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Anonymous
Am I crazy or are the current point and shoot digital cameras worse than the old point and shoot film cameras?
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>> des
>>89288
nope, in many cases it is true. Especially on ones with really heavy-handed noise reduction that you can't shut off. The difference is noticeable even in 4x6es :(
>> Teus !QbSstcPD6U
yep, a cheap compact film p&s (50euro) does better prints than a very cheap compact digital (200 euro)
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
Define "worse".
>> Anonymous
my olympus xa2 beats any digital p&s cameras in terms of image quality, despite lack of full manual controls...
>> Anonymous
remember that in film, it's mostly NOT the camera body that determines quality. It's almost all the film you use.

Obviously, you lose a lot of creative control, but as long as an old point and shoot film camera is light-tight, you can take pics that are obviously gonna be better than today's point and shoot digitals.

Of course, the lens quality has a massive impact, but there are some damn adequate lenses in old film cameras, where most of today's point and shoot digitals have TERRIBLE lenses.
>> D: des
>>89327
My mother's old point and shoot was a free (FREE!) canon sureshot that she got from collecting other's marlboro miles. I think it was a 40 f/3.something? nothing fancy.
We chipped in and got her one of the canon powershots when it died. A610, I think, it was a cheaper one(180USD, iirc). The difference is ridiculous. It's not sharp, the colours are horrible, the noise reduction is very pronounced, even at low ISO.
She doesn't care because she can look at pictures on the back and it's cheap-as-free for prints.
That's why it's taking/has taken so long for digital point and shoots to become "good." It's not because it was technically difficult, it's because consumers don't care. See: MP3s, digital cable, foo.
not that I'm bitter or anything
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>89383
>It's not because it was technically difficult, it's because consumers don't care.
Well it is a bit because it's technically difficult.
1. SLR-quality sensors are expensive and relatively hard to make (I.e., low chip yields from the sheer size of the things). So right off the bat, we're talking a P&S that will cost about as much as an SLR just from sheer cost of components.
2. Digital sensors don't quite work exactly like film. Read up on why Leica had so much trouble with their IR filtering and why they didn't go with a full-frame sensor. TLDR? It's because the lens in a Leica is so close to the focal plane and digital sensors are less tolerant of light coming at a funny angle than film, so they had to do all sorts of weirdness with microlenses and stuff at the edges where the light comes in at an angle. The extra flange-focal distance of an SLR becomes a magical blessing here, since that extra distance makes the angle less wacky. So this hypothetical high-quality P&S will have to either have an SLR-mirror-box-like distance between lens and sensor or a really expensive series of microlenses. Congrats, your high quality P&S now costs *more* than an SLR.

So yeah. There are some definite technical hurdles as well.
>> Anonymous
>>89387
1. What if the small sensor sizes were stuck with? There'd be an increase in cost if the quality went up, but if 1/2.5" and 1/1.8" sensors were held onto, it wouldn't be much. As long as they're kept at low ISOs (a problem managed well by color slide film photographers for decades) these sensors produce good results.

2. Wouldn't having smaller sensors and smaller lenses reduce the distance needed to not need microlenses and all that? Looking at camera like Fuji's, Canon's, Panasonic's, etc. superzooms, they seem like (relative to sensor size) they have SLR-like flange focal distance. I could be wrong on all this, though.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>89390
The problem is that quality is directly related to sensor size. Say that Nikon or Sony or Fuji knew of a way to make a vastly better-quality 1/2.5" or 1/1.8" sensor--do you think they'd just shrug and say "Meh. Our current position way behind Canon in the market is good enough. Why rock the boat by releasing a camera with much better quality than theirs?" The current state-of-the-art in small format sensors in the P&S cameras out there is just that--the state of the art. If they could make 'em better, they would.
>> Anonymous
>>89392
Yes, of course. But do you really think they're pulling all the technical stops out on a consumer product? A company isn't going to make a better product if:

1. The cost of doing so cuts into their bottom line so much more sales won't make up for it.
2. Adding the cost on will drop sales.
3. The customer doesn't care about the higher quality.

McDonald's could serve perfectly tasty and nutritious hamburgers of the same size they do now, they don't. They serve suicidal and icky messes. But good luck pitching a higher cost for a gourmet patty that doesn't have God-knows-what cooked in to the executives and customers.
>> Anonymous
>>89397
having high quality small sensors would have more uses than just in consumer point and shoots. mcdonalds works like it does and doesnt care about higher quality but they dont have gourmet restaurants. nikon, canon, et al have a pro market that they could market to as well as other markets.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>89400
Exactly. Canon might not use a theoretical super quality 1/1.8" sensor in their SD line cameras, but cameras like the G9 are marketed at pros who want something smaller than an SLR.
>> Anonymous
>>89404
If the G9 is meant so much for professionals, then why does it have so many megapixels on that sensor? Professionals know that packing twelve megapixels on a sensor that size is a bad thing, and know that much less is enough to get them decent prints.

Probably more than nine in ten professionals who've bought the G9 would, if they could pick, have it with a smaller pixel count. They bought the G9 because it's the most advanced point and shoot out there, not because it's designed for them.