Digital Camera

[yelnad]

Oh, that Steve's page is great.

[SteveR]

Here is another great review site.* One thing I really like is the Comparometer where you can zoom in on the same photos taken with different cameras.* Very Cool!

The reviews are also very detailed.


http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM01.HTM

[Martha]

I just got the book Digital Photography for Dummies. Finally after 5 years of having a digital camera I am now starting to learn how the use one. Good book.

[jdmorton]

My $0.02:

I've spent quite a bit of time on various forums and web site related to digital photography, and it can be very confusing. My wife gave me an Olympus C-700uz for my birthday four years ago now, and what I've found out is we tend to view many more digital pictures on our computer monitor than we ever print out - and I did get a printer that prints very good pictures. Since that first digital camera, my wife and I have purchased digital cameras for three of our daughters, who use them almost exclusively to e-mail the pictures to their friends.

I point this out because, if you don't already have a digital camera, you might think you will print out your pictures - just like your film camera. You might, but I'm willing to bet that you will soon take so many digital pictures that printing out every one will soon become cost-prohibitive. Or else you will run out of shoe boxes to put the prints in .

If, like our family, you tend to send out more of the digital pictures you take via e-mail than print them out and send them via snail mail, you soon find out the amount of megapixels the camera has is relatively unimportant (at least I think so). One of the better discussions I found regarding video pixels needed verses pixels needed for printing a digital picture can be found at a scanner web site - http://www.scantips.com/.

By the way, my C-700uz is rated at 2 MP, but I shoot routinely at a picture quality that generates a 1 MP or less final picture. I've printed them out in both 4 x 6 and 8.5 x 11 inch sizes, and I really can't tell any difference, not only in picture quality between the two sizes, but also when compared with commercially processed film pictures.

I also visit the http://www.dpreview.com site frequently. I think that is probably the "best" site in terms of user forums.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I agree. We dont print much stuff out except for the grandparents. Do make sure to get an external disk drive or have two computers to put the pics on.

We have ours on two computers, and an external drive with the archive on it. When we go to grandmas house I make an archive of her shots and dump all of ours to her machine so she's got more cork board fodder at work.

I also used to have an old olympus 1Mpixel that made pretty good shots up to 8x10 before the quality started to get cruddy. but I had a 2Mpixel that looked like crap for almost everything.

And those 5Mpixel shots really eat up the disk space... :P

For people looking for an external drive, you can buy one for a hundred bucks that does the job, or if you can install a hard disk in a computer (or plug in a cable and turn 4 screws) you can buy just the enclosure box with USB or firewire/1394 interface and install your own cheap disk drive or some old serviceable drive in it. Once plugged into the PC it appears as another disk drive, just drag and drop your 'my documents' or 'my pictures' to it.

A nice undocumented XP feature? When you do this the second time and after that, you'll get a dialog that says "There is already a file xxx.jpg, do you want to overwrite files" and it offers "yes to all", "yes", "no" and "cancel". No "No to all", which would only send new files/photos to the external drive.

If you hold down the "shift" key and click "no", it makes it "no to all". This works for local drives as well as externals. Nice way to quickly make a backup copy of files with just the new ones going over, and not taking 20 minutes.

[BigMoneyJim]

jdmorton, great points and great links. I agree, most digital photos will never hit paper. My 4MP shots will be stored for posterity but for regular viewing probably reduced to fit an 800x600 window with a smaller shot for a gallery and a thumbnail. I want a camera that will do optimal 8x10, but I doubt I'll print many.

CFB, great tip on the shift-no! I recently tried hibernating my PC and found there is no hibernate option on the WinXP default shutdown dialog...unless you press shift while looking at it then "Standby" changes to "Hibernate". But I had a couple of hibernate problems and my PC boots so fast I'm back to shutting down when I'm through for the day.

[VoyT]

* We don't print out lots of photos either (ink jet printer photos don't hold up all that well, anyway.)* But after a computer burp wiped out a bunch of photos, I've learned that it's good to transfer the ones I want to keep to a CD.

[dex]

I just got a Fuji E900 - very nice for about 350

[Rustic23]

My Fuji Finepix has a 7x optical lens. My daughter has a Cannon with a 3x. She borrows mine because of the extra zoom, which is exactly why I bought it. I am now looking at a 12x zoom. The other consideration, for me, is what type of battery does the camera use. I will not buy a camera with a proprietary battery. I have three digital cameras, all use AA batteries. I use rechargeables, but it is nice to know if something goes wrong, I can get a set of batteries for less than $5. The last thing on the list is megapixals, anything over 3 is fine with me, but I would purchase, and shoot with the largest I can afford. Why you ask…. So I can crop the image with out loosing too much quality.

[donheff]

I was going to post my own topic on digital cameras but I found this one and got some good references I will pursue. I am giving my Nikon Coolpix 4300 to my daughter and am in the market for a replacement for me. My main requirement is little to no shutter lag. I know I can get everything I need in an SLR but I don't want to lug around a full size camera and I don't want a bunch of lenses.

If anyone has a recommendation on a decent small to low medium size camera with very low lag - please let me know. In the meantime I will browse the sites recommended here.

[mathjak107]

im hoping to get a nikon d80 for xmas

[BigMoneyJim]

On my Canon A520 I mentioned earlier in the thread: I still like the camera and now have a private web gallery that can view them from 640x480 to full resolution.

Mostly I really like the camera, but the shutter lag is bugging me sometimes as I'm trying to snap an expression of my niece or nephew and miss the moment. Shutter lag isn't something I looked at when buying. I suspect there may be some settings to change to shorten the lag, but I haven't checked into it yet.

On video: I lost a video yesterday to batteries. I grabbed the camera, turned it on and started a video. It shut off due to low batteries...I assumed the video would just cut off there, but the video wasn't there at all! Bummer.

I'm looking at converting my camera videos; it stores them by making each frame a jpeg (mjpeg codec), and by converting it to other codecs it smooths out some of the noise (sampling error) between frames and makes the video seem smoother overall, and most importantly takes up a lot less space! I'm getting confused by all the options and tools, though, and I'm undecided on what codec I want to use for a blend of maximum compatibility and preferably not requiring family to install new codecs.

[DRiP Guy]

I am not a camera buff, but I do like to have one around, and since I went digital, I tend to use it quite a bit. I bought a Canon Powershot S1-IS, which is a couple of years old now. It has a 'mere' 3.2 Mpixels, but it has a very nice 10X optical zoom and it's optics were highly rated when I bought it. It is not a true SLR, but a 'tweener', but I have never failed to be impressed by the photos I get. It has a lot of manual settings, so the camera is much more capable than I am. I usually throw it into auto and it figures out exposure, flash, etc. It uses ultrasonic focusing and has shake reduction (image stabilizer) that works very well. Battery life is super with 4 rechargable AA NiMH cells. It also has the capability to make short videos with sound and I have used it at partys and what not. In short, if you don't want a full blown SLR, or a tiny little pocket camera, I would say the current version of this camera should be even better.

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ca...ew/index.shtml

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff If anyone has a recommendation on a decent small to low medium size camera with very low lag - please let me know. In the meantime I will browse the sites recommended here.

Philip Greenspun, an ER with way too much time on his hands, has a detailed Nikon review here: http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/nikon/system

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Philip Greenspun, an ER with way too much time on his hands, has a detailed Nikon review here: http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/nikon/system

Thanks Nords. My son recently got a Nikon dSLR. It is a fantastic camera. The problem is I haven't been that serious about photography in 30 years (I used to have a load of analog SLR equip, a darkroom, et al). Now I do my serious work after the fact in Photoshop and point and click with the camera. I want to be able to slip the camera in a pocket or at least a small bag and I don't want to carry extra lenses. Previously, the point and click models did not give you anything like the fast shutter speed an SLR boasts. But reading Steve's Digicam site (thanks to posters for the reference) it looks like several models in my style may be there: Nikon Coolpix 7900, Canon A640 or SD630, etc. I need to take a look and see whether I can settle for a true slimline model or need one shaped more like my Coolpix 4300.

I have decided. by the way, to buy a new camera for DD and experiment with hers to decide what I need. I will keep the Coolpix 4300 for dive trips - I already have an underwater housing for it.

[kcowan]

Don
You may want to consider the Casio Exilim series. Fabulous battery life and so good lag characteristics. Had one for years. Truly idiot-proof. Their BestShots is the best way of settings for complex shots that I have seen.

[Goonie]

I have an old Sony Mavica (somewhere around here) that records pix directly to a 1.44mb floppy...it was great at the time.

We then bought a Kodak EasyShare DX4330, which we use ALL the time. It takes the SD cards, so we have several 1gb cards around. After we download our vacation pix to the computer, we just leave the pix on the card, too, and stick it in the safe. That way, down the road, if something happens to the 'puter and the CD backups, we still have the originals all safe and sound.

I really, really like the DX4330!!! It is super easy to use, has enough settings I can change for what I want to shoot. And if I set things wrong....simple....turn off the camera, turn on the camera, ALL reset!! (twits like me need that!!! ) It takes very nice pix, it's small enough to fit in my pocket, and battery life is very good. I shot 724 pix (about 1/4 were with flash) and 10 short videos on our southwest Nat'l Parks trip this fall, and the battery level is still strong. (it takes an alkaline CRV-3)

I've got the Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel XT (or now the XTi) on my wish list right now....has been on there for about 6 months...so it's almost time to bite the bullet and get it! I want to get it for doing flora/fauna, and portraits, etc. I'll probably still take the Kodak along on vacations for convenience sake, but have the Canon there for REAL shooting. 8)

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan Don You may want to consider the Casio Exilim series. Fabulous battery life and so good lag characteristics. Had one for years. Truly idiot-proof. Their BestShots is the best way of settings for complex shots that I have seen.

Wow. I'm glad you pointed that one out. I had burned out on the reviews at Steve's but went back and found the Exlim EX-Z700 in his best buys and it looks like it fits my needs to a T. And Costco carries an even more advanced Z1000 model. Sweet!

[kcowan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Wow. I'm glad you pointed that one out. I had burned out on the reviews at Steve's but went back and found the Exlim EX-Z700 in his best buys and it looks like it fits my needs to a T. And Costco carries an even more advanced Z1000 model. Sweet!

Damn now I am jealous! Seriously I have the EX-Z40 and it has been a warhorse. I slip it in a pocket and never miss a chance. The movie mode is great for pan shots. Also action shots like car races. Bestshots gives you the choice of foreground or background blur on action shots.

And I use stitching software to get wide angle shots. The best example was a complete picture of the Trevi Fountain in Rome by doing a 4x4 stitch.
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/150...50036197QIlaym

[Danny]

I have a Nikon 8400 8MP - a rock solid digital.....

Am tempted by the Leica D-LUX 3 10 MP...anyone have experience with Leica digital?