P&S Replacement

One thing that I failed to mention yesterday or on Sunday was that I managed to drop my little Panasonic DMC-LZ2 digital point-and-shoot camera. Which is a real bummer, since it was a great little camera — and not a bad choice to use for digiscoping, which is something I’ve decided I want to fool around with. However, there were a few features it was missing — Av, Tv and M exposure modes were the most important.

So now, in addition to trying to find a decent yet affordable spotting scope and attachment apparatus, I’m having to research a replacement P&S camera.

So far, I’m leaning towards a Nikon Coolpix P5000. It’s got a 3.5X optical zoom, 10MP, Vibration Reduction and a full range of exposure control options. It even has a hot shoe that will allow use of our current SB-800 or SB-600 flashes.

Of course, it is a Nikon, so high-ISO images are still at issue. But, from what I can see, as long as it’s kept below ISO400, things look pretty good.

For a point-and-shoot, it’s fairly responsive (playing around at the store), although some reviewers have complained that it’s slow. In comparing its specs to those that the same reviewers have called “responsive,” the numbers are just about identical. Of course, it’s no DLSR — There will be longer shutter lag, etc.

Of course, image quality is of paramount importance, and, from what I can see, it does pretty well, both for all-around use, and for digiscoping.