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General discussion

looking for suggestions on a new camera

by marlinfarms Jun 3, 2008 3:41AM PDT

Hi, I currently have an Olympus-C770 ultrazoom with 4MP's and a Carl Ziess 10x optical lens but no stabil.
I would like to up grade to something of the same size or close but with higher mega pixels, image stabilization, possibily more zoom, is user freindly and also has an optical viewfinder (I find them easier to use in bright light). Let me know what you think of what you've seen out there or are currently using that fits and takes outstanding pics. Thanks

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3 Posts
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two suggestions
by kalel33-20416052469708587370302374692233 Jun 3, 2008 4:04AM PDT

The Nikon P80 and the Sony H3/H5. Actually three but you would just choose which Sony features you like better. Those three are the compact superzooms that are at the top of the their category.

None of them have optical viewfinders, but I'm thinking they don't use them in that focal length because the optical viewfinders in point and shoots are fix focal length and do not zoom with the camera. One jump that has been made is the increase in quality LCD screens that are out there and will perform much better than your Olympus. I have an old G2 still around, and when I use it, from time to time, I forget how bad the LCDs were years ago.

The Nikon has 18x zoom and both have image stabilization.

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Just a bit of help.
by daniel.smith21 Jun 3, 2008 9:20PM PDT

This is just a quick piece of info for ya mate. When people say my camera has 4X zoom, mine has 10X zoom and so on, this actually is irrelevant. 10X optical zoom does not necessarily mean it will bring you closer to the subject than a 4X optical zoom lens.
Let me explain why. First, this can ONLY happen on ZOOM lenses and not fixed lenses (aka prime lenses). The reason for this is because the zoom lens has a focal length range; eg 75-300mm or 8-32mm etc, where the prime lens has a fixed focal length. The larger the numbers in the focal length, the more suited it is for telephoto use than smaller focal lengths.
so, knowing this I can show you how this explains optical zoom.
A 75-300mm lens has the SAME optical zoom as the 8-32mm lens. All the optical zoom is, is the telephoto end of zoom (the larger number) DIVIDED by the wide-angle end (the smaller number). So therefore, both of these lenses are 4X optical zoom, only one is more suited to telephoto (75-300mm) and one is more suited to wide-angle (8-32mm).

So now that you have a better understanding (if you already didn't know this), you can make a more educated decision on what camera with what type of lens you want. Just remember to look the the zoom range, and that bigger numbers mean the closer you can get!

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looking for suggestions on a new camera
by taboma Jun 4, 2008 2:50PM PDT
Back to Cameras forum

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