I’m fairly serious about photography and have a Nikon D70s DSLR. Which I have really enjoyed. Lots of people carry a DSLR on rides but I don’t see it happening for me. Well not with my current camera.

Here are some of my photos. The most recent 5 are with a panasonic compact.

photostream

Here are some of my better ones

my better photos

So I’m thinking about something smaller. But the only option with proper autofocus (phase detect)is a Olympus E-4xx. I’ve just found out that these are discontinued so I may have to make a decision.

All the other compact options are contrast detect autofocus which doesn’t track motion. So I’m a bit prejudice against most other options (mirrorless DSLR like Olpmpus pen etc and quality compacts like canon S95 or panasonic LX5).

So show me your great MTB shots from a compact and convince me I’m wrong

S90 shots:

IMG_1392 by / Duncan, on Flickr

… by / Duncan, on Flickr

103/365 by / Duncan, on Flickr

Despite having it in my bag most rides i hardly ever seem to stop on the local routes and haven’t been further afield much last year. The S90 does a good job with the ability to manually prefocus. Although, i find that even at f2.0 the depth of field is still huge and prefocusing merely reduces shutter + AF wait/lag.

Shooting it in RAW is a nice touch and it can capture quite a range of shadows and highlights as seen in the first and last photo.

and some non mtb shots from it: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=s90&w=15990181%40N07 (just if you’re curious)

that said if i ever feel like i want to take some nice mtb photos while out riding i would normally pack the DSLR + 50mm

This was taken with an old Nikon compact and if it was tarted up in an editing suite good maybe look better. Suffers when light conditions are poor otherwise works fine for riding and stuffing in pocket. Would like a Panasonic TZ 8 or 10 but way down the list of this years priorities. Have EOS500 for good stuff
Camera cost £100;

stew and euan by john_henry_mtb, on Flickr

All in this album were taken with an S95. It was my first time out with it, so not all are that great. It is a brilliant little camera though.
http://picasaweb.google.com/dezb99/STWSwinley5thDec?feat=directlink

Cheers folks

keep them coming

I think the reminder here is that the benefit of a compact is the huge depth of field wich makes focus much less critical

I’ve got an Olympus u-tough 3005, the ‘weatherproof’ one. Not that impressed with the image quality to be honest, but it is quite tough and the HD videos aren’t bad. Aperture makes a decent job of ‘improving’ the shots though.

I bought a TZ10 a few weeks ago, photo’s are really good. Haven’t got any biking photos online yet – or rather I have but the photographer wasn’t very good, perfectly focused background with slightly blurry rider (me).

TZ10

the sun, in January ??? ride by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

365/3 3/1/11 the NW Alps ride by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

Panasonic Lumix FX-33 (I think)

I’m currently torn between buying the Pani LX3/LX5 and the Canon S90/S95. Not sure of this witchcraft you speak phase/contrast detect.
Considering DezB has just set his S95 to auto and fired some shots without much thought and presuming he’s just an amateur full auto user, then the S90/S95 photos above all look a cut above standard compacts. The S95 is noticably smaller than the LX5, has a built in flash (of sorts). however, I have read that the S90 isn’t a great sports fast motion camera, not sure if that’s addressed in the S95.
These are from a Pani TZ8 which is practical and takes good photos, it’s just a good alrounder IMO, pocket compact, x12 optical zoom, HD vid.
From photobucket


Low light

X12 zoom (handheld)

i bought a canon sx210is for taking out stunning camera

cheers folks thanks for all the photos

dslr know if an object is in focus and whether the lens id focused to close ot to far away. It can then adjust focus in the correct direction. Once the subject is in focus it can keep it in focus as it moves

Everything else the camera says this is out of focus I’ll guess what to do to sort it out. Eventually it ends up in focus, if the object then moves it just has to refocus from scratch

For the moment I’ll keep plugging away with my Panasonic FZ5 which I can see from the photos above should be capable of delivering good shots

most of my pics are taken with a c903 sony phone or a sony compact thingy.

Thread hijack. Is photobucket the best place to store pics? Ideally would like somewhere that’s free.

Flickr is free for 200 photos, I really like it

Photo I took of my friend using a Fuji Finepix J10. I think its quite good anyway…

Jedi I missed that that was a phone pic. I’ve had some OK phone pics which made me consider a compact again

plopnofear. sorry didn’t realise i’d had another reply. Its a good shot. Those Fufi F10s still hold there value

canon S90, basically the same as a G11 but small enough to put in your pocket. Lack of DOF on compact cameras is the price you pay for a small sensor. I wouldn’t use it for ‘action’ pictures due to the shutter release and AF delay, but I also wouldn’t lug a DSLR about on the bike unless I had something planned to use it for.

isogoat

A lovely set of shots….

Do you shoot RAW? Does the S90 give you some extra dynamic range…

I use RAW, because of that I can exploit all the dynamic range the sensor has, you can’t do that with JPEG. I don’t think the S90 has any more DR than any other similar sensor these days. People have been doing this in post processing since the day the first print was made from a film, some things never change.

I’m waiting for a full review of the Olympus XZ-1 on dpreview. They have a few sample photo’s from one they got their hands on at an expo in Vegas and it looks promising.

http://www.dpreview.co.uk/previews/olympusxz1/

Good lens, auto-tracking AF, good low light performance and continous shooting up to 21fps….could be ideal.

(Mr MC posting)

need to learn how to make better use of what functions it has rather than just point n shoot. Difficult to be objective about your own pics as its a mixture of image “quality” and the memories attached to it.

This was MC’s 30th birthday and one of the most memorable rides we’ve done, and to me captured the variety of a weeks riding in morocco in a single shot (red slickrock, meadows, alpine rocky singletrack) and the sense of effort from MC clmbing.

i’m impressed with shots from the s90! as mc says though it’s the bit behind the viewfinder that really counts, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgkw/2664510290/

Most of mine are gash, the fault of the operator not the hardware, but this one came out not bad… This was on an older model Canon Ixus 800IS Ti, which is more or less the ancestor of the current Ixus 130.

Not totally sure what camera took this one of the boy Macaskill, probably my Panasonic TZ7.

Oh aye, neither has any postprocessing etc obviously, just as they came out the oven.

Canon IXUS. Right Handed, whilst riding. NO TRIPOD 😉

^Sony C902 phone…

which ixus is that redthunder?

I have an old ixus 30 which is really small and had some hammer but has a good metal casing. The picture quality is ok but it’s getting a bit tired now.

I was looking for something a similar size(ish) and cheap with metal casing, seen the Panasonic FS10 cheap, anyone know if this is any good?
Don’t want to spend a lot for risk of smashing it to pieces.

Slightly off-topic, but for comparison here’s a video shot entirely on a compact in 720p HD mode. Panasonic Lumix TZ7.

[video]http://vimeo.com/17793365[/video]

One of the few times I got the camera out last year. Sony Nex.

Mr Plow

White socks are a No No!!

I was taking the photos!

Does anyone have/rate the canon powershot sx210is ?

I found this thread very useful. I realised that, as ever, its taking the photos not the camera (and of course just having the camera with you)

So I’ve bought an ancient camera off ebay to encourage me to take it in rides without caring to much about it.

Any way I wone an auction for a canon S70 for £34 on Sunday night. I’ve had to spend another £10 on a battery and charger as it doesn’t come with a charger. It’ll be slow to focus but I’ll prefocus and use the view finder. Its got lots of toys and RAW. Better video and image stabilisation would have been nice but what do you expect for the price of processing a few roles of film….

For what it’s worth, I used to have a Nikon D70 and sold it to get a Canon G12. Haven’t had it that long yet, but so far I’ve been very impressed, getting much better pictures than the D70 was taking. I’d still like another DSLR in the future but for now the G12 is managing well. Compact enough to take biking and snowboarding, and has easy DSLR style manual controls, rather than hunting in menu systems. I’ve had good results for action photos too, although I’m sure it doesn’t use phase detect.

ianv, i have a canon sx210is and got to say it nearly as good as a dSLR. loads of functions and great to use, i take it on all my rides now

Any way I wone an auction for a canon S70 for £34 on Sunday night.

I have one of these, got mine in the same way. Excellent little camera.
I think this is one of my favourites with it.

commute5 by Jon Wyatt, on Flickr

And I snapped this picture of my son on a very cloudy day in the snow last week, possibly some of the most difficult daylight conditions for a compact to work with.
edit: try again

jump3 by Jon Wyatt, on Flickr

As you’re used to a dSLR I would take a look at the G10/G11 and the Nikon P6000, bigger sensor that compact camera’s, bigger lens too.

They have all the features of a dSLR and nearly as small as a compact. These camera’s are perfect if you want to get creative with shots, but also have the full auto mode for if you just want to take a photo.

I would also consider the Panasonic TZ10 as it takes HD video and takes half decent photo’s.

ampthill – the S70 is a cracking little camera.
All my New Zealand shots on my flickr were taken with it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tryingtimes/sets/72157600313570756/

But then it had an incident with a banana and never really worked the same again.

Now I’m on an panasonic LX3 and love it. The only problem is it’s ever-so-slightly too big for just taking everywhere with me. Glad to have an iPhone for that.

Some LX3 cycling shots:

S70 like Samuri. Eats batteries now (5 years old)

IMG_1085 by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Looked at an s90, decided to go the other way with a Pentax w80 that is pretty noisy at high ISO but I’m getting used to it. Waterproof, shockproof, cheap. But not as good as a Canon S series.