"Rock" <1940@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:47bc970f$0$4471$afc38c87@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for a good small pocket camera, (not the SLR style)which
will
> take good crisp reasonably hi resolution stage shots of shows.
>
> Naturally good ****trait shots as well.
>
> Another concern is battery charging (I like the usb + power idea) good
> size storage card to hold a few hi res shots)
>
> I am in Sydney Australia so will buy here or going to
Singa****e,Europe,US
> soon so maybe buy there if much cheaper than Sydney.
>
> Thanks for the help
>
> rock
I like the Canon 'A' series of point-and-shoots. Almost any of the
various
models fit your requirements, with the exception of the A460 -- stay away
from that one.
My favorite is the Powershot A720 IS. It has a 6X image stabilized
optical
zoom that results in a 35 to 210mm equivalent telephoto, with the added
boost of a 4X digital zoom that yields quite good results in certain
cir***stances. Counting the digital zoom you have a whopping 35 - to 840
telephoto zoom with f-stops of 2.8 to 4.8 -- quite respectable.
Also, you get full manual control in addition to a large number of
automatic
and scene modes. The VGA video modes work well also.
ISO settings run from 80 to 1600, and noise is quite acceptable up to the
800 range for up to medium sized enlargements (up to ISO 400 for larger
prints). Even smaller prints at ISO 1600 are not bad.
The LCD gains up for low light situations, which would probably be
im****tant for stage shots.
The ccd sensor is of high quality and 8Megs in size. It does a good job
of
rendering colours naturally, and it's auto colour balance works
flawlessly.
And, just in case you encounter a scenario where the lights are so weird
the
cameras processor can't figure it out, you can set a custom white balance
to
ensure accurate colour reproduction.
As for storage, SD cards of up to 4Gigs work, so you can get over 1000
shots
at large size (roughly 3500 X 2400) with lower compression ratios
(super-fine detail setting).
Given that I am legally blind, with only about 2% vision, and I'm able to
produce some respectable shots in low light conditions, I think that that
says something about the versatility of this camera.
Good Luck,
Dudley
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