Gadgets & Technology
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
P&S Camera with no viewfinder?
I need a new camera and have been looking at Canon mainly. I like this one Canon Powershot SD3500IS, but one of the reviews states it doesn't have a viewfinder.
I rarely used mine in my old camera, but there were times that I did. Do you think cameras have come so far that it's not needed? FWIW my old camera was from 2007 and a sony cybershot.
Re: P&S Camera with no viewfinder?
Henri and Charlotte, Christmas 2012
You don't need a viewfinder; it's more of a personal preference. And, actually, using the LCD instead of the viewfinder would prevent parallax error.
I wouldn't buy a camera without one, but I feel like I can't compose a shot without looking through the viewfinder. (Our camera at work doesn't have one, and it drives me nuts, along with the protruding lens assembly that you can't actually twist to zoom!)
I've been happy with all of my Canon Powershots over the years, so if you don't think that you'll miss the viewfinder, go for it!
I have the Canon Powershot SX210IS, which also doesn't have a viewfinder. I've been using it for a few months and find that I don't really miss the viewfinder at all.
I was replacing an older Powershot that did have a viewfinder, and while I did occasionally use the viewfinder when the battery life was getting very low, I never felt that it gave me the same control. The digital display let me see what the automatic lighting settings were picking up and adjust accordingly. For a fully manual camera, I might prefer the viewfinder, but in a P&S (especially these days) so much data is being processed and adjusted automatically by the camera, that I would rather use the digital display to have a better idea what final shot is going to look like.
I find that Canon has incredible battery life, anyway. My battery has never died on me, and seems to last forever.
PP-How do you like the 210? I've had my eye on it, but don't really "need" a new P&S at the moment.
Henri and Charlotte, Christmas 2012
I love the extended zoom. The biggest factor in my replacing my old Powershot was to have the better zoom. A long time ago I had a bulky Olympus digital with a 10x optical zoom. I loved the zoom capability, but when I bought my next camera I gave it up, because I decided I'd get more use out of a compact camera I could carry in my purse. When the new compacts starting coming out with extended zoom capabilities, I really wanted one. (Especially after our recent trip to Africa, when I would have loved to be able to zoom in on the wildlife instead of having to crop my photos so much.)
I also find that it shoots very well in available light. Much better than my old Powershot. In fact, even shooting on auto, it doesn't even opt to use the flash a lot of the time. Since I typically shut the flash off for a lot of my indoor pictures, this was the other big criteria I was looking for when I bought this one.
My two negatives are:
)
1) The pop-up flash is a little annoying. I often close it again to get it out of the way, but I haven't figured out how to get it to come back when I do want it (without powering the camera off and on). This is really just a small nuisance though.
2) The color is sometimes oversaturated. I moved to my last Powershot because the old Olympus was too washed out, and I didn't get very vibrant colors. However, the SX210IS makes the colors almost too bright sometimes. I get some very gorgeous photos, but sometimes it's like the camera is bumping up the saturation digitally, and it ends up too bright and the colors look unrealistic! I'm still trying to find the best way to correct this during my digital image processing. However, most of the photos just come out looking beautiful. (Sometimes even more beautiful than in real life!
The last things are just a matter of learning to use the new camera, but I find the menus a little awkward, since I'm still used to the interface on my old camera (the PowerShot SD700IS). Also, I'm still struggling a little getting the manual settings right for some tricky shooting modes that I'd perfected with the old model. But both of those are really just problems adjusting to a new camera, and hopefully I'll get over them in time.
I don't have any full-res images uploaded from the new camera, but here are some of the photos I've taken since I bought it. You can't really see the clarity, since they're optimized for Facebook, but I haven't edited the contrast/saturation/etc so it might give you some idea how it shoots. I think almost all of these were just taken on Auto:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=202222&id=731852070&l=0bf7a52f75
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=207751&id=731852070&l=520c91adaf
Henri and Charlotte, Christmas 2012