time for a new camera - ultra compact P&S?

[mike_bayer]

much appreciated folks

 

[Nemrod]

That is great advise CompDude. Unfortunately, the A570 is no longer being manufactured by Canon and most of the retailers don't have it on stock anymore. You may find it on eBay, but i suspect that will be a thing of the past pretty soon.

There is however an alternative to the A570 which is its spiritual offspring the Canon A590 IS. This camera offers full manual controls. Shutter speed can be controlled up to 1/2000 of a second and f-stop control ranges from about f2.5 to f8. Not all f-stops, but quite an useful range for such a compact camera. It even has a meter on Manual mode that tells you if the photo is properly exposed as you change the settings, a feature that you rarely see in a compact model.

The CHDK hack is supported for this camera, which provides special functionality such as RAW, Histograms, Overexposure warnings and a lot more. It uses the same image processor (Digic III) as the G9 & G10!

The thing about the A590 is that Canon doesn't make a housing for it. Ikelite does one and it's not of the compact type, still it is of a reasonable size. You can get both the camera and Ikelite housing for around $400, and as CompDude said, you can also use external wide and macro lenses from Inon, Ikelite and others.

Check it out. Hope it helps.

Off topic since the OP is willing to give up everything for small size rather than having a small pocket camera and a dedicated U/W rig but, the 570 and the 590 are probably the best digitals short of an SLR for U/W photography. An argument can be made that the G9/G10/P6000 would be better but given their limitations on the use of wet mount lenses and little real WA support they are severely compromised. In my opinion and only that, the 570/590 is superior to the G10 especially when you factor in costs for general U/W use.

There are today some dSLR rigs that could be put together that are only slightly larger than my Ike/A570 rig but at 4.67 X the price. I can afford it, I cannot justify it at this time. Both S&S and Sea Tool have rigs that are very small for a dSLR and the S&S is even half way not ultra expensive.

To the OP, Fugi F50/60 with Ikelite compact case.

N

 

[mike_bayer]

Hi everybody,

I ended up buying the Canon SD780IS - and I love it so far. I can not believe how small this thing is and the 720p video is pretty good! No manual controls but I think I will get way more use out of it because of the small size and convenience.

I got a lot of great shots from my old S400 an it had no manual either - the macro was really quite good even without an external strobe.

I'll probably end up with the ikelite case and wide conversion lens - anyone know if you can rent them first to see how they work?

thanks