My wife insisted I post this. I wrote all this in e-mails the past couple days trying to help a technologically-challenged sister buy a camera for her starting-out-photo-student brother, and they are in different countries, so cannot shop together.

Here is the little background: because these suggestions are for a specific situation. The student-photographer-in-question will have access to loaner lenses through the photography department. So, one, he does not need anything more than a workable lens for himself. And two, all that glass is Canon. So, regardless of my opinions, he needs a Canon camera and should put most of the investment in the camera.

The sister almost bought a Canon 5D mark II and a lens for $2000…and that is about $1000 too cheap. Thankfully, the lens they ordered was an EF-S and would not work on the 5Dmk2, so they were able to cancel the order, which was most certainly some sort of scam anyway. Then, they started thinking about the new 7D or a 50D. And that is where we pick up the story.

Dear Concerned-Sister-Who-Loves-Her-Brother-Enough-to-Give-Him-a-Good-Photographic-Start,

Here are some links for you to look at before we call tomorrow morning. First, PLEASE do not buy from any non-trusted source. There are lots of scams out there, and it is tempting. I will try to lead you in the right direction here. Basically, if you see a huge variation from the prices on these sites (the ones I am about to give you), you need to suspect their honesty.

Ok…here we go:

I love MPEX.com. I have bought from there and they do good business. Here is a link to their used Canon gear. The best price on that list is the 40D for $700. Think about that. If you want a cheaper option, the 40D is VERY close to the 50D, and you could grab it for cheap. The 7D? You really do not get much for the money over a 50D anyway. Oh, and note their used 5Dmk2 price, $2400.

If you bought a camera from there, get the body used, then buy this lens new: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 for about $120. It is a simple lens; it’s cheap and versatile, and he can borrow just about any lens he wants from the department, anyway. Regardless of what camera you buy, I very much suggest you just get this simple lens.

Ok, let’s move on to KEH.com. You can go check out their website directly, but if you go to their eBay store, you can view photos of each item. Once you get an idea of their ratings with the photos, you can just use their direct website. They are a very trusted used gear seller and their ratings are trustworthy too. Anything “excellent” or better is perfectly fine.

What I would suggest, if you do not want to go for the used 40D, is a 5D from KEH. The 5D is a fully professional camera. The quality is excellent! It is old, but still is WAY better quality than the 7D or 50D, no question. You would buy a 7D if you wanted fast shooting and fast focusing (or video). You would buy a 50D if you just wanted a new camera and not something used. If those things do not matter, buy a 5D. There are several used Canon 5D cameras there.

Oh, and you can see a 5D with the 50mm lens I am suggesting for sale there (at time of writing), but I would not suggest buying that unless you just want to throw away $200. I personally suggest their “excellent plus” 5D for $1420. Then buy the 50mm lens just about anywhere for $120, which equals $1540ish, far short of the $1700 for that combination on there, but you can take a look, anyway.

Oh, and as for that 50mm lens, there are actually two of them, an old one and a new one. Either is fine (actually, the older is better and cheaper, but the newer is easier to find): 50mm f/1.8 and the 50mm f/1.8 II. Again, either one is fine.

I see two good options: cheap and less-cheap. For cheap, get the 40D from MPEX.com for $700 and buy a 50mm f/1.8 II lens new from them for a total of $800. For the nicer option, get a 5D (excellent plus condition) from KEH for $1420 and then buy a 50mm f/1.8 anywhere you like…maybe even MPEX, just because they are nice folks.

I already mentioned KEH and MPEX, but here are some reputable stores against which you can compare prices, and hopefully with whom you would do business precisely because they are trustworthy:

• B&H Photo and Video
• Adorama
• Midwest Photo Exchange (MPEX)
• KEH

Cooper

I give the biggest kudos possible to Nikon for “writing the peace treaty” in the megapixel wars by coming out with the 12MP D300, D700, and D3. As is seen by the number of pros using these cameras, many people are more concerned with other features like shooting speed and high ISO noise. Now, I can add Canon to the list of enlightened camera makers by making their new top of the line compact camera less megapixels than the last generation of the same camera! Sweet.

Now, I am not trying to say more megapixels is bad. It all depends on your needs. To some, more megapixels does not slow down their workflow at all, they have plenty of space to back up the larger files, and some just flat need the extra megapixels. For many, there is not a need for more megapixels, and fewer means they can gain speed in processing (shooting speed and editing on the computer) and lose noise at high ISOs. It all depends.

For the average Joe or amateur photographer, though, there is rarely a need for ultra high megapixels. They already haev all they need. My Mom has a 10 or 12MP camera, and I set it to a smaller setting for her, because it eats up space so fast. Regardless, I like the trend, which seems to be saying, “we camera makers are willing to work on other issues besides jump forcing more megapixels into the camera.” Bravo!

My wife recently bought a point-and-shoot for family use–honestly, it is mainly for videos. When I was setting everything up for her, one of the decisions I made was NOT to use the highest image quality setting. Call me crazy. A few factors came into play: image quality, file size, and how big the photos might be printed.

I have already waxed on about the size of the sensor and how that affects image quality. What I still wondered was what the difference really was…I mean in real-life images. The settings I wanted to compare on our camera were the two 12 megapixel settings and the 6 megapixel setting (there is nothing in between). So, here you go:

Comparison of 6MP and 12MP images from a FujiFilm F50fd compact camera.

Those are all separate photos taken at the same time, from a tripod, with the exact same settings (as best I could do so with a compact camera which chooses some settings for you). So, the only difference should be the image quality setting.

Can I see a difference? Sure. On this camera the actual file size of those photos is approximately 1.2MB, 2.8MB, and 4MB, though size varies from camera to camera and photo to photo. Those look like a small difference right now, but 1000 photos later, that is gigabytes worth of difference, and if they are family photos, they are probably all going to be sitting on our laptop so we can show people. So, what I see is this: I can save a lot of space on the computer for a very small difference in quality.

And as for printing, well, never would one of these photos be printed more than an 8×10 inch size, and six megapixels is more than enough for that. So, that is not a problem.

So, my choice (for the point-and-shoot, compact camera) is to just shoot the 6MP setting. What do you think of the quality difference in the images above?

So, that is the first question. What is essential in a compact camera? Honestly, all we wanted was something small to do videos of our children since I am already carrying around my camera for the photographs. I think we can safely put the video issue aside, though, because almost all compact cameras take the same quality of video. What is the most important part of any camera? Image quality.

My search was to find the best compact camera possible, but not to pay a huge price for it. My research labors where not in vain.

Now, I do not know all the science of it all, but I know the size of the camera’s sensor has a huge part to play. That is fairly easy to understand. I also know that some companies can use a big sensor but still totally mess up the image quality with other factors in the chain, and some companies do pretty well at the impossible task of keeping decent quality from small sensors. Basically, though, the bigger that sensor, the better quality photos you will have. So, my first step was to research compact camera sensor sizes.

I know, this sounds ridiculous, but it is simply something the manufacturers do not want you to know. More megapixels from the same physical sized sensor is not going to give you much better results…if any better. So, I went to the trusty DPReview website, my first stop for research and reviews on cameras. I used their side-by-side comparison to go through (literally) every single compact camera they had in their lists. I found out pretty quickly that there are two basic physical sizes of compact camera sensors on the market: 1/2.5″ and 1/1.6″. I am assuming that is a diagonal measurement, like TV screens and computer monitors. So, even the bigger size is only just over a half inch…diagonally. It is a wonder they can take any decent photos!

So, I made a list of every single larger-sized sensor compact camera. The list itself was interesting. Now, don’t quote me on any of this; I am doing it from memory (I should have kept that list, huh?). Canon had some, but only among their expensive compacts (G9, G10). Of course, Leica had a couple, but you will pay for those too. Several companies were completely devoid of any larger sized sensor…Sony being the one I remember most. Samsung had a few, but very scattered here and there in their camera lines…therefore, it would be pretty hard to actually find one. FujiFilm was the real champion here. Their entire F-series line had the bigger sensor, and that line also has some very competitively priced cameras.

So, for the completely subjective part of this whole thing, my wife had recently shot on a friend’s Samsung compact camera. Since, I have seen photos from the same camera. She did not like the display, and when I saw the photos, I was absolutely appalled at the image quality. We know it was new. There just is not any excuse, regardless of how much it cost, for images that horrible. I am not kidding.

And for the other subjective input, my wife had also recently shot a FujiFilm compact that she kept saying how much she loved. I did not want her to influence me too much while figuring out which cameras were options, but then when the FujiFilm F-series showed so many larger sensor cameras in my list, we started looking that direction.

Again on DPReview, just offhand to try a different approach to find for high-quality compact cameras, I looked at their most highly rated cameras. What do you know, in the list of the most highly recommended cameras on their site, two FujiFilm F-series cameras were listed: the F31fd and F50fd. If you actually read through either of those reviews, you will see how little the extra megapixels help us. The F31fd review not only put it among the best compact cameras of its time, but the F50fd review, which was good in and of itself, still struggled to compare to the F31fd in image quality, especially noise at high ISO (film speed).

So, though I tried my best to search for a F31fd (because image quality better than most new cameras at an old camera price was fine by me) among the shops, I found some as old, but there were no 31s to be found. Actually, since I was actually looking in Singapore, I found that there were many F-series cameras not on my list…I guess they have some Asian versions that DPReview would know by different numbers. Anyway, we ended up buying the FujiFilm F50fd and are already impressed by the image quality.

As for all the other features they are trying to pack in new cameras and the extra megapixels, I would say image quality is the most important factor to most people. Woops. I do know of one feature the FujiFilm cameras have, which most do not, which really is a great feature I could talk about more some time. It has a setting on the dial where it will take two photos, back to back, one with flash and one without. Wonderful. If only more people could see how much better their photos were with the flash off!

So, I will give a respectful nod to the bigger sensor compact cameras from Canon, Leica, Panasonic, and (grudgingly) Samsung, but FujiFilm gives quite a variety of price and function in their F-series, all of which (as far as I can tell) have the (comparatively) larger sized sensor. FujiFilm F-series wins. Rarely would I specifically give brand names like this, but in this case, it really did seem to come out quite clearly.