New User!!

Hello
I am the proud owner of a pentax k2 with a series of lensens but the digital craze made me buy an ultra compact S6 which i am waiting to be delivered in the folowing days.

I have a few questions for this camere

1.Is the auto mode so bad ? I understand that it will jump easily to higher iso with poor results
2. Will i be able to produce sharp images with custom settings or are the images of this camera doomed to be soft even in iso 64 ?

Best Regards
Nikolaos

Most digital images require some post processing. Pentax, in particular, will keep down the in-camera sharpening on the DSLR's (I don't know about the compacts) so you don't lose detail. You get better results if you use an image processing program, but straight out any digital camera they can be a bit soft

I've been using an s50 for the past 18 months or so for the usual family happy snaps etc. Horses for courses really, but I'm very pleased with the results - virtually no post processing has been required. The camera coped well with every lighting situation I've pointed it at. The only really poor thing is that the optical viewfinder shows only about 80% of the image area and I really cant be bothered puting on my specs and holding the thing at arms length. PM me and I'll send you an untouched pic. Having said all this I'm not entirely sure how the s6 compares with the s50.

Ken

I suspecrt the compact point and shoots do more in-camera sharpening, as most of the users aren't going to pull their files into Photoshop. The DSLR's usually assume a user who's sufficiently involved to get into processing, thus leaving the sharpening up to Photoshop or equivalent, because you preserve more detail that way.

In fact, most of us real fanatics shoot RAW, leaving the whole in-camera processing issue behind.

Nikolaos,
In answer to your questions:
I reckon it's better to avoid camera shake and use a higher ISO setting. (The *ist-D series of DSLRs have this feature - which can be disabled). I don't know about the S60, but I'm sure you can turn it off (or use "P", rather than the fully automatic "no brainer" mode).
If you do perform post-processing, then there are plenty of noise reduction plugins available. Personally I use NeatImage (www.neatimage.com), but there are some excellent freebie ones too - such as "Noiseware Community Edition" - http://www.imagenomic.com/

As with all digital imaging, you have to try it out! Usually the compacts have quite aggressive sharpening included, but you can always add more in Photoshop Elements etc.

One thing thing I'd say is that compact digicams have a much smaller sensor than the DSLRs and so suffer more from noise issues. But then, you may be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve - especially having the convenience of immediate review

Have fun!
Matt