Is it time trading standards got involved in digital cameras in the same way as HIFI?

I have noticed recently a lot of 8-10 megapixel cameras are on the market that are so tiny they cannot possible fit a proper CCD or CMOS sensor in that space. They seem to be inpolaring the pixels to achieve these large image sizes.

A few years back I seem to be remember that PMPO on amplifier and speaker output was banned, should the same now be down with digital cameras? I've seen people pay upto £200 for a shockingly awful camera just because its 10 megapixels and they believe more is good.

 

Pmpo?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pmpo#PMPO

 

It was used on a lot of mini systems and computer speakers, in 1995 it was possible to buy a £50 all in one that produced 1000w of output. Next to it would be a Marantz amp rated at 30w. It was all very confusing.

Even now they still miss lead by quoting figures into different impedance figures. I always make sure it is RMS into 8ohm now.

 

Even that's rubbish. The early Nait was so low specced Naim refused to publish its figures. Still outperformed many 'better' specced amps.

 

Trading standards in hifi? Surely not ;-)

Actually, with electronics the general public have become so pikey over the past few years fed by the likes of Watchdog and QVC that they deserve everything they get IMVHO.

 

Right.

We used to talk about rms (real music soemthing or other) in the early days and another rating; one was full power, the other of a consistant rating.

I soon came to ignore both as meaningless.


eg

 

rms
Is that not Root Mean Square (no distortion at that level ....) ?
roughly 2/3's of max power me thinks.
But then, my speakers say max 200W, and continuious at 150W which I guess is at a distortion level as 2/3's is around 130W
Sorry waffling away OT

Cheers for the tip on camers, not really understanding the repolerasition thing but will be a bit more careful when looking in the future

 

Megapixels are not born equal. Almost all digital cameras involve some sort of interpolation (what AT was getting at), whether it's a blatent upscaling interpolation (such as used by el-cheapass cameras and Fuji), or a Bayer interpolation (interpolation of colour information, as each pixel on the sensor in most cameras is a single colour - R, G or B). Very few cameras have totally non-interpolated pixels (for example, not even Canon and Nikon's top multi thousand pound DSLRs do).

I think the bigger thing with cheap cameras though is that they are putting more and more pixels in small sensors, and the sensors are becoming practically useless because of their noise performance. You can see this in the current crop of 8MP cameras which use 1/2.5" sensors - they're universally hopeless at ISO400 and above. A 4MP sensor in the same space would produce significantly better noise performance, and would give accordingly better prints up to about 1/2 A4 size.

 

That will be A5 Issac

 

IMHO I think we are barking up the wrong tree here with the Manf. Its the advertising and marketing firms that push the envelope in describing what the product can do.
Bigger than big,better than better more wattts than a locomotive and so on it goes.
The advertisers need to be goverened more strictly. The manfs however when they read the final presentation of the ad should take the proper action for misleading info and just plain bull.


rollo

 

The thing is with cars people accept that not all 2.0 litre petrol engines are the same, some produce much higher torque than others, some have very little ratio gearboxes, different weight flywheels are used etc.

Yet with HIFI and cameras the public just haven't got it.

What has happened now is the prices of digital cameras have not fallen in the past two years (apart from SLRs) becauswe the mega pixel is increasing.

I bought an £80 Fuji 3 years ago with 3 x optical zoom, it seems no difference to the modern ones apart from the size.

Luckily when I used to work at Dixon's I advised customers to completely ignore the megapixels and go for a decent brand and a camera that feels right in their hands.

Most the cameras I sold were Lumix, Canon, Sony (due to popularity of the brand) Nikon and Pentax. I sold no Samsungs, LG or Casios because of those cameras all the money was spend everywhere but the sensor and lens.

With HIFI I am aware that RMS is not that accurate, the NAD 3020 was a classic example, only 20w but could go loud and stay in control. However in general the higher the wattage the more snappy and in control the music seems to be. That said I always go for the best sounding amp given a price range regardless of wattage.

 

Yep the marketing is wrong, like I was told my W850 phone had a 2 megapixel camera, the quality of it is shockingly woeful it is useless.

My FZ7 is a bit miss leading because it said it can go to upto ISO 1600 but in reality I notice notice even at ISO 200, so I always stick to 80 or 100 and use tripods for low light stuff with a slow shutter speed.

 

Buyer beware! Rule number one. A little research goes a long way. The soft con will always be with us, money money money rules the game. Integrity a long past concept. What a shame it is.

rollo

 

I've always worked on the principle...its not what you do but they way that you do it...

ie blaring speakers are not (normally) my thing......more resolution and accurate soundstage etc etc

 

Is the Lumix DMC-FX33EB-K a good deal? My other half wants a neat little compact and I was thinking about one of these little fellas. They're on sale for about 200 squids.

The specs don't seem to mention the sensor

 

They use the Venus III image processor I think so it should be pretty decent. However if you can find an older generation Lumix with less megapixels you could get the same quality camera but save a good £100 which is really the point of this thread.,