There are quite a few long zoom compact cameras around now. I guess they'll
all take reasonable pictures in reasonable light. They're grainy in low light
because of the tiny sensors they use, but the pictures are still good for id.
A quick look at the manual of this X70
(http://www.pentaximaging.com/pdf/X70_OPM_ENGLISH.pdf) and reading a few user
comments on the web indicates that this one might not be right for birding.
The electronic viewfinder has no dioptre adjustment. In my opinion you need to
use the viewfinder rather than the rear LCD, or it's too hard to find the bird,
especially in bright light. If your eyesight is a little off, the lack of
adjustment might make it hard to use.
Users are complaining that the small battery gives very short battery life.
Not the end of the world, but it uses a proprietary battery, so if you want a
spare it might be expensive.
It doesn't appear to be able to take a teleconverter, although 624mm is very
usable.
I find that some shots are impossible without easily accessible manual
focusing. My camera (Canon S3) requires me to hold down a button at the front
and press the up/down button on the back to focus. It's slow and cumbersome,
but often works. This one requires you to select MF from a menu, which means
it's going to be even harder. There are a small number of compact cameras that
have a focusing ring at the front, which would surely make life much easier,
but I'd insist on at least having a dedicated MF button. These features are,
unfortunately, rarely mentioned in the specs and reviews, so it can be hard to
work out which ones have them.
The default focusing mode has a gigantic focus frame that would make it
impossible to autofocus on any bird in vegetation, even if you had a clear view
of it. It appears that you can reduce the size of this, but it isn't clear by
how much. The smaller the better, in my opinion, to allow focusing between
branches, etc. It also isn't clear whether you can use the tracking AF in this
mode
The sensor on this camera is small, making the noise problem worse. There are
other compact super zooms with larger sensors, although I haven't checked how
the costs compare.
Peter Shute
________________________________________
From: On
Behalf Of Carl Clifford
Sent: Friday, 24 April 2009 4:42 PM
To: Ian May
Cc: Birding Aus
Subject: Buying optics
Ian,
Pentax has just released the X70, a SLR-like compact camera with a 24X
zoom (equal to 28-624mm in 35mm) and image stabiliser and continuos
mode at 11fps. It sounds like a good little camera for the birders
backpack. They are priced around the $550 mark. I would buy one
myself, but I blew Mr Rudd's largesse yesterday.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
PS I have no connection with Pentax, I just like the marque.
On 24/04/2009, at 4:27 PM, Ian May wrote:
g'Day Don
Occasionally one or two of our pelagic observers have used image
stabilized (gyro) bino's (not sure what brand) and it seems they are
bulky and the users are nearly always looking for batteries.
Pentax now have a very impressive 15 megapixel camera with image
stabilizer (K20D) at humane prices and combined with a 300 mm lens,
this seems the way to go.
Regards
Ian May
St Helens, Tas.
Don and Llane wrote:
> While there is a thread on buying optics I was wondering if anyone
> has had any experience with Canon's 10x42 Image Stabiliser
> waterproof binoculars. Any thoughts about these binoculars
> appreciated.
>
> Don Hadden
>
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