My digital photography journey
I tend to be an early adopter of new technologies including consumer product front. I bought my first digital camera - Kodak DC20 - in early 1997 when most people had never heard of digital camera. I was probably the only person in our company owning a digital camera then. With a resolution of 193x373 pixels, the camera does not generate printable photos. This camera was more for fun than serious photography.
It was more than five years later that I bought my second camera - Fuji FinePix 2600 with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels and 3x optical zoom on 2002-07-25. That started my transition from film photography to digital photography. I loved that camera. Unfortunately, it was lost at the gate of a heavily guarded residential community for retired senior PLA officers in Beijing in the middle of July 2003, so were the precious pictures of my friends and me who had not met for over 10 years. The camera was stolen in front PLA guards or by the guards. That is normal, not an exception in China nowadays. I lost my mom’s fairly new bike a few days later because I was used to the environment in the US, and lost my guard against theft.
I immediately ordered a Canon PowerShot A60 on 2003-07-29 after I came back to the US. It also has a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels and 3x optical zoom that I found adequate for my casual photography. I loved the camera so much that I bought two more as gifts to my parents and a family friend.
After my Minolta film SLR camera and a Vivitar zoom lens were lost in a car break-in at the garage of the Museum of Science in Boston, I finally bid farewell to film photography.
Unfortunately, my PowerShot A60 was lost in a dramatic adventure in the White Mountains on 2007-11-03. I couldn’t live without a camera, so I immediately started looking for a digital camera. I wanted high zoom this time for hiking trips, and this led me to buy a Kodak EasyShare Z650 with 10X optical zoom and 2832 x 2128 resolution on 2007-11-12. After my first presidential traverse with this bulky camera on 2008-06-21, I decided that I needed a pocket size camera, and bought a Canon PowerShot SD750 with a resolution of 3072 x 2304 and 3x optical zoom on 2008-07-04.
I was content with my EasyShare Z650 and PowerShot SD750 until the summer of 2012 when I started taking more and more panoramic pictures. Stitching individual photos to panoramas is time consuming even with nice programs such as Microsoft’s Image Composition Editor and SD750’s friendly stitching photo naming. The geotagging of pictures by smartphones raised my interest in photo geotags. Geotagging photos manually is time consuming too. I also would love to have a compact camera with powerful zoom so I do not need to carry two cameras. A discussion on dpreview.com and Jeff Keller’s review helped me make up my mind to choose Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20 that has in-camera photo stitching, 20x optical zoom and GPS.
I ordered a Lumix DMC-ZS20 from a Daxmart.com on 2012-09-30, then canceled the order from this dubious vendor, and ordered one from Amazon on 2012-10-02.
I received it on Oct. 4. After familiarizing myself with the camera, I used it extensively for my 92 km bike ride on Oct. 6. The photos are satisfactory.
My use supports Jeff Keller’s comprehensive review.
The panorama function (i.e. in-camera photo stitching for panorama) works well. It may fail occasionally for understandable reasons which include moving objects, drastic variation of brightness from one part to another part of the panoramic scene.
The GPS works well too. It takes a few minutes for it to acquire satellite signals. This is probably normal. However, I think that smartphones seem to be quicker in positioning, so there may be room for GPS function improvement. Because of this, I had to keep GPS on all the time hence draining the battery.
The Optical Image Stabilizer works very well. I get clear images even with high zoom.
I love the sunset mode. I used it for sunrise. It was my first time to get decent sunrise pictures with a P&S camera.
The battery ran out after about 210 photos in 6 hours. I certainly need a backup battery or portable battery charger because I tend to have long trips.
The touchscreen is not very responsive. Since most touch actions can be replaced with button clicking, so it is not a big deal. I rarely use it.
I am amazed by what one can get from a compact camera like this nowadays. Review on Amazon
My interest in taking sunrise/sunset photos arose significantly in 2014. I need to take multiple pictures to generate an animated GIF. It would be nice to control the shutter remotely and programmatically so that these pictures can be taken with a fixed inerval without any movement. The only choice for a super-zoom pocket size camera is Sony DSC HX50V. I bought one in April 2014.
Canon EOS Rebel T5 is the best rated SLR camera.
Its sensor has 18.00 megapixels. Pixel unit is 4.3 µm square. The total area is 77.4 m^2.
Sony DSC HX50V has 1/2.3" Exmor R® CMOS sensor ( IMX220,5264 × 3960, 20.7 MP, 7.87 mm (1/2.3"), 1.2 μm x 1.2 μm) with 20.4 megapixels with an area of
This means that with the same focal length, Sony DSC HX50V's zoom is (4.3x4.3)/(1.2x1.2) = 12 times higher.
Sony RX100 VII is the best pocket size camera.