Wide-angle: Kodak P880 or a compact model?

I'm looking for a wide-angle camera with reasonably good quality pictures. I like using manual settings but I'm not a pro. Kodak P880 seems wonderful but rather bulky and heavy (Fujifilm s6500 is even more so). If I take size and weight into consideration, I end up with Kodak 570 of 705, Panasonic FX01 or FX07, Ricoh R5, Canon S60 which have more or less the same price as the Kodak. My question: do I loose a lot in quality by taking one of these compact cameras? Is there a favourite among the compacts? Is there a camera on the market that makes a good compromise between quality and size?

Hi Joost,

Personally, I have a tendency to go toward the bulkier cameras with more manual features--they feel more like a real camera, you know? Still, I understand the need for a compact unit. It's definitely possible to get good images out of a compact camera, but their range is typically smaller than a big camera like the P880. You'll lose the longer zoom, the extra manual controls, and the nice in-hand feel. I think that unless being able to carry the camera in your shirt pocket is your highest priority, you'd be best served by going with the P880.

Good luck!

All of the compact cameras that you mention are significantly less capable, with lower image quality, than the P880. I personally would go for the higher image quality and get the P880. There is no compact camera with as wide an angle, in this case 24mm equivalent. The Canon S90 and Panasonic LX-2 go to 28mm, which is noticeably less expansive.

The P880 is bigger than a compact camera, but not unmanageable, and includes a lot of pro level features. Even though the P880 has an 8MP sensor, I did a direct comparison the other day against Canon's new highly touted 10MP A640, thinking that I might buy the new Canon as a portable camera. The P880 shots were noticeably higher quality and the P880 has a lot more advanced feature set. I kept my $400 and the P880.

Once you get beyond about 8MP in a small sensor (non-dSLR camera), then then your noise level goes up inherently because each individual pixel gets smaller and packed ever more closely to its neighbors. When that occurs, fewer photos strike each pixel, causing degradation of the signal to noise ratio. Random quantum effects also enter into the picture causing electronic interference. The net result is "noise". D-SLR cameras avoid most of these problems by using much larger sensors at the same pixel count, and thus don't pack the pixels so tightly. Bigger pixels gather more photons for each pixel, resulting in a better signal to noise ratio, and also are less likely to interfere electrically with adjacent pixels that are bigger, further away, and less prone to random quantum effects.

Having said that, if you use only low ISO speeds, say 50 or 100, full exposure to get all of those photons on the sensor, and a tripod, noise in not an issue even in very large 20"x24" blowups. The low ISO settings have very little amplification and thus avoid accentuating whatever noise the small sensor puts out. Noise reduction software, especially in the better printer drivers, can deal with such noise as remains.