Choosing a Digilux 2 over one of the 7mp options...

[RIVI1969]

Hello my friends,


This is my very first post in this forum and I hope you can help me here...
I just to have a D-Rebel which produced very nice results, but the overall
feel and finish of the body makes me sold it, I just cannot stand that amount
of silver plastic. -My other cameras are Rollei, Leica R and Nikon F3-

Anyway, now I want to get another digital camera, I been thinking and
thinking about the D2 among many other options, including Nikon D70...

Unfortunately in Mexico I do not have access to equipment before buying it,
so I need to trust my instinct and all the info and reviews I can get and just go for it.

My concern is basically about image quality, nothing more. I love the design, controls... BUT I have read that the camera is almost useless at ISO 400, and that any $500 dlls 7mp digicam will deliver better results... considering the high-price and all the options out there I wonder if choosing it is reasonable. Any opinions will be very appreciate!

Best regards,
Ricardo V.

 

[Justin Low]

For the price of the Digilux 2, I'd get a Nikon D70 (esp. since you have a Nikon system already).

 

[Beniliam]

Dear Ricardo,

I believe that the best compact camera of 7-8 mpx are the olympus C8080. At 50 iso, the images are more sharp that the D70 even the 300D. Is an outstanding camera, with great optics, and low lag time with you take photos

 

[gustav[] pEña]

Hello Ricardo!

I was in your positon. I got a rebel digital and i just bought the D2 two weeks ago. Its a nice camera i like it a lot more than the rebel. I would choose the D2 among the others because of the fast lens (28-90 2.0/2.4 asph) that will let you shoot in available light condition using ISO 100.
If you were to get a similar combo with canon, you would have to buy the digital rebel for $700 and the 16-35 2.8 ashp (that would be on digital 25-56) for $1200. That would be a total of $1900 and you would be getting a slower lens and shorter zoom, and an ugly desing, plastic feeling. I bougth mine in photovillage in demo condition for $1250 over the phone. It came in perfect condition with everything in the box.

I'm Dominican but I'm studying in Mexico D.F. My room mate is also from monterrey. Perhaps you know him. His name is Israel Cardenas aka Harry el sucio.

sincerely, Gustavo,

 

[BAPIEMAI]

Even though I was ready to purchase the Leica, reason prevailed and I got the E-300. The fact is that the Digilux 2 has the best image quality among prosumer cameras but is nowhere near a digital SLR with their huge sensors. The images you will get with the D70 will be of much higher quality, plus it is a much faster machine. The only advantage of the D2 over the D70 is the smaller size and the excellent lens but with the money it costs you can get an excellent Sigma or Nikon lens which will produce far superior results on the Nikon.

 

[aizan]

If you're looking for a digicam, you may be interested in the Konica Minolta A2, which has a very effective anti-shake feature, as well as the vastly superior, near 1MP EVF. It's interface is second to none, has the biggest RAW buffer, and is only just behind the Sony F828 in AF speed, and Olympus C-8080 in start up speed. KM also has a conservative image processing philosophy, with a light touch in sharpening to preserve detail in all formats (JPEG, TIFF, and RAW). One thing to look out for: early batches suffered from quality control problems causing randomly soft images, though it's a non-issue unless you're unlucky.

But like all high end digicams, it's noisy from ISO 400 and up. Since it's in your budget, why not go for a dslr? Not as small, but "good" size depends on lots of things.

 

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

Even though I was ready to purchase the Leica, reason prevailed and I got the E-300. The fact is that the Digilux 2 has the best image quality among prosumer cameras but is nowhere near a digital SLR with their huge sensors. The images you will get with the D70 will be of much higher quality, plus it is a much faster machine. The only advantage of the D2 over the D70 is the smaller size and the excellent lens but with the money it costs you can get an excellent Sigma or Nikon lens which will produce far superior results on the Nikon.

Although I do not have a dslr, I have read plenty of dissenting opinions on the Leica digital forum, where many have dumped their dslr kits after acquiring the D2.
I'm just not buying the "much higher quality" image with the D70, you'd have to have some serious evidence to back that one up. And as for being a much faster machine, what are you basing that on? Surely not shutter lag, D2 is I think 94 milliseconds...

 

[agfa100]

I have to say that I have borrowed a Digilux 2 for a weekend, and have also used a
D100 and the new Fuji S-3. I do not own any digital high end cameras at all so take this with a large grain of salt.
I would go with the Digilux 2 or the Panasonic model as it's less money. I would do it for the lens!!!!! With the combination of the 2.0 lens and the 100 iso setting the camera works, if you need the higher iso settings I would be using it in B&W at the 400 setting it looks like tri-x. Yes a DSLR might be a better choice if you already have lenses that you can use, but I am a M-camera user and don't think the Epson is really their yet. I really like the way the Digilux works in the hand, the elf is not
that good but it is useable. To me the 28-90mm lens is what I use for just about all my pictures and the stuff I shot with the digilux was fine.