Digital Camera

I'm selling my Canon 5MP Digital Elph for a Fuji FinePix F20. The F20 came out in '06, but I have high hopes for it.

The Digital Elph, while very small, took lousy photos unless you were in bright light, stood perfectly still, and shot subjects that also stood perfectly still. Great for landscapes, but lousy for 99% of real world situations when you want to take a photo, ie. birthdays, sports, parties, weddings etc. It took forever for the shutter to actually engage after you pressed the button, and then all you ended up getting was a blur. Useless.

The old FinePix F20 is supposed to focus on taking fast pictures in low light conditions using a chip that has fast ISO instead of just cramming in megapixels. The F30 has longer battery life but is the same as the F20. The F40 has more mega pixels, so undoubtedly has compromised on the quality of the fast, low light photography it can manage.

This NYTimes article sums up the issue neatly:

About 65 percent of camera buyers are buying their second or third digital camera, but this time they probably will not be focusing on the number of megapixels as they did in past purchases. (Anything over 5 megapixels is going to provide the resolution any amateur photographer needs.) Instead, they might want to think about how well that camera takes pictures, including the action shots.

It then talks about shutter lag and ISO, without ever mentioning the old P&S that dealt with them first.