Cameras

I've never complained about my camera, well maybe I have, but it wasn't like that. This would be a wannabe photographer's amateur review, which means it's my own opinion only.

I have been using a Canon IXY 910 (the Japanese version of IXUS 860) for a few years now, it never really fails to satisfy my needs (which is not that much, usually I take a lot of macro, landscape and embarrassing moments in parties). I've only been using 5MP of the 8MP its sensor provided in a less compressed (superfine) mode. The colour that this little guy gave me has been amazing even without tuning, and I got compliments for my photos when I upload them on facebook. It's quick, silent and to the point.

Then I came across this Nikon S9100 that my parents brought when they came visit me, I've heard good things about it and my parents are willing to swap it for my Canon. I actually loved my Canon but I wanted to see what difference this Nikon can make so I accepted the deal (part of my superficial reason is that now even my phone has an 8MP camera, but the 18x optical zoom comparing to 3x on my Canon makes me drool too). From the photos my parents took with them I could easily tell that they didn't use the camera right. There was two shots with very little difference in time and position taken, one is completely normal but the other is totally redded out. I assumed they might've set something wrong on the camera.

A glitch (probably not considered a serious one but) that immediately annoyed me about this Nikon S9100 is that when in review mode of the photo just taken, the shutter refuses to work, on my 4YO Canon you can just take a photo blindly and immediately in review mode. This prompted me to disable the review function, but the difference this made was marginal, because it wanted to go over the focusing process again every time, while the Canon would just use the last known setting (either that or the Canon's focus works extremely fast that you barely notice). It is the moment that's important, not the review of what you've taken, Nikon people!

On the telescopic side of lens, very slow and inefficient focus, even in sufficient light, which sort of destroyed the purpose of the telescopic lens. The IS is probably not good enough for my shaky hands on the telescopic end too. During focus generally, it tends to make noises all the time shifting lens even when the green in focus label is present instead of telling you "I'm ready" in a click and stayed there, I'm not really sure whether this is a good or bad thing.

On the image size selection, only the full 12MP size offers a "star" option (equivalent to "superfine"), which means when I use my normal 5MP setting the image would be quite heavily compressed. I'm a bit concerned but I'll see if shifting to normal 8MP mode covers the problem by increased canvas size.

I noticed I took a lot of ghostly photos under low light with the Nikon, and found out that the auto ISO selection is not really doing its job. The manual did say when you set it to auto it would shift up to ISO 800 in low light, so why were all my ghostly photos taken at ISO 200 or even 160 and at shutter speed of 1/3s to 2s? That doesn't make sense, 1/10s at ISO 600 would solve the problem beatifully.

On the plus side, the colour is pretty neutral comparing to the Canon. The build of the camera itself is very sturdy (I dropped it a few times already, don't tell mom). Noise level of low light shots are relatively low. Also I liked the design that the flash needs to be separately lifted up because I'm never quite a flash person unless I absolutely have to use it. Video taking now have a dedicated button, which is good too, the thing is I don't really make a lot of videos. The manual focusing system lets you move the cursor around to focus on the object you want to focus (a step forward than my Canon which you have to focus a few times until the AF guessed what you wanted to shoot right, especially in macro mode which I use a lot), but a touch screen as seen on Sony or smart phones would actually do a better job.

I didn't have this camera for long enough to discover too much good things about it, well I hope I would later. For the time being I am a bit disappointed about it, because on the overall experience it is hopelessly losing to my 4 year old Canon. I can't imagine why Canon came up with a slick and witted camera 4 years ago while this new Nikon is still struggling to catch up (if it cared to at all) and it just feels sluggish. Canon and Nikon were both supposed to be very good brands I thought? Maybe only in professional (D)SLR areas. Nikon doesn't seem to care too much about the user experience of their consumer cameras (Maybe the developers were too good to use a camera like this? Then why is this thing even on the market?). Canon on the other hand took care of everything and the experience is just smooth.

A bit of hope, a firmware upgrade could definitely address the shutter and ISO problems, but that's only if Nikon's up for it. Second thoughts, do people to custom roms for cameras?