonic Lumix cameras have manual focus rings, but no true image stabilization.
>> ac
>>45255
No. Manual focus on point&shoot digital camera sucks.

The reason is that it's a bitch to judge focus on an LCD, even zoomed. It's really just better to figure out how to quickly switch the autofocus point and let the camera handle focusing on that point for you.

I've had point & shoot digital cameras with both a quote-unquote-real manual focus ring (it was actually electronically linked, but whatever) and the way Canon does it. They both suck. The only camera I've had that's really good for manually focusing is my manual-focus-only Minolta film SLR. Second to that are my autofocus SLRs--they don't give you the focus assistance that a camera designed for manual focus does, but at least you can see through the actual glass.
>> Anonymous
Thanks for the advice. I'll be picking this up next week.
>> Anonymous
I'll respond to the OP with the pros and cons on the S3IS in a minute, two things:

>.. Pansonic Lumix cameras... no true image stabilization

They do have image stabilization. "Optical Image Stabilization" is just their name for normal IS, which is optically done.

>No. Manual focus on point&shoot digital camera sucks.
>The reason is that it's a bitch to judge focus on an LCD, even zoomed.

Not my experience at all. I've found manually focusing in almost all light conditions to be just as easy on an LCD as with glass, and in the case of glass, that's just because one's eyes adjust in the dark and an image sensor doesn't.

All manually focusing is is just finding where the image looks the sharpest as one turns a ring or holds a button. Sure, it will look less sharp displayed than actually seeing it with the eyes, but that doesn't matter. The point is finding where it is the most sharp.
>> Anonymous
The S3IS is a very good camera; one of the best I've ever shot with. It does have a few drawbacks, most notably no raw mode.

You said you were looking at the FZ-50 because of its manual focusing ring. I haven't shot with the FZ-50, but I have shot with its almost-identical smaller (and ringless) sibling, the FZ-8. It's great.

One problem, though: if you don't have a relatively recent version of Photoshop or some similar software, the RAW is unusable on the Panasonics (unusable because the software they package to work with it is the shittiest photo software I've ever seen; you need third-party software) and the JPEGs that come out of the S3IS do look better than the JPEGs that come out of FZ-8, at least. The FZ-50 does have more megapixels, though, so I can't directly compare the FZ-50 to the S3IS.
>> Anonymous
>>45271
Split image finders exist for a reason, you know. You're not going to be able to focus as fast or as accurately by prodding a joystick.
>> Anonymous
>>45284
I'll concede it is sometimes more difficult to get a joystick-based one accurate, but the increased DOF of point-and-shoots over SLRs makes this a very minor problem, if one at all.

As for speed, I haven't noticed any difference between focusing with a ring and focusing with a joystick/button that I'm used to. Getting used to it is the key thing.
>> Anonymous
Just ordered it.

;D