I’m looking for a point and shoot style camera that takes amazing action photos. Currently I’m using a Canon SD890is and th e photos are a bit grainy for me. Waterproof is nice but not required. I do like Canons quite a lot because they handle low light conditions very well…and turns out that the beginning of many tri’s is in low light conditions.
I love the photos people take with the big SLR cameras. But these devices are too expensive, require additional components, and require me to carry around a man purse. I’m already weighed down enough with tri gear.
I always bring a camera in my transition bag and snap a bunch of photos. Or if I can convince someone to sit around and watch my races, I get them to take photos of me and my friends. Pretty standard stuff.
Sorry, they don’t make one that will compete. Just like using a cross bike in a triathlon…there’s trade offs. Figure your priorities…want good photos, then you need the tool for the job; a SLR with a fast lens to isolate action.
My brother recently bought a refurbished point-and-shoot Leica (I forget which model) and I was impressed with its capabilites. Unfortunately it locked up on him near the end of our Munich-to-Barcelona tour (too much moisture in his jersey pocket?). Here are the photos he’s uploaded so far - note: the last 3 are from my Canon Powershot A590IS since his had locked up by then.
Those are some great shots - props to the photographer!
I’ve always liked Leica rangefinders. I don’t know that I’d choose one as my primary camera for shooting sport, but as a vacation / point & shoot / static pose camera they’re an awesome choice.
As been said, you need the right tool for the job. You want good action shots in low light- you are looking at a DSLR. In fact, the camera isn’t even that important compared to the issue of the lens. Start off with a nice 80-200/70-200 ish with a f/2.8 aperture. It’s the workhorse. And weighs almost as much as one…
As the others have said, you are asking for DSLR (or more importantly DSLR compatible lens)capabilities in a point and shoot which you will be hard to find. That 28-200 F2.8 lens is about the same price as cervelo S1 by the way.
What you can do however, is purchase some software which will get rid of that grain, or noise, for you. If you already have photoshop there are plugins available for under $50. Topaz Labs (topazlabs.com) has an outstanding noise removal software called Denoise. If you like, pm me one of your grainy photos and I will touch it up for you to give you an idea of what it is capable of.
You can have either small and compact, or the ability to take action shots. If you are fine with taking what I’ll term ‘triathlon landscapes’ you can get good quality from a higher-end point and shoot. These will be scenes- where almost everything is in focus from foreground to background.
If you want details from a distance, stopped action from far away, or a nice selective depth of field (blurring of background with sharp focus on the subject) you need the ability to put a longer lens on it.
This is b/c of the physics of the lens and it’s relation to the sensor size. With a smaller sensor (or film size) it is hard to get a large enough aperture to give you good shallow depth of field. The other side is that with the apertures being smaller it gives you a wider depth of field. This helps to ensure a wide focus range (sharp from foreground to background.) And because they don’t have that larger aperture, they are cheaper to make and more affordable.
The other issue is the focal length. The farther away you want to shoot from, the longer the lens you need. Don’t get sucked into believing what P&S ads say about digital zoom. It is worthless. And optical zooms take up a lot of space, losing some of the cameras compactness.
So you can have good scenics in a compact package, but not the action shots. THIS GOES FOR CAMERAS WITH INTERCHANGEABLE LENSES AS WELL. If you get a DSLR or something like the new Olympus mentioned above the whole thing can be relatively small if you only put a wide angle on it. But if you want to be able to shoot good action shots there’s no getting around having a long lens on that thing.
I have used point and shoot since digital became available (for work). When lens/pixel quality got reasonable, I found that my film camera went into a closet where it remains today. When I started shooting Tri photo’s, I found the point and shoot delay was very frustrating. I then went DSLR and have not looked back.
Look at this gallery (taken with Canon 20D with kit lenses).
You can get into that equipment today for $900 and it shoots HD video as well. Many point and shoot camera’s are pushing $500 now so I say think twice about what you can’t afford.
For point-n-shoots, stick with Canons. I’ve tried other brands, and frankly the Canons had the best lens quality. I’m using a A2100 IS 12.1MP right now when I don’t want to lug my SLR. It’s $200-250 online, a bit bulkier than some other PnS but has two critical advantages: it uses AA batteries (I use rechargables, and it’s easy/cheap to pack spares), and it has 6X optical zoom (I’ve found that 3X just leaves the subject being too small in the shot, especially when trying to shoot bikers).
Photomatix by chance?