I just got back from my New York trip, I brought my new Canon S90 to see how well it performs. You might have already read my previous post/review about buying Olympus e-p1 and returning it for Panasonic gf1 but I decided to return that as well for the s90. This is a great camera to have for vacation since it is so tiny and I can carry it in my pocket without feeling like a tourist. I am not going into the details of the camera but I will just briefly explain how I took each photos.

outside of rockefeller center, angels and tree & columbus circle shops in new york -

iso320 1/25 f/2                                                   iso400 1/50 f/2

– The camera takes excellent night shots but I wish the dynamic range a lot higher, you can see that it has trouble collecting information from the brighter area.

iso200 1/40 f/2

time square in new york, raining – I use photoshop in many of the night shots to calm down the lights so they are not so washed out. It really difficult to get shot like this without using multiple exposure shots and stitching it back, the digital billboards would all have been washed out.

iso800 1/50 f/2

New york night scape on rockefeller observatory – In photos like this, you can see a lot of noise in the background but it definitely does way better than most other P&S camera.

iso640 1/640 f/4.0

statue of liberty from staten island ferry in new york – S90 has a decent zoom range, I was able to get pretty close to the statue of liberty from the Ferry ride.

smoky manhole in new york – I love the color inherited by the smoke from the background, and s90 did a great job in capturing that!

f800 1/50 f/2

cathedral in new york – My friend who was with me during the trip has a GF1, he was struggling to hold his camera still for a difficult shot like this one. But I had a easier time holding the small and light S90 during long exposure shots.

Grand central station in new york – This shot was taken from three different exposure, S90 can not retain the detail on the window, it would just show up as pure white when the rest of the scene is properly exposed.

iso640 1/15 f/2

devine bar in new york – A candid shot of my friends in a bar/restaurant. The restaurant was really dark but I was still able to get a clear shot of their faces.

iso800 1/50 f/2

MOMA museum, starry night by van gogh - new york - I do not understand why people are so bothered by the lose rear ring dial, I don't think it was that lose and never once did it interfere with my picture taking experience.

cemetary in Trinity church in new york - A thing I do not like about the design of this camera is the way the flash pops out, my finger is usually covering that portion of the camera, sooner or later I will drop the camera because of it.

f800 1/50 f/2

cathedral in new york – Unfortunately the S90 is not wide enough so I had to stitch three different photo to show the entire cathedral.

iso80 1/60 f/4.5

fruit stand in china town, soho of new york

time square in new york (done in multiple exposure)

iso800 1/6 f/2

saint paul cathedral in new york

iso800 1/15 f/2

st. paul devine cathedral

Overall the Canon S90 did a great job, I love the night shots but it is difficult to get good dynamic range without multiple shot and that is not always possible when traveling with other people. The battery life fairly decent, I was able to get 200-300 photos all with the Raw+Jpg combo, many times flash was used and I spent a lot of time using the preview feature too. However, I was able to carry my S90 at all time while my friend with the GF1 often has to think twice about carrying it with him. I like to hear your feedback on what you saw here and hopefully it helped those of you who are still debating about which camera to get. As you might already know, I am still an amateure photographer, please critique my photos to help me take better photos in the future!

Panasonic-Lumix-GF1-vs-Olympus-EP-1

If you haven't heard about these cameras, the GF1 and E-p1 are a new breed of digital cameras call Micro Four Third aka hybrid cameras.

It has the flexibility, sensitivity and function of a SLR camera but at a much more pocket able size. This new design is achieved by eliminating the Mirror that exist in every SLR. There are of course some trade off in this new design, but luckily for me, I've never used a SLR so I wont really miss them.

I order the Olympus E-P1 camera from Amazon to test it out and exchanged it for the Panasonic GF1 when that came out.

I had no prior experiences with other SLR until now. The current point and shoot cameras that I am using are Fuji F30 and Panasonic tz5 before this. Fuji F30 is known for it's ability to capture better low light photo than most other p&s camera and it has some manual function so I am somewhat prepared for the more advanced function of my new camera.

Size - At first glance, the E-P1 was a lot bigger than expected, the two companies tries to advertise it highly portable like a typical P&S camera but it is almost twice as big as my F30 without the lens. However, unlike the reviews I have read so far, it is pocket able even with the lens, you just wont feel very comfortable walking around with them. I stuffed the E-P1 with the 14-42mm lens kit into my dress pants with no problem and it was awkward trying to walk with something that big in your pocket. The Panasonic zoom kit was even bigger so I didn't bother trying but both comes with a tiny pancake lens kit, and with the pancake lens kit, I am sure most people will not have problem stuffing them in their pocket.

downtown disney

Picture Quality - I am obviously judging the photos from eyes without any scientific process. My first experience with the quality was that the picture was not too far off from what I can get with my point and shoot under the right lightning condition, but it was most likely due to my inexperience with a full manual camera. I took the camera out at night to downtown disney and took a bunch of photos to test out the low light quality and I can definitely see the quality difference between this and my P&S camera.

I had better luck getting a decent quality of my Panasonic GF1 once I traded in the Olympus E-P1 and I think it is most likely due to the fact that I have gotten used to using the manual function while I was testing the E-P1 and also they both use the same sensor so the quality should not be too far off. Overall I am very pleased with the quality that it produces, the large sensor allows me to throw off the background and take better low light photo while being small enough to carry around if I go on a vacation.

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Speed - The major complaint of the Olympus version from most reviews that I read was the auto focus and my feeling was the same, I was having a really difficult time capturing photos of my dog and she is old, blind and deaf, in other words, she wasn't moving very fast. Under low light, it would sometimes just give up focusing or take a long time to focus.

The Panasonic on the other hand, was very speedy, I was having a lot of fun taking photo of my dog and I did not feel any frustration from missing shoots. In addition, Panasonic also comes with Auto Focus assistant lamp, it helps you focus under extreme low light so that the camera wont just give up when it can not focus properly.

Features - I am a photshop user so I like to do all my effects in Photoshop so the extra fancy filters did not impress me. The camera took awhile to process and the result was limited so I didn't bother with any of  it.

Interface - I thought the interface of the Olympus was really cluttered and a lot of control was hard to get to, I wanted to experiment with bracketing, but I had to dig deep within the menu to get to it every time, unless I'm missing something. I took the time to study the manual several time before I was able to set all the settings and find all the features that I wanted. Panasonic did a better job by placing a lot of the features on the hardware button and dials. I was able to get to everything I needed with a few quick glance of the manual.

Flash - I find the Olympus' lack of flash very inconvenient. Most serious photographer will say that an on board flash is not necessary as SLR are good for low lights anyway, while that is true, you will still find yourself in situation where the low light is too low. The Panasonic comes with a tiny flash, while not very powerful, it does the job.

It has been more than a week since I got my Panasonic, I do not miss the Olympus at all. I might not be giving it a fair review because after all, I got to practice with it for a month so I was more comfortable with handling another similar camera. But there are just certain features that cannot be solved just by getting used to it. Here is what I like from both camera

Have you had the chance to play with either one of them yet? If so what do you think of them?