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What should I look for in a digital camera?
- Thread starter Planterz
- Start date
I love the ultracompact digital cameras. If the camera isn't small enough, I won't carry it with me all the time. If it's not with me, I'll miss those "I wish I brought my camera with me" shots. My Canon PowerShot SD100 Digital ELPH is small enough for me to drop in my jacket pocket. A perfect size.
ginshun said:Buy a Cannon and you will be fine.
My 3MP Cannon takes better pics than my parents 5MP Kodak.
Pretty decent macro for an under $200 camera if you ask me.
True (although I am a Nikon fan). Optics has more to do with making a decent image than pixel count. Once you get to a reasonable (3 or so) MP level, you'll gain more by going with a higher quality lens. For more info than you ever wanted to know about photo gear and photography in general, go to www.kenrockwell.com, How-To section.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2004
- Messages
- 24,735
OK, so here's what happened.
Monday I went to Bestbuy to look at/purchase a camera. I looked at the Canon Powershot S1 IS, Kodak Easyshare Z740, Nikon Coolpix 4800, and an Olympus that they didn't have an aparently is discontinued.
I walked out with the Kodak. I based my decision on the 5.0MP (highest of the bunch), 10x zoom (higher than the Nikon), and the batteries it used (2x AA instead of 4x AA of the Canon or the CRV5 of the Nikon). Even though the website had it advertised for $342, it cost $380 in the store (even the website through their demo computers showed $380). No biggie, I'd just go back the next day with a printed copy of the web ad and they'd give me the better price.
I got it home and I couldn't take a decent picture worth a dingo's kidney. They looked like ass. As much ass as my dad's 2 year old Fujifilm took. I probably spent 10-12 hours f$#%ing with it and the best I could get was what I'd classify as "mediocre". I tried regular light, indoor sunlight, outdoor sunlight (these were horrible), fluorecent light, etc. I tried messing around with the Fstop settings, the shutter speed, ISO (I have no idea what this does), etc. I probably took pictures with 100 different settings.
The color was always off (my fault for not having proper lighting) but this I could correct in Photoshop for the most part. The biggest problem was simply with quality. For a 5.0MP camera, it sure took some sketchy, grainy pictures. I could reduce some of the graininess by slowing the sutter speed and such, but they still didn't look any good. Certainly not $300+ good.
Now, I don't expect to be a professional on the first day. I don't have a proper lighting system yet. And I have nearly no knowledge of the intricate settings and nuances of cameras. But surely something was wrong. When I was outside in bright sunlight taking horrible knife pictures, I took some of other, less near stuff. Like a bird hopping around the yard. These looked great. Especially fully zoomed in with the 10X optical zoom.
Then I realized what the problem was. Looking at the specs again, I saw that minimum focus distance was 12 inches. 12 inches!?!?!. That's not a macro! That's a micro macro! No wonder I couldn't focus on anything up close. Heck, I don't even think there was a macro function. Merely just a macro button that didn't do anything (indeed, I couldn't tell the difference between a shot from 16" away with the macro on or off).
Clearly, I had bought the wrong camera. The Kodak I'm certain is a perfectly good camera, as my hopping birdy pictures confirmed. It just wasn't the right one for my applications.
So I decided to return it.
Best Buy camera return policy requires a 15% restocking fee if the box is opened. *sigh* oh well. I'll take a 15% hit over $380 misspent dollars any day (but I'd at least bring the web ad so they'd only charge 15% of the $342). But I return it, and they don't charge me the fee! The thing is, the box had 2 openings (top and bottom), but they only put the sticker on the top one. I guess she didn't notice that I'd opened it from the bottom. Or maybe she waived the fee because I was so charming or dashing.
Or maybe she just didn't notice it.
This time I walked out with the Nikon 4800. I noticed that again there was a descrepincy between the website's and the store's price, but this time I was prepared and had the ad when I walked in. So I got the $350 camera for $315. Score!
I based my choice of the Nikon over the Canon on 3 differences. The Canon's view screen, while cool because it flips out and rotates so you can look at yourself taking a picture of yourself, was simply too damn small. It had only 3.2MP instead of the 4.0 of the Nikon (no biggie, but it's there), and the macro. The 10cm minimum focus distance of the Canon was certainly better than the 30cm (1') of the Kodak, but the Nikon blew both away with a minimum focus distance of 0.5 inches. That's almost too close, since at that range you'll be shadowing just about anything. But the capability is nice. And since I'd hoped on being able to take pictures of knife edges really close, it was perfect.
I haven't really gotten a chance to use the Nikon much yet, since I've been working (I had 2 days off to play with the Kodak), but already I'm much, much happier in my decision.
Here's proof:
Here's the best I could get with the Kodak.
I don't remember the settings I used, but I think it was a low apature and a long shutter speed. Light was natural daylight, diffused through a skylight in my living room. Tripod mounted. This also has about 20 minutes of Photoshop tweaking in it. Levels and colors were adjusted, gamma was raised, etc. Pretty grainy, the carbon fiber looks flat, and you can't see the grind lines that are under the anodization on the bolster.
Here's a shot from my Nikon.
This picture took about 10 seconds to set up. Same situation as the Kodak's picture. Same time of day, same place in the living room, same angle. Auto settings. I tweaked it for a few seconds in Photoshop, mostly just adjusting the levels. The carbon fiber has more character. You can see the grind lines underneath the anodizing. MUCH less grainy. The differences are even more dramatic with the original pictures. These are greatly reduced in size and quality to make web-postable. The color is still slightly off (it's sitting on a white poster board), and you can't see the stonewashing of the blade, but it's much better than the other one.
And just for sh*ts and giggles, here's a macro of a penny. It's partially out of focus because it was at an angle, but it shows the capability pretty well. Camera was held about 2 inches away. I reduced the size a bit and the quality quite a bit for posting, but I think it still gets the point across.
I did take a picture of a penny with the Kodak, but it was junk so I didn't save it, so I don't have a comparasion picture.
Needless to say, I'm much happier. I'm sure that once I learn the camera better and get a proper light box set up (or that elusive cloudy Arizona day) I'll be doing much better.
Monday I went to Bestbuy to look at/purchase a camera. I looked at the Canon Powershot S1 IS, Kodak Easyshare Z740, Nikon Coolpix 4800, and an Olympus that they didn't have an aparently is discontinued.
I walked out with the Kodak. I based my decision on the 5.0MP (highest of the bunch), 10x zoom (higher than the Nikon), and the batteries it used (2x AA instead of 4x AA of the Canon or the CRV5 of the Nikon). Even though the website had it advertised for $342, it cost $380 in the store (even the website through their demo computers showed $380). No biggie, I'd just go back the next day with a printed copy of the web ad and they'd give me the better price.
I got it home and I couldn't take a decent picture worth a dingo's kidney. They looked like ass. As much ass as my dad's 2 year old Fujifilm took. I probably spent 10-12 hours f$#%ing with it and the best I could get was what I'd classify as "mediocre". I tried regular light, indoor sunlight, outdoor sunlight (these were horrible), fluorecent light, etc. I tried messing around with the Fstop settings, the shutter speed, ISO (I have no idea what this does), etc. I probably took pictures with 100 different settings.
The color was always off (my fault for not having proper lighting) but this I could correct in Photoshop for the most part. The biggest problem was simply with quality. For a 5.0MP camera, it sure took some sketchy, grainy pictures. I could reduce some of the graininess by slowing the sutter speed and such, but they still didn't look any good. Certainly not $300+ good.
Now, I don't expect to be a professional on the first day. I don't have a proper lighting system yet. And I have nearly no knowledge of the intricate settings and nuances of cameras. But surely something was wrong. When I was outside in bright sunlight taking horrible knife pictures, I took some of other, less near stuff. Like a bird hopping around the yard. These looked great. Especially fully zoomed in with the 10X optical zoom.
Then I realized what the problem was. Looking at the specs again, I saw that minimum focus distance was 12 inches. 12 inches!?!?!. That's not a macro! That's a micro macro! No wonder I couldn't focus on anything up close. Heck, I don't even think there was a macro function. Merely just a macro button that didn't do anything (indeed, I couldn't tell the difference between a shot from 16" away with the macro on or off).
Clearly, I had bought the wrong camera. The Kodak I'm certain is a perfectly good camera, as my hopping birdy pictures confirmed. It just wasn't the right one for my applications.
So I decided to return it.
Best Buy camera return policy requires a 15% restocking fee if the box is opened. *sigh* oh well. I'll take a 15% hit over $380 misspent dollars any day (but I'd at least bring the web ad so they'd only charge 15% of the $342). But I return it, and they don't charge me the fee! The thing is, the box had 2 openings (top and bottom), but they only put the sticker on the top one. I guess she didn't notice that I'd opened it from the bottom. Or maybe she waived the fee because I was so charming or dashing.
Or maybe she just didn't notice it. This time I walked out with the Nikon 4800. I noticed that again there was a descrepincy between the website's and the store's price, but this time I was prepared and had the ad when I walked in. So I got the $350 camera for $315. Score!
I based my choice of the Nikon over the Canon on 3 differences. The Canon's view screen, while cool because it flips out and rotates so you can look at yourself taking a picture of yourself, was simply too damn small. It had only 3.2MP instead of the 4.0 of the Nikon (no biggie, but it's there), and the macro. The 10cm minimum focus distance of the Canon was certainly better than the 30cm (1') of the Kodak, but the Nikon blew both away with a minimum focus distance of 0.5 inches. That's almost too close, since at that range you'll be shadowing just about anything. But the capability is nice. And since I'd hoped on being able to take pictures of knife edges really close, it was perfect.
I haven't really gotten a chance to use the Nikon much yet, since I've been working (I had 2 days off to play with the Kodak), but already I'm much, much happier in my decision.
Here's proof:
Here's the best I could get with the Kodak.
I don't remember the settings I used, but I think it was a low apature and a long shutter speed. Light was natural daylight, diffused through a skylight in my living room. Tripod mounted. This also has about 20 minutes of Photoshop tweaking in it. Levels and colors were adjusted, gamma was raised, etc. Pretty grainy, the carbon fiber looks flat, and you can't see the grind lines that are under the anodization on the bolster.
Here's a shot from my Nikon.
This picture took about 10 seconds to set up. Same situation as the Kodak's picture. Same time of day, same place in the living room, same angle. Auto settings. I tweaked it for a few seconds in Photoshop, mostly just adjusting the levels. The carbon fiber has more character. You can see the grind lines underneath the anodizing. MUCH less grainy. The differences are even more dramatic with the original pictures. These are greatly reduced in size and quality to make web-postable. The color is still slightly off (it's sitting on a white poster board), and you can't see the stonewashing of the blade, but it's much better than the other one.
And just for sh*ts and giggles, here's a macro of a penny. It's partially out of focus because it was at an angle, but it shows the capability pretty well. Camera was held about 2 inches away. I reduced the size a bit and the quality quite a bit for posting, but I think it still gets the point across.
I did take a picture of a penny with the Kodak, but it was junk so I didn't save it, so I don't have a comparasion picture.
Needless to say, I'm much happier. I'm sure that once I learn the camera better and get a proper light box set up (or that elusive cloudy Arizona day) I'll be doing much better.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2003
- Messages
- 1,690
Congrats on your purchase. Do update us on how well it performs. I've been thinking of getting a digicam for my parents and don't know what to get.
Personally, i like Canon stuff. I already have the Canon G6 'cos i needed the hot shoe for the flash from my 35mm stuff. However, since i bought that camera i haven't been looking at the newer stuff.
Went to the shop today and the new Nikons look just the right size. Not too small and not too big.
Personally, i like Canon stuff. I already have the Canon G6 'cos i needed the hot shoe for the flash from my 35mm stuff. However, since i bought that camera i haven't been looking at the newer stuff.
Went to the shop today and the new Nikons look just the right size. Not too small and not too big.