Best Point and Shoot Camera
Equipment
My little point and shoot camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8) finally crapped out. I'm looking for ideas/suggestions specifically for hunting camera. I used mine for pics, video, and also checked my trail cam cards with it, hell I even used the zoom at times in place of binocs. Those are my requirements, plus (most important) it has to fit in my pocket don't want large bulky camera. My price range is $250-400.
I recently bought a Sony HX90v that I am very impressed with
I-phone sounds like it will fit the bill. I have a plug in adapter that even allows me to look at memory cards.
Just be aware that publications don't like iPhone photos so if you plan to submit them for an article, etc.. you want a real camera.
Jaquomo... really??? That doesn't make any sense to me. Isn't a picture a picture? Any idea what their thinking is?
Nikon Coolpix S9900. Has wide angle lens, 30x zoom, video, takes good photo, easily fits in a pocket, takes high quality photo.
I bought (ordered) mine from KEH Camera in Ga. I purchased "like new" condition. Well satisfied with purchase. See my thread "Pelser Bowhunting Adventures" under Africa icon to see photo quality.
BowDude - I've been using one of those plug in adaptors the last 2-3 weeks with my I-phone - to check trail cam pics - it sucks, sometimes it loads, some times it doesn't.
Woodguy65... is yours an apple product? I purchased mine from apple and have owned it 2 or 3 years and it has never failed me yet. Apple seems to be a bit fussy at times and prefers apple products. Had a short recharging cable that was made by non apple manufacturer. Worked for a short time and then I started getting a notice on my phone saying that the cable was not an approved cable and it would not charge the phone.
Cell phones are amazing compared to 10 years ago but when you zoom in you can see the difference. On the web or a cell phone screen they look nice but for print or prints a real camera is the way to go.
What Glunt said. Its the resolution. They're great for taking selfies with strippers or hunting photos to share with friends but don't transfer well to larger prints in the format used for magazine photos. The writers guidelines specify that for most high-quality magazines.
Woodsguy-I recently went through the same thing and made a bad mistake. I bought a highly touted, FujiFilm XP for about $200. It sucks. I should have stuck with the Nikon Coolpix. The Fuji is okay outdoors but is terrible inside in terms of color. On the upside, it is waterproof and somewhat shockproof. Go with Buffalo 1's suggestion. I am a professional photographer and only use a point and shoot for fishing and messing around but I have seen some amazing stuff from M.R. James that he shot with a Coolpix. I had three of them and my only problem was, they could not stand up to my kind of abuse. The big Nikons, can. I am on the fifth year for my D-3500 and D7500 and i abuse the heck out of them.
My favorite camera is one that you can keep in a handy pocket. Carrying a bigger professional grade camera generally means that it stays in a pack and therefore, it doesn't come out as much. With a handy pocket camera you can see something cool and take a quick picture, slip the camera back in a pocket, and keep going. If you saw that same cool thing and had to pull your big camera out of your pack then you need to decide if it's worth the hassle of pulling the camera out of your pack. Lots of times that big camera won't come out. Later you'll wish you had that picture.
I've had great luck with a Canon Powershot ELPH. There are a couple of models. They are small and fit easily in any pocket. Mine have been great and have held up well against dirt and moisture. I keep one at home and use one for work. They have an optical zoom up to 5x or so. Beware that "digital zoom" is not worth paying for because you can do that easier on your computer at home. Several of my photos have appeared in national magazines.
I phones are good for shooting a "picture" of something, but if you want a quality photo of anything more than 20 ft away, you need a camera. Don't have a brand suggestion, but as mentioned "optical" zoom is very important. 30x is good. With only say 5x, you will have grainy photos due to the digital zoom on anything with some distance from you.
Hey thanks guys - exactly what I was looking for - I looked at both cameras suggested so far - and both seem to fit the bill.
I find a nice point and shoot much more convenient for a spur of the moment shot. I can reach in my pocket get the camera, turn it on, zoom and push the shutter all with one hand. Not so with a phone. At least, I can't do it and I've dropped my phone from a treestand trying.
I've had good luck with Lumix camera.
I've always been in the camp of using an actual good camera for pictures and an iphone for all the in between. But with the quality of what the newest phones provide....sheesh I can't see a problem blowing that picture up to even larger than a magazine. Pixels aren't everything, but even there the newest phones provide pixel density equal to that of the good cameras.
Sony makes great camera. The Nikon CoolPix was great, I had one for a while, I lost it, or it got ripped off, not sure. Lots of good options. Go for the most optical zoom you can afford. I have gone hiking and scouting with my DSLR on a bino harness. It will stay in the truck on a hunt or while fishing.
Another thing I would look for is if any of them have a view finder, those LCD screens suck in bright daylight. Maybe they have improved, but when it is sunny, or sunny and snowy, I can't see them.
I have had great luck with the small Canon cameras. Last one didn't survive a fall so I need to hunt a new one down. I rarely carry the DSLR but always enjoy the pics when I do. Just too bulky for most hunts. The full res version of the pic above went into a couple publications.
Yes Ohio I was speaking of using the iPhone without zoom. Phone cameras are digital zoom, so anything you are "zooming" is really just the same as taking the picture and cropping it and blowing up the crop.
iPhone 8 now takes 4K video in 60fps. WOW! Also videos in 1080 up to 240fps. Can you say bowhunting slow-motion shot? :)
Lou,
Can you post some of your photos with strippers please?
Bob, sometime I'll tell you about my buddy's bachelor party-fishing trip at some remote backwoods lake cabins where another friend showed up with two gorgeous young women who "performed" for several hours and then stayed the night. I did not partake later but many others did. They were beautiful. We all have photos..
APauls, it's not so much about the quality of an unzoomed phone pic but the format that the magazines don't like. Curt Wells discussed this in his column in Bowhunter, advising wannabe writers.
Another vote for the CoolPix. But I also love my smaller older Sony DSC-H3 which is compact enough for a jacket pocket but has a 10X zoom and great features. All my live deer hunt and most magazine article photos have been taken with it
Lou.....as others have posted on here before.....pics, or it didn’t happen.
Sorry I hope I am not straying too far off topic Lou, but what do you mean by format? They all create jpeg's. If you are talking about orientation it is easy enough to hold a phone sideways for a landscape shot.
I always carry my Lumix G7, but am also upgrading my phone to an iPhone 8 for the close up video capabilities it has off the cuff. I honestly can't see an unzoomed photo from iPhone 8 not meeting any type of magazine criteria. I can fully understand phones of yesteryear, but the new phones are not the same animal. I would venture to say that an "unzoomed" new Iphone or Samsung or any flagship phone would outperform an "unzoomed" point and shoot $200-$300 camera. If you want to zoom in for live animals etc, then there is no question you need a legit camera. But hero shots, man the new phones can do some awesome stuff. I still have my G7 with me to create some creative shots, but I think the iPhones are like f1.8 if I remember correctly? So some of that can be done there as well.
My I-phone put on my Swarovski Spotter creates some of the clearest images I've ever been able to take. Double Check your phone camera settings, I'd also voice that it beats out My Coolpix Nikon or any other cheap digital camera.
I use the camera on my S8 active, it will do everything you stated except being able to check trail cam pictures. Picture quiaity is unreal, even compared to my wife's new high end point and shoot semi professional camera she just bought. An extra on the S8 is that it functions as a GPS and phone ...
Question - did they stop making the Nikon S9900? I'm having trouble finding a new one, on the internet. I even checked out the website Buffalo suggested and called them they do't have any (used or new), Nikon doesn't even list it.
Is the camera discontinued?
Woodguy, it has been replaced by the Nikon A900 I believe.
Adam, I'm not a photo geek (I came from the video compression, encoding and transcoding world) but it has to do with the compression ratio with the iOS format of phones vs a real camera. In other words, what you capture is already digitally compressed by the phone using sampling algorithms, then saved as a JPEG or .PNG file. (Joint Photographic Experts Group standard for compression).
As I understand it - and hopefully someone smarter can correct me - that means you are taking an iOS compressed phone photo and further compressing it into JPEG when you save it. So you lose detail in both compression processes that can never be recovered. It may appear super bright and vivid to the eye when recreated on a computer screen, but that's not really how it "looks". Magazines would prefer photos in RAW uncompressed format but they will accept high resolution JPEG.
To the naked human eye it's tough to see, but when manipulating it into the format needed for magazine printing the difference is visible.
I'm my world, if you were to compare two 30" TVs side by side, one with the 4:1 transcoded and compressed HD your cable provider delivers, and the other with full bit rate true High Definition, your untrained eye wouldn't see much difference, of any. I would because I know what to look for. Put it on a pair of 60" screens and the difference is "WOW!" A 4:1 television HD stream on a large movie screen would be tough to watch.
Damn you guys you cost me $400! I had the Lumix that BB recommended a few years ago but I never had it with me because of the size. I've been perfectly happy with my iphone until this thread. Nikon A900 will arrive Saturday. (Yes, when I looked it appears that the A900 is the replacement for the S9900).
Thanks Lou!
Nothing against that pic white falcon, beautiful buck, but that looks grainier than a phone photo.
White Falcon's photo will be grainier because the Bowsite compresses photos way down to save server space.
All this compression talk! You'd think we were in an old folks home talking socks!
Lets get back to the stripper selfies.
An amazing camera I picked up this year for a special bighorn sheep hunt was a Canon SX65. It doesn't fit into a pocket but it's relatively small for having such a fantastic 65X+ ultra-zoom lens. It's a great tool to use for scouting. I could zoom in on rams that were 400 to 500 yards away and count rings! It also takes incredible HD video. I take the pics/video home and put them up on my big screen tv for scouting/field judging purposes. If you think about it, a 65x zoom is similar to the highest power on Swaro/Leica spotting scopes. In a pinch it would actually work as a spotting scope. It takes much better pics and video than digi-scopes. As mentioned earlier it is larger than a pocket camera but still is super light and doesn't take up much space in a pack. It also isn't waterproof. I put it in a drybag and am super careful.
Another camera I've used and abused over the years is a Lumix TS-3. It is 100% waterproof and takes pretty good video as well as pics. I've used it several times in Alaska to take underwater video of salmon (attached to a trekking pole). It's nice having a camera in Alaska and elsewhere that you don't have to worry about getting wet! It fits in a small pocket. I-phones are also nice! I also have a super small camcorder that almost fits in a pocket and has a 30x zoom. As you can tell I like having an assortment...and a backup in case something happens (dead batteries, etc) on special trips!
