At the Ball Game with my new camera!

Sunday evening I went to check out a ball game at in Jamsil. While I was watching the game, I took some time to test out the zoom on my new camera. My Canon Powershot SX200. I decided this would be the best time to test out the 12x zoom. My camera also has a 4x digital zoom, which I sort of forgot about. So, anyway, I found that when you zoom out, it stops at 12x, the end of the optical zoom. But, if after it stops, you push it more, it moves into the digital zoom mode. Now, granted, I wouldn't want to use the digital zoom if I were doing anything important, but boy, was it fun to play with. 12x optical zoom x 4x digital zoom = 48x maximum zoom. Do you know how close you can get to the players using this? Well... let me just show you. And let me emphasize that these photos were not cropped, or edited at all, these are the original photos.

Just some shots to give you an idea of where I was sitting.

Maximum zoom: 48x
Pretty clear... I think, at least

30x zoom... I think


Some photos of home plate. You can kind of make out their faces!

Cheerleaders

The cheerleaders (yea they have cheerleaders at baseball games here) were in the stands along the 3rd base line. This is the full 48x zoom. See if you can find where they are in the photo:





I also found how to select only one color to display. But... I couldn't figure out how to change which color was highlighted....

The final decision....

I've finally decided to buy the Canon Powershot SX200. It's small and compact, but it has a 12X zoom, and more importantly, it has full manual controls, plus aperture and shutter priority. I know it's not a perfect camera. People's main concerns seem to be the flash that pops up automatically (though I found in the shop if you cover it with your finger you can keep it from popping up.. as long as you don't move your finger) and that it has no viewfinder. But... I've probably used the viewfinder on my camera about 2 times in the 7 years I've had it... so... really I'm not concerned about that. The cover for the USB port seemed quite flimsy, but I guess that if it did fall off, it wouln't be the end of the world. The one on my camera is fairly flimsy too, but it's never given me a problem over the years....The controls, though, seem ultra easy to use when I tested it in the store, and that's my biggest concern with cameras. I don't want to be searching through menus for 5 minutes to take one shot.

I went to the Canon shop in Shincheon on Saturday. They were sold out, but I put my name down for the shipment coming in on Monday. It's going to be 468,000 won, wich is $351.00 USD today with the exchange rate. So.. basically I get the same price. I may get a memory card with it, though, which in the US, I guess you can't get for free anymore. My friend bought an IXUS while we were there, and they gave her a 4GB (!!!) memory card for free!(!!!). I'm hoping they'll do the same for me. I'll def buy an extra battery to go with the camera, since I don't want to risk running out of juice on a trip. Those cost about 47,000. I wonder if I can get that cheaper online or at Yongsan? I'm also wondering if I can get a small tripod... but that's something else I'd be better off getting in Yongsan... but... would I really use a tripod though???

Here's the CNET inital preview of the camera:



By the way, the IXUS my friend bought, while I would never buy it myself because it has very few options to play with (of if they are there, I couldn't find them, which is basically the same thing to me), actually takes some nice photos. She had it out last night and she took some amazing low light photos with no flash and they are as clear as day. I was shocked. So, if you are just looking for a point and shoot, this might be a good line to look at. I forget which model she got though. I think it's the newest one. It seemed a little pricy for what it was, and it doesn't take AA batteries, but it's another option out there.

Samsung VLUU WB500

So... does anyone know anything about this camera? It's Korean... Samsung. Probably only sold in Korea, because I can't find any reviews on the typical camera review sites. I did find this one blog entry about it on Naver: http://blog.naver.com/meancoco/130042068988

What do you think?

Camera buying opportunity

I've got the opportunity to buy a used Powershot s5 IS here in Seoul. The offer is 500,000 for the camera, all the included software and manuals, two memory cards plus a battery charger. The camera is about a year old. Is it worth it? Here are the specs: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons5is/. I'm going to check out the camera on Saturday.

My Camera

I have to say, as sad as my camera seems sometimes, it has treated me very well over the years for what it is. Its 3.2 megapixels wasn't even high class when I got it about 5 years ago. It doesn't help that I've been taking most of my photos on the lowest resolution possible to maximize the space on my 512 mb memory card (I have about 1,000 photos on that thing, not including at least 10 videos). I complain a lot about my camera, but it really has been a good friend to me over the years.

I've been thinking recently that it might be time to invest in something a little more advanced. I've been shopping around. I don't want a DSLR, because as much as I like photography, I admit I'm never going to take the time to use it like it should be used. That being said, the more I investigate, the more I find some quite affordable cameras that have aperture and shutter priority.

Canon has two cameras that looked manageable for me. Does anyone know about these cameras, or other cameras? I don't want anything too bulky, or complicated. In theory I know how to use an SLR, but I was never great at it. I need something that gives me enough options that I can play around and have fun without getting lost and bogged down in some instruction manual. My camera knowledge is sadly lacking in many areas.

Powershot SX110

PowerShot A590