Snapsort.com is live - Compare cameras

Yesterday we released our first feature up at http://snapsort.com. Using the site you can compare any two digital cameras and get a concise summary of the differences and similarities, and see which camera snapsort.com thinks is better overall.

For example, my brother is looking for a new camera, he's looking for a camera with a lot of zoom (since he finds his current camera's zoom rather inadequate). I recommended two cameras to him, each with different strengths, so I sent him a link comparing the Panasonic DMC-ZS3 vs the Canon SX20 IS. You can see a number of major differences. The SX20's major advantage is that it has 20x zoom compared to the ZS3's 12x zoom, but the ZS3 is much smaller (good for travelling), and has a better screen, faster continuous shooting, etc.

Here is a snippet of that comparison:

I also suggested he might compare the SX20 IS to the Panasonic DMC-FZ28, the FZ28 has almost as much zoom, but faster continuous shooting, is lighter, and has better low light capabilities.

So, the great thing about this is, you can compare any two cameras on snapsort.com, and quickly see the differences. For example, you might wonder what are the differences between the Canon SX10 IS and the newer Canon SX 20 IS which I compared above.

You can even compare older cameras. Years ago I bought the Canon S1 IS, for its great zoom and movie capabilities. Its now been replaced by the SX 20 IS, snapsort.com can quickly identify whats changed between the Canon S1 IS and the newer Canon SX 20 IS. Its interesting, the SX20 is better on almost every feature, except for continuous shooting speed, even though its 4 years newer. The SX20's bigger brother the SX1 IS is faster than the S1 IS though. Unfortunately we don't yet have pictures of the older cameras.

We'd love to hear any ideas and/or feedback you have, and we'll keep you posted as we add more to snapsort.com in the future.

Jan 06, 2010

mdclements said...

Congratulations on the launch Alex!

Jan 15, 2010

garrick said...

cool idea for the site!

Forgive me for this, but some of the ratings don't really make very much sense to me though. One example would be the D700's flash rating at a 3.5 and the 50D's flash rating at a 4.5. The D700's flash range is 17m versus the 50D's 13m. The d700 also can control other Nikon flashes wirelessly with TTL or manual settings while the 50d cannot. There are a few other rating discrepancies that I noted, but that's the one that stood out the most.

I don't mean to be critical, and I know you guys just launched so there are probably some kinks that still need to be worked out, but I just thought I'd point it out. Hope you don't take it as offensive.

Really great idea for the site though and it works very well. I was definitely impressed at the amount of cameras you guys have in your database. Awesome job!

Alex Black said...

Hi Garrick, thanks for the feedback!

We did launch somewhat early to get feedback, and I agree we have a number of areas we need improvement on.

You're right about the D700's flash vs the 50D's flash, part of the problem is that right now the system has some missing data, so its making its ratings on only some of the information.

We're going to work on making it more transparent, so you can understand why it made its rating, and we're going to work on getting more complete data for it to use.

Ah, an automated system for the ratings, that makes much more sense as to why it was rated the way it was since there was no flash range noted for the D700 on the specs listed on the site.

Again, I'd just like to commend you guys on an awesome idea and implementing it so well. I think the site will become very very popular with people looking to compare cameras.

Cheers!