Why not the Canon S50?

[mtiffee]

I've compared the Canon S50 with the olympus 5050 and really thought the canon outperformed the olympus. I own an olympus 4040 and really like it so I think it's important to note here that I'm an olympus fan.

BUT, the canon is much smaller in profile, easier to handle while diving, and reproduces color much better. After color correcting in photoshop, the canon photos always look much better. And there seems to be more detail, like grains of sand, etc. that show up better. A friend of mine has the S50 and i've been drooling over it since I've seen the photos he's taken from our dives.

The canon is also cheaper. I just bought one from dell.com for $335 with free shipping. ($25 off and 10% coupon code) There's a thread on this forum that talks about the olympus for $429 USED. The underwater case for the canon is also on sale at amazon.com for $149.

I guess my question is, why does everyone get the Olympus 5050, there seems to be a buzz about it. I haven't seen much talk about the canon s50.

 

[Scubatooth]

mtifee

one question you say when in photoshop that the colors look better with the canon ? are you viewing the images on a calibrated CRT screen in a dark room? because if not there are no grounds for that statement, and more so for most people color saturation and tone are personal preference (ie i have images on my wall printed from Slides that people say are too vivid and not real, but to me they are just fine, BTW the image is of a sun set in west texas looking towards el captian in the guadaloupe mountains national park, because rich colors are good and easier to work with)

from reviews and testing i have found that the S50 has a problem with chromatic abrevations (purple fringe, this is because of the small lense and not as many elements in the lense as compared to the 5050). PF is a problem for most everyday shots , but can cause more of a problem underwater because of the heavy amounts of blue and cyan colors in water. with the s50 you cant do in camera adjustments like the c5050 can do to its images, and also there is the lense were the s50 has lens that is the same speed as the c5060 to f4.9 on telephoto end, were the 5050 is 1.8-2.6 through the range. also you cant compare the prices of the camers because both have completely different feature sets the s series from canon is comparable to the c750 and the c5050 is comparable to the canon G5 which in all cases the cameras are about the same price to each other (s50 - c750, C5050 to G5)

im not putting down the S50 in that for its price and size it is a very good camera and camera selection is a personal choice. the buzz you talk about is because on SB there are a fair number of c5050 owners were there arent as many s50. for me personally i choose the c5050 after reading about it here and seeing so many great images, then from there i went and compared cameras, before the c5050 i was looking at the canon a80, be decided againist it when i wanted more control over the exposure of the camera, that lead me to the G5 but i found out at the time there wasnt a housing available so i looked at the c5050 and found out there were controls for exposure that were only on DSLRs (which eventually i will move to once i have the time/money (about 2 years)to do so) have and this was the closest thing to it till i could get my DSLR and housing.


also another note dell is notorious for having some great deals on stuff when coupons are around and taking massive amounts of orders and then when it comes to fufilling them the ball gets dropped as a bunch of canon owner found out when dell had a good deal on a very popular but expenisive lense. At this point based off what i have heard there are people who bought this lense who ordered in early september and arent expected to get there lense till mid march or april, so dont call it a deal till its in your hand from dell

FWIW

tooth

 

[mtiffee]

Thanks for the reply.

mtifee

one question you say when in photoshop that the colors look better with the canon ? are you viewing the images on a calibrated CRT screen in a dark room?

yes, i'm a graphic artist and calibrate my screen regularly.

from reviews and testing i have found that the S50 has a problem with chromatic abrevations (purple fringe, this is because of the small lense and not as many elements in the lense as compared to the 5050).

I haven't seen any chromatic abbreviation problems. All hi rez digicams will suffer some sort of CA.

with the s50 you cant do in camera adjustments like the c5050

Like what kind of adjustments. The s50 has full manual exposure control, plus contrast, saturation, sharpness, all the manual stuff I'd ever want. Anything more (like what?)- photoshop.

the s series from canon is comparable to the c750 and the c5050 is comparable to the canon G5 which in all cases the cameras are about the same price to each other (s50 - c750, C5050 to G5)

The c750 is a 4mp camera, and doesn't appear to have the same features as the s50. (like RAW format- didn't see info on that in specs)

also another note dell is notorious for having some great deals on stuff when coupons are around and taking massive amounts of orders and then when it comes to fufilling them the ball gets dropped

Will be delivered tomorrow!

The 5050 is a great camera, and I love my 4040, except it seems bulky.
For $484 I got the camera and waterproof case. I was just surprised to see so many posts about the 5050, so I was wondering what the buzz is.

 

[TedJ]

I think the buzz is very simple, there are just alot of us with the camera who coincidentally have found this board and are divers. Olympus seems to have captured that group of us who for example in my case, didn't want to spend $3000 on a camera and housing to house an SLR or a DSLR. We get many features with the 5050 and some of the images I've seen here and elsewhere are truly outstanding.

Just MHO. TedJ

 

[mtiffee]

Here are some pics taken with the s50. The flash used is the built-in. Some of the pics have been adjusted (like dolphins and corsair), most have not. Some of them also have lots of JPEG compression as that is how they were given to me. :-( I didn't take these, and yes, that's me in the corsair and cockpit photos. Enjoy.

Turtle
Dolphins
Urchin
Eel
Corsair
Cockpit
Crab (Warning! not sized down - 2MB)

 

[TDunbar]

I own and like the S50 as well. Just wish I could find the adapter for MM-II lenses.....

Do you use the custom white balance much? I'm still working on getting it under control, but have taken some nice non-blue shots at depth without any flash.

 

[SimonJ]

Hi TDunbar...I don't know about adding MM-II lenses, but Inon have now made an adapter for the Canon housings, so you can add 67mm lenses. Take a look at http://www.seaoptic.com/products/digital/Inonlenses.html

 

[docmartin]

i own an s-40. have not noticed any issues with color aberrations/fringing. i read a lot of reviews before buying it and one of the camera's strong points was the lack of fringing. of course the great weakness of the s40 while a strong point of the oly is the limited macro ability. but i believe with the s50 that issue has been successfully addressed. the only thing i am not happy about and that i imagine also plagues the s50 is that the manual focus is virtually useless underwater because you can't see the display clearly enough. however, i am not sure the oly is any better in that regard.

 

[TedJ]

you can't see the display clearly enough. however, i am not sure the oly is any better in that regard.

You're sure right about that.
TedJ

 

[bubbleslan]

I own and like the S50 as well. Just wish I could find the adapter for MM-II lenses.....

You can have your LDS order the adapter for the Canon WP-DC300 directly from Sea & Sea now, well actually Tusa since they have taken over distribution of Sea & Sea in the USA. For a while they had discontinued it, but they are now producing it again. I ordered one a couple months ago and it was $61. The product number is 38101. I also got the WAL and color correcting lens and love it!