S50 or G5

[Mike Marketello]

Hi all, new to the forum, new to digital photography. This weekend i would like to finally buy a camera, and have narrowed it to three.

S50
G5
Olympus 5060

I am leaning toward the S50 because after reading about ten thousand user reviews, I have heard many who have gripes about the G5 and 5060, but people who have ownwd the S50 seem very happy with it.

My train of thought is to buy the S50, learn with it, and in a couple of years when the prices come down, go after a 10MP SLR, and give the S50 to my wife for a travel camera.

I'm posting this to this forum as well as the G series forum, and hope as many of you can chime in as possible.

Is my plan a good one, or am I making a huge mistake taking the S50 over the G5?

Thanks for your time.

[MarkK0120]

I have the S30, which is the same as the S50 with 3.2mp instead of 5. I love it, but also love using my friend's G5. If it were me, I would probably go with the G5, but it depends on what you want to do with it. If having something that will fit in your pocket matters, the s50 is the way to go. However, I think the optics are better on the G5, and the rotating LCD is nice.

I don't know how experienced you are as a shooter, and how many manual functions you will use. The S50 has all the features that I use - M, Av, Tv, ISO settings, etc. I'm sure the G5 has a few other features, but I don't know what they are, or how to use them. You might...

Hope this helps.

[PeterS45]

Major differences between S50 & G5 are the lens (the G5 has the better one) and the fact you can use an external flash on the G5, and when you're in to flash photography you will definitely want an external flash.

I started with the S45 and moved on to the G3 within 6 months because of those advantages, and for the swivel screen.

[Chad Frog]

It really comes down to what kind of shooting you will be doing. I have been impressed with all the features and options on the S50 as compared to almost any other point and shoot style camera out there. In fact, it has more menu options then my 300D.

But what really sold me was the dual use flexibility of this camera. (A) It's my wife's and she can point and shoot all day long and take away some great shots (B) I can use it when I'm not lugging the 300D kit around and benefit from every manual feature I could want minus off shoe flash. Since I use the 300D for indoor portraiture who needs it?

For my family, it came down to portability, for which the S50's size and heft ratio is just about perfect and user flexibility (i.e. I get to play with it too!)

Good luck in your decision. Either way you'll do fine...

[abel]

i thought about the same. i went for the g5 even though it was larger mainly because of the lens... also with the g5 price drops now some people are getting a g5 cheaer than a s50

[kanwingshing]

I would choose G5 over S50 as G5 is a better tool to learn photography I think.

[iKwak]

I would choose G5 over S50 as G5 is a better tool to learn photography I think.

I would also think that. G5 is more of a pro-level than the S50.