OT: Pocket-sized Camera

I love my Canon D20, and bought my son a D30 for his recent birthday. It takes wonderful shots (I get a lot of admiring comments) which is a bit unexpected from such a small thing.

It's drop-proof (2m onto concrete) and waterproof (25m), both of which I have validated (though the D20 is only waterproof to 10m, I've done that multiple times in salt water over several years). Being waterproof might no matter to you, but you get extra reliability from having no external moving parts. All telescoping lenses seem to find grit of just the right size to impede them and to wear out the drive gears.

Clifford Heath.

Check out the Cannon PowerShot S100 too.

What matters to you in a camera?

far too many to choose from.

NT

I have a couple of Canon Elph 160s. They seem to be pretty nice small cameras that aren't too expensive (around $100 US). I haven't actually used them that way. They are in my DIY book scanner to take pictures of the pages of books to be digitized.

Bill

Sounds like my Android phone.

George H.

I'm allergic to "smart" phones ;-) Phones are for talking, cameras are for photos. ...Jim Thompson

Clifford, Is the flash adequate for average use? There's some reviewers' comments saying not suitable for low-light situations... mostly I'd just use it for great-grand-kid shots. ...Jim Thompson

Den onsdag den 10. august 2016 kl. 16.19.37 UTC+2 skrev Jim Thompson:

just put tape over the microphone and call it a camera, then every time you need to take a photo you can take your old phone and call someone and talk about how you wished you hadn't forgotten to bring your camera and that it probably had a flat battery anyway

-Lasse

I've designed several chips for "smart" phones... but wouldn't own one myself, they're too f...ing big, plus I like keyboards with buttons... my current phone is LG VN251.

Clifford Heath's recommendation of the Canon D30 looks like a winner... thin, small, no extending lens to get grimed up. ...Jim Thompson

A GoPro Hero 4 and move into the video age Dimensions: 41.0mm height, 59.0mm width, 29.6mm depth

I like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS50. One of the few with a viewfinder.

My shirt pocket is fully populated with a pocket protector full of junk, and a random assortment of business cards. To fit a camera in such a shirt pocket requires that it be very thin and light. Is 6mm thin and made from paper good enough?

Review of some current thin cameras: Note that the really thin variety only have an optical 3x zoom. I use optical zoom quite often and always seem to want more. If this is a problem, get something thicker that can handle a more complexicated lens. My Nikon Coolpix S3100 does 5x zoom.

Many such small cameras also don't have a view finder window. Using the LCD is fine, except in bright sunlight or when I'm not wearing my eyeglasses. My Nikon Coolpix S3100 does not have a view finder and is a PITA to use outdoors or without my eyeglasses.

Check on the price of cables, replacement batteries, and external chargers on eBay before buying. You'll probably need them all eventually.

Unless you're doing wall size enlargements, 8 megapixels is probably sufficient. More pixels means smaller pixels (photosites) which might mean a lousy looking picture when enlarged. Try to get the largest possible CMOS imager, or fewer pixels.

I use my little camera mostly for closeups of PCB's and mechanical devices. That means I use "macro mode" quite often. It's important to have both the ability to focus really close, the largest possible depth of field, and good wrap around lighting. If you're into closeups, plan on carrying some pocket size illumination with the camera.

If you're into outdoor action stills, check how quickly the camera can take successive photos. My Coolpix S3100 takes about 4 seconds which is often too slow.

One little detail that drove me nuts with previous cameras. There is invariably a door on the bottom of the camera behind which the battery and microSD card hides. If you juggle microSD cards, you will eventually break the door hinge. That's not a problem unless the battery is held in place by the door. The result was a rubber band wrapped around the camera to hold the door closed. My Coolpix 3100 does not have this problem.

Y'er on your own from here. I can't tell what you're planning to do with the camera from your terse description. There are far too many models available to choose from.

Of course, anything that you can actually purchase is already obsolete. You'll soon be able to purchase a really thin and flexible sheet camera:

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I used to have a speed graphic back in the 60s that fit in a small suitcase and took B/W pictures on 2.25 by 3.25 cut pieces of film. When I was 18, I used it to make a CA driver's license so I would be 21. It had a focal plane shutter with a narrow slot that slid across the film so the picture didn't have a bright spot in the middle. Nowadays, I have a Canon power-shot A460 I got in 2007 so it's probably obsolete now. It does fit in my my shirt pocket and has 5M pixel resolution and lots of features like closeups at a couple inches and a delayed shutter so you can take selfies, and a zoom feature so you can soom in on the recorded pictures and look around right and left, up and down to inspect fine details. I paid about $120 in 2007. .

iPhone

I think so - in an average-sized room. You just need to keep in mind the range vs power level.

I also use it a lot in the "Slow Synchro" mode to light up faces when I have a bright background. In that mode, you need 3 seconds to take a shot, because it combines shots takes with and without flash. Shots like this one would be impossible without it (bright sunset behind, all faces would have been dark):

I used to do the same with my Nikon CP950:

Clifford Heath.

That was meant to be:

Second the Lumix point and shoot.

Requiring rather large (and rather deep) pockets, AFIK nothing in a smallish size beats the Fuji retro cameras. They're between $1-2K US thought. Superb design and construction with huge image sensors and powerful processing. The X-pro2 with hybrid viewfinder is really nice, for example.

I don't have one, but a colleague does.

Aside from relatively large size with the lens, there isn't enough room in the relatively small size for a battery that will give thousands of shots, so keep that in mind.

--sp

The little cameras are intended for use in full daylight. The flashes are too weak to fill a room, but will light nearby faces up. This was very prominent a few years ago, but the problem is mitigated by the ever-increasing light sensitivity of modern imager ICs.

The other problem with using small cameras inside while trying to photograph small children is that children move very fast. In full daylight, no problem. Inside, speed-blurred children. Or empty frames if the push-to-snap delay is too long.

My wife, who takes lots of photos of children, has a Canon G-16 and an iPhone 6s, and is happy with both. She prefers the iPhone because it's easier to send pictures to relatives, but the G-16 can be configured to talk to the home WiFi network and to talk to the iPhone.

Joe Gwinn