Digital Cameras
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
I've only had a couple of cameras - a 1.3 Mpx Polaroid and the current Nikon CP4500 at 4 Mpx. The Polaroid was useless, even for website material, but it was the first one to sell for under $200 and I grabbed it to see what all the shooting was about. A big waste on money. The Nikon, on the other hand, is just about perfect. It uses CF cards for storage, and they can be quickly swapped if you run out of space. The 4 Mpx resolution is ideal for fun shots and serious photography. I think a pro would get more out of one with even higher reolution, but 4 Mpx is great for me. Pricing was important - when I first decided on the Nikon, it was $700. I found an online retailer that sold it for $578 with free shipping, then a month later, Nikon offered a $200 rebate. Prices are finally coming down on this stuff. I don't use the maximum resolution for anything, but at a lower setting, here's a sample of the quality: A JPEG Image[^] A PNG Image Using Nikon Software[^] The second was just opened and 'Saved as..." with no editing, just to see what a PNG looks like. Have fun, and welcome to the world of digital reality!:-D
"Nobody is Ugly at 2AM"
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
I recently bought an Olympus C-4000 and am very happy with it. It's 4Mpix camera and allows either auto-everything or manual control of focal length, shutter speed and f-stop. I've got a 16 and 64 MB SmartMedia for it and haven't needed more(yet). At regular quality (2288 X 1712 jpeg)I can get about 130 images on my 64 MB card. I've printed some these and they look fine. Including 64MB SMcard, carrying case and rechargable batteries/charger it ran about $550. some good info on www.dpreview.com[^]
"Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires."
-- Lao TzuBW
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I recently bought an Olympus C-4000 and am very happy with it. It's 4Mpix camera and allows either auto-everything or manual control of focal length, shutter speed and f-stop. I've got a 16 and 64 MB SmartMedia for it and haven't needed more(yet). At regular quality (2288 X 1712 jpeg)I can get about 130 images on my 64 MB card. I've printed some these and they look fine. Including 64MB SMcard, carrying case and rechargable batteries/charger it ran about $550. some good info on www.dpreview.com[^]
"Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires."
-- Lao TzuBW
brianwelsch wrote: some good info on www.dpreview.com[^] Yep, this is one heck of a good web site ... it the best ...
Maximilien Lincourt "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes." ("Computer Networks" by Andrew S Tannenbaum )
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I'm not a photo expert, but I must say the colors are quite vibrant on those shots! You haven't modified them in Photoshop, have you? -- Keep him tied, it makes him well He's getting better, can't you tell?
right out of the box !!! they were taken early in the morning, on a really crisp saturday morning.
Maximilien Lincourt "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes." ("Computer Networks" by Andrew S Tannenbaum )
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
I've got a Canon powershot A70 and I love it. :-D It's 3.2Mp, takes standard AA batteries and uses compact flash. I also got a 128Mb compact flash card and a couple of sets of 2000mAh Ni-mh batteries to go with it. More mAh means longer battery life and digital cameras drain a lot of juice with flash and LCD use. When looking for a compact flash card, be aware that they are not all created equal. The spec to watch is the write speed. I've got a 16x write Ridata card which works really well. Here's an A70 review for you to check out: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot\_a70-review/index.shtml Here's a write-up on compact flash cards: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/ Hope this helps :)
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
digicams are on the same technology curve as PC's were a few years ago... technology appearing in digicams is still fairly immature & rapidly advancing, prices dropping basic advice about buying expensive stuff: 1. learn as much as you can before spending $$$ 2. what is your budget 3. what do you want to do with camera 4. buy when you really can use it NOW because in 12 months it will be obsolete 5. how many megapixels 6. how much optical zoom some cool recent technology trends are 1. reducing shutter lag time, 35mm film cameras have shutter lag in the 100's of second !!! only the latest digicams have shutter lags in .05 second range, even models 6 months ago still take .3 to over 1 second from pushing the button to capturing the image 2. using image processing techniques at both image capture (in the pixels) and also after image capture. there was article in EETIMES also posted at WWW.DPREVIEW.COM showing JPG sizes shrinking by 50-60% because imageprocessing in the hardware pixels reduced the NOISE much better than image processing after the JPG already exists 3. CCD vs. CMOS image capture devices, CCD is currently more mature than CMOS, but CMOS is definitely wave of future because it is cheaper to produce, uses less power & has more megapixels, see CANON high-end digicams only manuf to use CMOS now but my guess future will be CMOS & CCD will fade and if you can afford it, larger camera shops will let you rent digicams for a weekend for about $40-50 you can try them out etc IMHO buying digicam now is only worth it if you can really justify spending the cash by using the camera alot because 1 year from now the features will be astounding !!! and of course some photos !!!!!!!!!! Bremerton Dragstip www.greghop.com/albums01/albums01.htm[^] McChord AFB open house, about 4 months before 2001-9-11 www.greghop.com/albums02/albums02.htm[^]
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Nick Parker wrote: It will probably start out as a little bit of both For $300 you will be hard pressed to get a digi cam that will be good for both casual and hobby shots. You really don't want to buy a casual camera thinking after a bit you can start taking hobby shots without having to buy another camera. You will get frustrated with a $300 camera when you want to fit a new lens, a filter or try some manual settings. I guess it comes down to that... do you see yourself wanting to fit on new lenses, filters etc. in the future? If so then rather fork out now for something good e.g. like the Sony F717 Meg has or the new Canon EOS 300D, both about $700 I think. Both will be able to grow with you. Of course you have to be sure about that... heaven forbid you buy a Canon EOS 300D and then a month later find all you are doing is taking shots of your friends and regretting spending $900. Also it will be harder to use requiring more thought with each shot. So if you have some commitment towards photography then I recommend the 300D or the new Sony F718. Otherwise that Canon S40 that Nish has or the Nikon Coolpix Roger and Brian* have are very good (and before they think I am dissing their cameras, I am not, they take fantastic photos... they just are not extendable which is what you pay for when you go for the semi-pro SLRs). It is as always a hard decision. But rather take a bit more time upfront researching it (and you) rather than regretting it later. I know if I had $700 I would buy the 300D right now. * My apologies. Brian bought the Olympus, not the Nikon. The Olympus is also top notch.
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaCrikey! ain't life grand?
Paul Watson wrote: Otherwise that Canon S40 that Nish has Hmmm, Nish actually bought a PowerShot A70 (after Paul W's expert opinions of course) :-) And it cost me in excess of USD 400 (including the extra 128MB CF card) Nish
Extending MFC Applications with the .NET Framework [NW] (coming soon...) Summer Love and Some more Cricket [NW] (My first novel) Shog's review of SLASMC [NW] Come with me if you want to live
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
If you can shell out a little over 400 bucks, get the Canon PowerShot A70. It's cool for a digi cam for it's price range. The pics are of good quality and it has a lot of manual options usually only found in higher quality (means more expensive) cameras. I bought one after serious consultation with Paul W, a few months ago. Nish
Extending MFC Applications with the .NET Framework [NW] (coming soon...) Summer Love and Some more Cricket [NW] (My first novel) Shog's review of SLASMC [NW] Come with me if you want to live
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
We bought a Kodak one a while back and I can definitely tell you what I would look for in another one if I could afford to replace it. Besides all the usual megapixels etc, I would be definitely looking for these features: - How quickly does it take a picture when you press the button? (many digital cameras have a hellishly long delay between pushing the button and the picture actually being taken which makes them useless about 50% of the time unless you only take still lifes) - How bright does it need to be to take a picture. I.E. let's say your outside at dusk and it's still fairly bright out, and you want to take a picture of something that is far too far away for the flash to make any sense, can it get the picture. I know there is a technical term for this and I dont know what it is, but it's frustrating to be limited to bright daylight. - Batteries / battery life. Go to all those opinion sites and look for the prospective choices. If I had done that before we bought my model of Kodak I would have learned that there are millions of people unhappy with battery / not charging problems with the same model that we bought. (and we had to send it back to the repair depot for the same problem) Ideally it should have those sort of rechargeable batteries that do not need to be discharged fully before recharging, but can be thrown on the charger any time with no harm to the batteries. - Motion video quality: Our camera takes very nice still pictures, we tried to use the video mode but the quality is just pathetic compared to the still mode, much lower resolution, which is to be expected, but way too low resolution. Admittedly, it's probably something most people won't use anyway, but if the features there I want it to work well. (also the optical zoom is turned off when using video mode, why is a complete mystery to me, but there it is) Bottom line is if I was to buy one again, I wouldn't buy it based on reviews published on consumer sites on the net, they all said that the camera we bought was excellent, it was in fact over priced has little to no features and there were many better ones out there. Better source of info is consumer opinion web sites which are easy to find by googling for the model number. Also I would try every single one of them out at a big super store. If possible you should try to borrow one first from someone else so you can get an idea of what to look for before you buy one.
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
Nick Parker wrote: How many mega-pixels should I look for? This is a math question. 1. How good do you want the picture to look ? 2. How big are the prints or shots you wanna output. The "how good is DPI" and "How big" is inches So If you wanted to have 8 by 10 pics at 600 dpi, then you need almost 29 megapixels. However most folk don't want pic's that big or that much dpi. so a 4*5 at 300dpi 29/8 Megapixels or about 4 megapixels. Regardz Colin J Davies
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
I have a 2.1 MPixel camera and it's great for anything related to the computer screen, 3x5 and 4x6 prints. You should look for something with a respectable OPTICAL zoom. Mine is digital zoom only, and turns out to be a "snapshot" camera. (Good for posed shots from about 6 feet away, but not good for accross the gym pictures of my daughters dance recital :(( )
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I am hoping to get a lot of feedback here on this. I am looking at buying my first digital camera in a month or two. I know there are different storage mechanisms for the images, what do you think is the best? Also, what would you avoid? How many mega-pixels should I look for? Any recommendations are much appreciated. -Nick Parker
There are lots of important factors: - price (who'd have thought that) - power supply I recommend using standard AA (LR6) rechargeable batteries instead of proprietary solutions. First, it is not certain that you'd be abled to get the XR3546-LRXcp3 special design battery pack for the camera you bought three years ago - having a standard is a nice thing in this case, second, proprietary battery packs are much more expensive than standard rechargeable batteries. Third, the capacity of today's rechargeable AA batteries has reached new heights - 2200 mAh is nothing special and should not be expensive. Around 5 EUR (that's slightly more than 5 Bucks). Added advantage: If your battery pack is empty, you could use primary cells (non-rechargeable) as an emergency vehicle - those are sold at every corner even in third-world countries. - storage medium Nought but CompactFlash. Has the best price/performance ratio, is manufactured by a huge lot of companies and has no built-in size limitation. SmartMedia, for instance, won't get bigger than 128 MByte, the MemoryStick had a similar limit etc. Proprietary solutions are more expensive than standardized solutions; xD-Card is twice as expensive than CompactFlash - optics Don't belive in "digital zoom". There ain't no such thing, it's just a resolution-reduced enlargement. - ability to connect external flash Built-in flashes aren't really bright - ability to use a tripod Some cameras don't have a standard tripod thread I've been using an Olympus C2000 for about 3.5 years and recently replaced it by an Olympus C5050 - with both investments I'm quite happy.
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I have a 2.1 MPixel camera and it's great for anything related to the computer screen, 3x5 and 4x6 prints. You should look for something with a respectable OPTICAL zoom. Mine is digital zoom only, and turns out to be a "snapshot" camera. (Good for posed shots from about 6 feet away, but not good for accross the gym pictures of my daughters dance recital :(( )
