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Reviews
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Date product posted
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243
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Mon 13 October, 2008
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Recommended By
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Average Rating
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No recommendations
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Description:
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Why a review for a camera released in 2002 I hear you ask? Well there are several reasons that make this camera special and yet to be surpassed in my humble opinion.
Firstly is the 1.8 to 2.6 Aperture lens. Yes, you read that right, a minimum aperture at 105mm of 2.6. This makes the lens on this camera exceptional for its class. Not only is the lens fast but it is of exceptional quality.You will not find a lens like this on any Prosumer camera made since this one. There is some CA in bright contrasty conditions but this can easily be removed PP and it is not enough to cause concern.
This makes this camera a great low light shooter and because it has no mirror it is possible to get sharp pictures at around 1/6 second no problem.
The second reason for the strength of this camera is the build quality and manual control. It is built like a tank and has lots of external buttons for settings not unlike high end DSLR's. It has an optical view finder ( small but usable ), articulating LCD screen, external flash hotshoe and prefocusing light to mention some of the features frequently missing even on todays models.
The mode dial has settings for S,A,P and manual much the same as DSLR's and a few scene modes. There is exposure compensation, flash compensation, support for RAW, TIFF and Jpegs and manual focusing. The optical view finder will also zoom with the lens.
The third killer feature for a camera like this is 3 frames per second shooting in RAW. Ok you can only get a burst of 4 shots before buffering slows it down but that is still pretty impressive for burst shooting for a Prosumer.
Last but not least are the "mymode" settings.
You can preset and store up to 8 custom settings including all the controls like ISO, file format, focus type, flash etc etc. You can also preset the focal length for each setting.
Now here is the real killer application for this camera.It can be set up like a rangefinder for street shooting. Using the preset modes you can set up to 4 different focal lengths with different apertures which enables you to shoot with the focus already set. This means there is minimal shutter delay making it ideal for quick shooting on the streets.
Now of course, with a camera of this age there are one or two caveats.
The ISO range is 64-400. There have been some reviews stating that ISO 400 is unusable. In my experience this is totally incorrect. ISO 400 is perfectly usable and if you shoot in RAW cleans up nicely in post processing. It is advisable to lower the sharpness settings to -2 or -3 as the default sharpness is quite aggressive and again this will reduce any noise if shooting jpegs. (By pumping up the contrast settings to +4 or +5 and shooting in Mono you can get some lovely high contrast/moody street shots)
The camera is also 5mp. This is fine for prints up to A3 unless you are a pixel peeper but will be a minus for some people.
You can no longer buy this camera in the shops. They are still readily available on ebay and can be snapped up from around £50 to £100. Considering they cost between £500-£600 originally this is an absolute bargain.
As a last endorsement, if you care to google Alex Majoli you will find out how highly a top photo journalist regards this camera and its younger brother the C-5060.
In summary, if you are into street and low light shooting you will still not find a better camera than this in its class. At ISO 400 and wide open I can get shots that only a very expensive DSLR and lens could hope to get. Don't take my word for it, grab one while they are still around, you wont be disappointed.
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