Middling zoomy travel camera

I wear multi focal contacts, end of problem. Have you tried them?

I have a Leica D-Lux 4, you can pick them up second hand for under £200.

Great little camera. Native optical Zoom is only 2.5 or 3.0 but.....the lens is good enough to allow cropping of theJPEG file by a further factor of 3 or so, thus giving an equivalent Zoom factor of about 9 or 10.

My Nikon D7200 came with a good quality 16 - 80 Zoom lens, again a fairly modest factor of 5. But likewise, because of the quality of the lens, I can crop by a factor of about 5, giving an effective Zoom of about 25. Yes, I know it's not the sort of camera you are considering, it's just the principle that a good lens allows quite a bit of cropping without loss of detail.

Might be worth a thought, or two ?

It doesn't zoom so may not be any good for you but I recently picked up a Fuji X100T specifically for taking on holiday as I was tired of carrying round a full DSLR.  Its a brilliant little camera with a proper sensor and great wideish angle lens and is a little like the old rangefinders I used to use.

If it needs to stay pocket sized, then the IQ will suffer somewhat on longer zoom. I still have an S95 and it’s a really useful camera. 

What would you use the longer zoom for and how often?

Don Atkinson posted:

I have a Leica D-Lux 4, you can pick them up second hand for under £200.

Great little camera. Native optical Zoom is only 2.5 or 3.0 but.....the lens is good enough to allow cropping of theJPEG file by a further factor of 3 or so, thus giving an equivalent Zoom factor of about 9 or 10.

My Nikon D7200 came with a good quality 16 - 80 Zoom lens, again a fairly modest factor of 5. But likewise, because of the quality of the lens, I can crop by a factor of about 5, giving an effective Zoom of about 25. Yes, I know it's not the sort of camera you are considering, it's just the principle that a good lens allows quite a bit of cropping without loss of detail.

Might be worth a thought, or two ?

I totally support Don, it's taken a while to comment because I have been searching for a particular picture and this is an experiment. I bought my daughter a Canon G15 and this picture is from the first trip out.

When she sent me the picture I noticed in the centre of the image a black dot, about the third bloom up. Zooming in it was possible to see that the black dot was an ant. This is a 12 megapixel camera. I don't know if you will be able to see it from the picture loaded.

The current equivalent is I think the G9X.

I have a Leica D-Lux 109 which is slightly larger than the D-Lux 4 but I found the image quality significantly improved, especially when using the RAW format.  You can pick them up pre-owned for reasonable ££.  They aren't M10's but much more portable, less attention grabbing and impressive results.

Peter

northpole posted:

I have a Leica D-Lux 109 which is slightly larger than the D-Lux 4 but I found the image quality significantly improved, especially when using the RAW format.  You can pick them up pre-owned for reasonable ££.  They aren't M10's but much more portable, less attention grabbing and impressive results.

Peter

This replaced my M8 & 40 ‘cron. I’m very pleased with it. To have f1.7 capability is astonishing at the price.

G

northpole posted:

I have a Leica D-Lux 109 which is slightly larger than the D-Lux 4 but I found the image quality significantly improved, especially when using the RAW format.  You can pick them up pre-owned for reasonable ££.  

Worth also looking at the Panasonic LX100 which is essentially the same camera (hardware; the Leica has tweaked firmware it’s said) at about half the cost.

I also have the d-lux but it is much larger than an S95 and has a ‘normal’ zoom range. Good camera but not fitting the brief?

Eloise posted:

northpole posted:

I have a Leica D-Lux 109 which is slightly larger than the D-Lux 4 but I found the image quality significantly improved, especially when using the RAW format.  You can pick them up pre-owned for reasonable ££.  

Worth also looking at the Panasonic LX100 which is essentially the same camera (hardware; the Leica has tweaked firmware it’s said) at about half the cost.

That little Red Dot makes ALL the difference  and not just to the price !! 

JamieWednesday posted:

I also have the d-lux but it is much larger than an S95 and has a ‘normal’ zoom range. Good camera but not fitting the brief?

That’s true. I wasn’t promoting the d-lux, merely better quality lenses  which might (but might not) allow cropping to achieve a similar result to a wider range of zoom.

I’m no photographer so am happy to be corrected.

Oh, no need to be corrected, it’s a really nice camera. As per previous post I wonder whether SD really needs long zoom? And/Or the uber pocketability of the S95...

I have a lumix and they are great cameras.