thinking of getting an S5 IS

guys, i went ahead and bit the bullet and bought a XTI to use.. I tested both in person and one click with the slr and seeing its image sold me. Even in auto mode the XTI was pretty top notch! I liked the S5, but it just felt to plastic for my likes compared to my old S1. But the zoom was awesome.. i may still get the S5 later on for my wife as a gift

Gary - since I had it on Auto ISO the camera chose the ISO to be 200 - I suppose I could have manually tried lowering it. But I think the shutter speed was just fast enough to freeze the bird, as I was fully zoomed out (it was overcast too).

Thanks,
Lissa

Though I chose another brand for my digital SLR, I hear lots of great reports on the Xti, so I'm sure you will love it. As for the S5, I hear great reports on it too. There's so many great deals on cameras of all kinds today. Good luck and enjoy!

Gary

hdd!!! awesome!!!!, oh man i envy you, that is my next camera, i currently have the S2IS and pine for the Rebel XTi, i have seen some awesome reviews on it and the price for it as a kit that includes the 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses is right around $750 with a flash for the hotshoe. what lens did you get for it to start you off with? and lets see some pics! Cheers.

I tried the moonshot with my S5IS and this was the best out of about 40 tries. Again, it was handheld with full telephoto, f/3.5,1/1600 sec, ISO-200. I tried MelisaandKris's settings but the shot was too overexposed. I pp'ed with increased contrast and a sharpening filter. Your comments in comparison to MellissaandKris's fine moonshot would be appreciated. I still feel I'm not quite getting the same fine detail. Mine seems a bit flat. MelissaandKris's shot shows nice detail on the craters near the right edge of her moon. I see none of that on mine. I guess that could also be due to slightly different lighting conditions between our shots. ( I think M's shot might have been taken slightly off from a full moon thus allowing more shadows and detail on the right edge of the moon) I also notice that if I enlarge the original jpg. the detail rapidly deteriorates into noise and pixel artifacts.
For more comparisons one can view DSLR type shots of the moon by just typing "moon" in this forum's search engine.

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Showing some crater shadows now, but still a bit soft. So again is it the camera? I can't seem to get the same sharpness as Melissaandkris.

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By "full telephoto" do you mean "digital zoom"? if so, turn that off. You can do the same thing in post-processing, and all digital zoom does is average a bunch of pixels together, so your pictures will lose a bit of detail in the process.

Try dropping the ISO and stopping down a bit. ISO 100 and f/5.6 at 1/800 should still give you a sharp image. And give it a touch more exposure; 1/2 stop or so. Both the lower ISO and the increased exposure will help with the chromatic noise I seem to be seeing. Also, I really recommend a tripod. The moon isn't moving all that fast.

Jon -
Thank you for your interest. I had privately messaged with Melissaandkris and was trying to duplicate settings as much as possible. This included using digital zoom and handheld, so my purpose was to put IS and Zoom to maximum test and compare my S5IS camera with theirs, using a clear moonshot as reference. I fully agree with all that you are saying, but again, each feature that I turn off is one less feature that this camera was advertised as having. I still have a nagging feeling that the late production Chinese S5IS's are not being held to the same internal Canon production specs as the earlier Japanese production runs. I can't prove it, but I still suspect it. This was a personal attempt to do an A to B comparison, since no one in the professional world seems to care about making such a comparison.

RubenAlonzo wrote in post #5147734
hdd!!! awesome!!!!, oh man i envy you, that is my next camera, i currently have the S2IS and pine for the Rebel XTi, i have seen some awesome reviews on it and the price for it as a kit that includes the 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses is right around $750 with a flash for the hotshoe. what lens did you get for it to start you off with? and lets see some pics! Cheers.

sorry for the late reply.. ive been reading so many posts here I forgot to check this one

But I got the 50mm 1.8 prime and a 17-70mm sigma to use. The 50mm is simply awesome. I havent learned the camera yet and im just playing in the AV and TV modes bit its taking some pretty decent pics. These are straight off the XTI with no editing to anything. Other than one I switched to B&W for fun
1/80 - f4 - ISO1600
http://www.delanofarms​.net/testp2.jpg
1/60 - f3.2 - ISO 1600
http://www.delanofarms​.net/test5.jpg

they are a little grainy since I used natural light and a ISO of 1600.. still im happy with the shots.

Are the XTi's being sold now , made in China or Japan?

mine said Japan on the box

Mine is made in China. At one point I told myself to only buy the Japanese made models, but the excitement in the store as my wife and I both said "I'll take it!" sort of overcame our caution.

That may not be a bad thing, though. My experience with many other finely- machined components has been more than satisfactory. It all depends on how closely Canon oversees the production. I'm not going to lose any sleep, but the earlier post does pose a good a question as to the bothersome noise issues.

Sorry, I missed the point that the discussion of Chinese manufacture was regarding the xti. Are all S5's made in China?

I believe now, most, if not all S5IS's are made in China. You may find one Made in Japan on some small retailer's back shelf, but it's doubtful. All the big US outlets probably have had their stock replenished with the Chinese S5IS long ago. Whenever I see an S5IS in a store now (Target, Best Buy, Circuit City), I ask, and it's "Made in China". It seems around the end of last year Canon transferred most of their production to their Chinese plant. You can see my running debate with "Steve" on :
http://forums.steves-digicams.com …php?id=584433&f​orum_id=15
He finally got a statement from Canon and then unilaterally closed out any further discussion on it. Sorry, but I have a basic distrust of products Made in China. In general, the news reports on Chinese made products speak for themselves. Global manufacturers go there to cut costs and increase profits. Often corners get cut too. I have no idea how much quality control Canon exerts on their plant there. Just their word for it. The S5IS is now in the "end of the model" mode. It is being aggressively mass produced to a wide global distribution of consumers, not "pro-sumers". Is Canon going to maintain a tight "X sigma" control over all these mass produced cameras? Or are they going to relax it, and suck as much profit out of the line as they can, since the early Japanese S5IS's got all the professional independent tests (like Steve's) and critical good reviews? And now no one in the consumer community is really comparing the quality of the different production runs. So it seems the XTi has been transferred to China also. I believe these are valid questions. It seems I've P.O.'ed a number of people by asking them. First, it took them a long time to answer. Then, when they did, it was abrupt and "end of story", like they didn't want that rock turned over. It's also interesting how the Chinese "Alibaba" export site selling "Powershot" S5IS's disappeared after I brought it up on "Steve's" website, meaning it wasn't a legit dealer. From where did they get the S5IS cameras then?
I took the Moonshots above in an attempt to compare my S5IS to one made earlier using a standard reference, the Moon. The pictures are "good" but not "great". I am not totally happy with the sharpness. I know,now, all about CCD size, digital zoom, etc, etc. I just want the best out of what the S5IS model was originally supposed to do, no more, no less.

odin7...I followed the thread you posted. You're a bright guy and I admire your impertinence, but I don't think Canon is willing to deal with such a provocative question. They tried - and it's good enough for me, because I am willing to suspend my disbelief in order to enjoy my new S5 - but it's boilerplate language cooked up in corporate. Now go sit in the corner for five minutes