Hey Guys,
So I narrowed it down to two point & shoot cameras :
1. The Canon G10
2. Sigma DP2
Now, The husband will be purchasing me one tomorrow. I need to know which one I should get.... I've been reading so many reviews but I cant seem to decide! Help! Which do you think is better, image quality wise and features....? Which would you prefer!?
The Sigma DP2 will have better image quality than the Canon G10 because it uses a image sensor that is almost as big as the image sensors they use in DSLRs...the image sensor in most P&S cameras is really small compared to the image sensor in DSLRs. With image sensors size does matters...bigger is better.
And even though it's a 4.5 megapixel camera, that's deceiving because the image sensor it uses isn't your typical design (Bayer), it's completely different (Foveon) and should be thought of as more like a 10 megapixel camera (Sigma calls it a 14 mp camera). But it's not always about the megapixels.
You really should compare images side by side to really see how good the image quality from a Sigma DP2 will be. Check out
this web page about the Sigma DP1 (older model) and it shows the difference in image quality between the DP1 and a G9 (older Canon model)...FYI the G9 is a 12mp camera but has a typical P&S sized image sensor. Scroll down the page to the flowers. The image from the G9 is starting to get noisy and losing detail but the image from the DP1 is still smooth and crisp.
This web page shows the size differences between different image sensors. The image sensor size of the Foveon is shown and you can compare it to the the image sensor from the Canon G2 (same size as the G10). The Foveon is much bigger and almost the same size as the image sensors found in DSLRs.
This web page has some nice sample shots (one at 100% crop) that shows just how good the image quality from the DP2 is.
The Sigma DP2 doesn't have as many features as some of the other advanced P&S cameras out there, but it really isn't a P&S camera in the normal sense because of the image sensor. It's small like a P&S camera but it takes pictures that compare to pictures from a DSLR.
Do you want a feature rich camera that takes okay pictures? Or do you want a compact camera that takes great pictures?