www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hi All,
I'm on the point of buying a new compact camera to replace my Canon Powershot 710 (8.5 years old and still going strong after much use). I'm after something slim, light & pocketable, but with very good image quality. For quite a while the one I've had my eye on was the S120, at circa £220, which seems to fit the bill very well, although it has been out for nearly 2 years and the there seems to be no direct successor lined up.
Now my dilemma is whether it is worth spending nearly double the money on perhaps the Canon G7X or Sony RX100 mark 2, for the claimed superior image quality from their larger sensors. They are though bulkier items. Does anyone have views or experience with these, particularly their macro capability for butterflies & moths?

A couple of other points - what is an ND filter and is it useful for macro?
I would be going from 7 Mp to 20Mp so approx. how big are file sizes going to become?

Thanks.

It all depends on your priorities. If compact size and portability are paramount, then the S120 is a good choice, with RAW capability and manual controls. If you are mainly interested in butterflies, then its shortcomings might be limiting. The zoom range is quite small and there is no viewfinder, apart from the back-screen. You could look at the Lumix LF1, which is similar in size but has these additional desirable features. I've not use this model but have used several other Lumix cameras and find they offer good image quality, while the Leica-branded lenses are excellent.

On your other questions: an ND filter is 'Neutral Density' and is designed to cut down the amount of light reaching the lens, so that you can use a wider aperture in very bright light - the opposite of what you usually want for macro work!

In broad terms, file size will be proportional to the number of megapixels, though in the case of JPEGs, everything depends on the amount of compression applied by the processor. Personally, I have found that there is little advantage to using RAW with small-sensor cameras, because the dynamic range is very limited in any case

For better images, you have to turn to cameras with larger sensors but that inevitably means more size and weight, especially if you want to fill the frame with a small butterfly and, therefore, need a longer focal-length lens. Such a lens is inevitably much bigger, when it has to cover a larger sensor.

So, to go back to the beginning, you need to think about your priorities

Have you considered Olympus ? i have used them for all my butterfly pics on this site.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-Digital ... pus+camera

cheap as chips !!

That Olympus certainly looks to be value but – and this is always a problem for me – does not have a vari angle or tilting screen. Once you’ve had one, you would NEVER want a camera without.

Surely there must be a way of plugging in a flexi external monitor for this or any other camera with a fixed built-in screen? Attached via tripod bush or flash hot shoe. My searches cannot find anything suitable.

Reviews I have looked at suggest this Olympus SZ-14 doesn’t offer the finest image quality.

Jack