On Aug 12, 2006, at 7:22 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >>> The Fuji F30 I ordered just arrived. ... >> >> Make sure to post some high-ISO samples!
Copying this response to a couple other of my photo mailing lists so for context ... Long and short of it is that I decided to give the Fuji F30 a try, based on a recommendation that it was worth looking into for its low light sensitivity and responsiveness (and despite the xD cards...). I've been eager to find a pocketable digital camera that could do the job my Rollei 35S and Minox 35GT-E once did, and it's been difficult to find anything that had adequate quality at ISO 400 to do what I wanted. The Panasonic LX1 was a good "almost" but didn't quite make it ... I found its size and shape a little awkward to hold and it became too noisy for my tastes even with RAW format output at ISO settings over 200. A friend had one of the Fuji F30s with him a week or so ago. Holding it felt remarkably similar to holding the Minox 35GT-E and I found it fit perfectly into the same cell phone case I use for that camera. Encouraging. I liked the photos he showed me taken with it too. I've been too busy to do much picture taking with it yet but I had it with me when I was out yesterday and took a couple of snaps at ISO 100 and ISO 1600. After looking at them, I wondered what they'd look like against much larger sensor of the the Pentax *ist DS at ISO 200 and 1600, 3200 ... Here's the result: http://homepage.mac.com/godders/F30-noise/ NOTE: Although the download size is small, the page display is a little large as I wanted to show 100% detail clips at several ISOs side to side. Those with a small monitor will unfortunately have to scroll around a bit, my apologies in advance. All in all, even though it only does JPEG, the F30 does remarkably well. The comparison doesn't show the best that the Pentax can do, but what it does show is reasonably representative. The Fuji should be a fine performer at my more commonly used ISO 400, and if I use my usual "35-40 mm equivalent field of view" lens setting, it will give me what I want in lens speed too (it gets pretty slow when zoomed out to a more telephoto setting). enjoy Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
