Mad Times

By jeffy

Am I being unreasonable for wanting all the features I want in one camera? Evidently, yes.

My Pentax Optio S4 has been my almost constant companion since 12/30/2003. I obsessed before buying it too. I’d keep on using it, but a few things are going wrong. There’s some dust on the sensor that’s showing up in my pictures (shows up as a blurry smudge in the lower left corner of some pictures.) The lens extension motor has started making an ominous screeching grindy noise recently. The eensy little tab that holds the battery in is showing signs of impending failure. The door that covers the battery/memory compartment doesn’t close all the way anymore due to a dent in the corner caused when I dropped the camera on a cement floor (no other obvious damage!) There’s been a cat hair stuck inside the lens for a couple years that hasn’t caused any visible problem. Recently, too, I’ve started noticing my pictures being more washed out looking in a way that makes me wonder if there’s something going wrong with the (ridiculously complex and tiny) lens.

I’m not going to give up having a pocketable point-and-shoot camera so it’s time to shop. I’ve narrowed it down (mostly!) to three cameras.

The Pentax is really only there because I’ve enjoyed the S4 so much and could probably be happy with the newer version in spite of the fact that it still has all the shortcomings of the S4. They really haven’t done anything new with this camera but add pixels (that I basically don’t need). It still doesn’t have an autofocus assist lamp. It goes up to ISO 400 now, but the other two cameras here go to 1600 and even 3200. It gets the love because it’s tiny (4mm thinner than the Panasonic, 8mm than the Fuji) and has two features I’ve used a lot in the S4 (time-lapse movies, and voice recorder mode) that neither of the others have. It’s also the only one with manual focus though I’ve only used it on the S4 a few times.

The Panasonic has the one feature I’ve been whining about and pining for in a point-and-shoot: a 28mm wide angle equivalent. Pant pant. Not only that, it’s in a lens made by Leica. Drool. The rest of the features are pretty good, but pretty comparable to the other two. On the down side, the thing appears to be worthless for low-light picture taking. While it can go to ISO 1600, it seems you can’t take it beyond ISO 200 before noise and noise-reduction artifacts make the results hardly worth bothering with.

The Fuji’s drool-worthy feature is class-leading low-light performance. It goes to ISO 3200, and even at those lofty heights produces images that don’t make me wince. Shiny! Plus it has aperture and shutter priority modes which neither of the other two offer. That’s something I’ve missed in the Optio S4 and whose lack is a real hindrance to learning to expose my pictures in a controlled way rather than relying on the camera to get it right. All the other features are comparable to the Panasonic except for the pedestrian (36-108mm equiv) zoom. The downside here is the fact that the camera uses xD memory instead of the SD I’ve invested in for my existing cameras. Argh! Plus it’s the chunkiest of the three.

Here’s the dpreview side-by-side comparison of all three plus the Optio S4.

Anybody got any advice for me? I’m leaning toward the Fuji despite the memory and size issue. What I really want is the 28mm Leica lens with the Fuji sensor and processor in the Optio box. Will somebody make me that, please?

Can you imagine the obsessing that’s going on with my ongoing internal debate about whether to get a DSLR and if so, which one? It ain’t pretty. And I’ve barely even started to think about lenses.