Equipment reviews

[minux]

Thought I would start this thread to review any equipment one might buy.

Will keep the chat out of it and save it for the forum

Follow this layout, unless someone comes up with better?

What about..

Item:

Brand:

Price:

Good points/strengths:

Bad points/weaknesses:

Review:

Review Score out of 10:

Recommendation score out of 10:

Similar models (if known):

Reason for choosing this model:

Examples of work:

[Troy711]

What about..

Item:

Brand:

Price:

Good points/strengths:

Bad points/weaknesses:

Review:

Review Score out of 10:

Recommendation score out of 10:

Similar models (if known):

Reason for choosing this model:

Could be a little more informative and might add a few extra things people might over look.



EDIT: Delete this once you read it and if you decide to use it or not... also add a note asking people to keep comments to a minimum.

[TVR-190]

Item: Camera

Brand: Fuji Finepiix S5700

Price: $329 About 2 years ago

Good points/strengths: Easy point and shoot, good quality, price

Bad points/weaknesses: auto focus in poor lighting, video quality poor

Review: good entry model camera capable of good shots

Review Score out of 10: 6

Recommendation score out of 10: 5

Similar models (if known): S Range

Reason for choosing this model: Price, specs

[NVN07]

Item: EOS 450D

Brand: Canon

Price: $1389 - Twin Lens Kit (18-55 & 55-250 IS lenses)

Good points/strengths: 3inch LCD screen, 3.5fps im pretty sure, easy to navigate through menu.

Bad points/weaknesses: Can't think of any atm as i've only had it for 1 month, will update if i find any tho.

Review: Great camera. Easy to handle and use. Takes great shots in my experience. I love it.

Review Score out of 10: 9

Recommendation score out of 10: 9, might not be for everyone.

Similar models (if known): Canon EOS 500D

Reason for choosing this model: Quailty, price, and the great reviews I had heard about it.

[flyjoe180]

Item: EOS 400D

Brand: Canon

Price: $999 (about a year and a half ago) - Twin Lens Kit (18-35 & 75-300 lenses)

Good points/strengths: 3inch LCD screen, ease of use as with the 350D and 450D models.

Bad points/weaknesses: As with many SLR cameras there is no preview of the shot on the screen, only displays of the shots taken. Not really the end of the world though.

Review: Good value camera, now superceded but with 10MP and the ability to shoot all common formats it's easy to use. The body makes the camera easy to hold and aim with options for focal points. Sports mode is good for catching fast moving objects, however most of my photos have been of aircraft and this setting is not ideal for that topic. I use a pre-programmed setting or Time Value at 250/sec or slower for propeller blur. It woul dbe similar for photographing moving cars. The SLR is not for everyone as it can be complex to learn all the features and is bulky compared to a digital compact, but worth it for good quality photos.

Review Score out of 10: 9

Recommendation score out of 10: 9

Similar models (if known): Canon EOS 350D, 450D, 500D

Reason for choosing this model: Quailty, price, good reputation as an entry level SLR


Two examples:

[flyjoe180]

Item: 720IS

Brand: Canon

Price: $300-ish

Good points/strengths: Compact, light, wide focal length, image stabilisation, AA batteries which are obvioulsy common and cheap to buy. 8MP is sufficient for a little camera for those shots on the run. Landscape photos are very good quality.

Bad points/weaknesses: A lot of 'noise' in low light situations, but you can alter the ISO setting to help prevent too much disturbance to the shot. The auto-focus can be rather annoying at times.

Review: Good value compact digital camera. Has many of Canon's usual settings and is a good little point and shoot camera.

Review Score out of 10: 8

Recommendation score out of 10: 7

Similar models (if known):

Reason for choosing this model: Quailty, price, Already owned a Canon SLR and this makes a good backup camera to carry in the bag when I'm out or at work.


Examples:

[TVR-190]

Item: Camera

Brand: Fuji Finepiix S2000HD

Price: $320 AUD on Ebay

Good points/strengths: Easy point and shoot, good quality, price, HD Video (720p) But with many features for advanced shooting modes

Bad points/weaknesses: auto focus in poor lighting. not brilliant in direct sunlight.

Review: Great camera for both amateur photographer or someone who doesnt want to go dslr.

Review Score out of 10: 8

Recommendation score out of 10: 7

Similar models (if known): S Range

Reason for choosing this model: Price, Specs, HD video, Quality of older models.

Examples:

[flyjoe180]

That is a lovely night shot TVR-161.

[sik_VR]

What about..

Item: Camera

Brand: Nikon D700


Price: $3,661.00

Good points/strengths: extremely good quality and sharp images (especially with a good lens). Good in all light condition if you know how to tweak.

Bad points/weaknesses: Price, need to know a bit about cameras to get the best out of it

Review: Great camera for armature photographers through to professional. The image clarity is great and it has got loads of great features if your willing to fork out :P.

Review Score out of 10: 9/10

Recommendation score out of 10:

Similar models (if known): Nikon D3S

Reason for choosing this model: Offers great image quality with loads of great features.

Post Pictures of your VR/VS here. The photos by me near the bottom of page 57 were taken by me with this camera with a Nikon AF-S 24-70mm lens.

Examples of work:

[Gus]

Item: 400d

Brand: Canon

Price: $350

Good points/strengths: Excellent camera to just pick up and use if new to the art of photography. Simple design and very light + comfortable to hold. For the price purchased it was definitely a bargain for what it provides

Bad points/weaknesses: Only a couple things but note that this camera is a bit outdated. So in saying that, the bad points about the 400d are the fact that it cannot record and also the outdated 10.2 megapixel resolution.

Review: Introduction level camera into the D-SLR series. Very easy camera to pick up and shoot but also takes a bit to get to know all the buttons and what they do! The images are crisp as well!

Review Score out of 10: 9

Recommendation score out of 10: 10 (For any amateur photography new to the art)

Similar models (if known): 500d (if any?)

Reason for choosing this model: At the time, funds were limited (..and still are!) and i was a complete novice to D-SLR photography.

Examples of work:

[Stressball]

Item: 300 F4L IS Lens

Brand: Canon

Price: $1,600

Good points/strengths: Long, and SHARP. Sharpest lens I have ever used when stopped to f6.3-f8, and wide open it's still sharper than my 70-200 f2.8.

Bad points/weaknesses: Pricey for some, max aperture of f4 leaves a little to be desired, but for the price it's no problem.

Review: Brilliant lens, sharp as anything, lightweight for such a long lens at about 1.1Kg. The image stabiliser is handy, I have been comfortable hand-holding it at 1/160sec and could probably go lower if I wanted to. Oldish technology IS, capable of reducing shake by 2 stops. Has a panning mode, where it will disable IS in the direction you are panning the lens.

Review Score out of 10: 8.5

Recommendation score out of 10: 8

Similar models (if known):

Reason for choosing this model: Length for track racing

Examples of work:

Resized full image + 100% crop of same image. Straight off camera, no editing:


Action shots

[ucwepn]

Item: sx130is

Brand: Canon

Price: $200

Good points/strengths: Easy Point and shoot with some manual features (including manual focus, apperture, shutter speed (can open for 15 secs), iso), 12mp, 12x optical, 720p movies with 12x optical zoom and stereo mics. Solid feel (for cheap plastic crap lol), decent PAS photos.

Bad points/weaknesses: Battery life is awful uses 2x AA about every hour lol (with alkalines, going to upgrade to 2500mah nimh rechargables), slow zoom and sketchy autofocus on movies, slow pic to pic speed (decent with no flash 1 pic per second continuous).

Review: I wanted a decent but cheap arsed point and shoot, I had my eye on Olympus sz10 and pentax optio RZ18, but found out their not all they're cracked up to be video wise (neither can use optical zoom with sound on 720p filming), video was a big part of this purchase for me and so were decent budget photos so I can have a play around with very amateur photography, had a little play today and its just as decent as i thought it would be haha, hopefully my knowledge of how it works will all improve but manual modes got me lost lol F stops and shutter speeds are all greek to me, lucky it can be flicked to auto for better than what I can do with manual.

Review Score out of 10: 7/10 (with nimh batteries would give it an 8/10)

Recommendation score out of 10: 7/10

Similar models (if known): Pentax optio rz18, olympus sz10, (any other travel zooms over 10x lol)

Reason for choosing this model: price, 720p video with stereo sound and 12x optical zoom.

Examples: (taken on first day with full auto) waiting for tripod and will update...

stupid Indian mynah birds at 12x from about 25m

IMG_0133 by ucwepn, on Flickr
Monaro the cat

IMG_0077 by ucwepn, on Flickr
Mt cooper (manual focus)

IMG_0263 by ucwepn, on Flickr

Train moving along quickly 1/1000 shutter speed, auto app. Overcast day

IMG_0661 by ucwepn, on Flickr