# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Lens Quality



## Garmoni (Dec 24, 2003)

Have seen several comments that lens quality is more important than megapixels. How do you compare the lens quality from one camera to another. Is there some type of spec you can look at.


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## dissident (Sep 6, 2005)

Price., a $200 4MP camera is garbage, a $100 3MP camera is Garbage.

If you don't like that, then you will have to do some reading. Be sure they are glass ED lenses at least. Camera manufactures will have good optics, but the price rule applies, Canon can make some real pieces of crap, so can Sony, as almost everyone else. Ziess lenses are just a fancy name Sony puts on their high-end optics (don’t get me wrong they are good lenses), lica (panasonic) are amazing but $$$.

Look at the apertures of the camera, that will let you know how it's depth of field will be (how much it will keep in focus), and how much light it can collect.

Larger lenses (in general) will give you better exposure in low light and less noise in a photo. A Sony 5mp Ziess camera (p10, p100) will not out perform most 4MP 'hobbyist' cameras (olympus 750, 765, 770, minolta z2, z3, panasonic z10, z15, z20).

If you are looking for a good moderately priced camera I would take a look @ any of the above mentioned in the olympus/panasonic/minolta line. Nikon has been very good, but their compact line will give you some of the same noise results as the Sony and Canon cameras. Nikon 4800 is a nice camera and worth a look.

I have found with the compact/ultra compact cameras they only perform well under optimum lighting conditions. In low light they have to use a ISO in the 400-800 range and will yield a poor image unless you go into aperture priority, or manual modes.

The Fuji and Kodak lines I have not had much/any first hand experience with.


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## mrmag (Jan 12, 2005)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by Garmoni:
> Have seen several comments that lens quality is more important than megapixels. How do you compare the lens quality from one camera to another. Is there some type of spec you can look at.


I will throw in some expertise as I used to manage a photography store.

I agree that camera manufacturers usually have the best lenses. Buy your camera from a camera store. They will know the most and generally have 1) more knowledge 2) less desire to sell you garbage 3) more flexibility to "deal" if you buy a camera and accessories at once.

Educating yourself on the basis of optics will help you a lot. Know 1) what an f-stop is and what it means when taking a picture in lower light (like an aquarium) 2) the difference between optical and digital zoom 3) a little about coatings & lense construction. By no means allow yourself to read about things you know you will never understand, it will only confuse you.

Keep in mind that many cameras in the same model line (ie. Canon A60, A75, A85, A95) have only 1 difference -- resolution. The lense/hardware is exactly the same. All you are paying extra money for is to be able to blow the picture up larger with a higher resolution. You should decide how big you want to enlarge your photos or how much you want to crop into certain parts of them. Anything above 3 megapixel is good for most people. The highest megapixel camera will drop significantly in price in a couple years (just like the computer industry), so realize you can probably buy a better camera in 3 years when you are ready and it will cost less than the best camera today.

One contested thought about resolution. Higher resolution means smaller pixels inside your camera.  This means that less light reaches each pixel, you follow? As a result, a higher resolution camera actually requires more light to properly expose each picture. Many will disagree, but the theory is intriguing.

There are a million choices. I would suggest you read reviews on the current makes of cameras and find out what features you like. You will find some cameras are completely idiot proof, but will limit your creative abilities if you like to take control from time to time. As a generalization, I find Nikon digitals to be very user friendly, but so automatic that you have no control over the result. The Canons generally give you more creative control and all the important automatic functions. Aquarium photography is tricky, so a little override ability is probably in order if you want to avoid getting the exact same results every time.

go to www.dpreview.com for a good place to start research. WARNING. Beware of know-it-all camera nerds who are so detailed in the review about essentially insignificant points.

Happy shopping!

ps. Before you shoot your aquarium 1) buy a half-decent tripod 2) buy some windex for your aquarium glass


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Thanks for sharing mrmag. I still have a question though. You wrote that more resolution needs more lighting for proper exposure (compared to lower resolution cam's I presume). As an example: when i'm buying a high resolution camera I should look if it also has a low minimum f-value? Are there other things that has great influence on how much light reaches any random pixel, like lens quality maybe?

Heh I gotta get used to more pixels =/ always better .


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## mrmag (Jan 12, 2005)

> quote:
> 
> = You wrote that more resolution needs more lighting for proper exposure (compared to lower resolution cam's I presume).


This is a contested issue as I originally stated.

A lower f-stop will probably do more good than resolution for aquarium photography. A lens that works better in low light will generally have a larger diameter than a "slower lens" for digital cameras. Take a look at the minimum f-stop of a compact digital versus something slightly larger.

mike.


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## António Vitor1 (Feb 2, 2003)

> quote:
> 
> One contested thought about resolution. Higher resolution means smaller pixels inside your camera. This means that less light reaches each pixel, you follow? As a result, a higher resolution camera actually requires more light to properly expose each picture. Many will disagree, but the theory is intriguing


Quite true!
The problem is the noise, we could increase the ISO setting, but noise will be gathered it's something related with quantum physics... the more energy into the ccd array the more sensible it will be, but the more noise it will produce.

A solution for this is bigger CCDs, like most DSLR, big pixels in the CCD, the bigger they are the less noise it will get even with higher ISO settings.

Of course bigger CCD means bigger cameras, and more expensive ones...

allthough there are some prosumer cameras with bigger prices than some DSLR...I believe only a crazy person would buy an high-end prosumer instead of any DSLR!

Just my oppinion!


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