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Guess it's about time I stepped into the digital age - only I have no idea what to look for in a digital camera. Would prefer to keep the cost down as much as possible. Do I need any additional software in order to upload pictures to my computer? And...how does one upload pictures from a camera to a computer? And then how does one go about sending pictures to be posted? And then... :rolleyes:
Thjat's a huge subject. Spend some time noising around these 2 sites, they are 2 of the better digital camera review sites. You can find lists by price and function, what to look for and what and how to buy etc... They have very good forums too.
Steves-digicam.com
dpreview.com
Todd. there are a lot of nice cameras available. It really depends on how much you want to do with one.
Canon has the A-60 and A-80's. Great point and shoot cameras. Olympus has the Camedia line to fit this same "niche". Optics are good on both. Not to terribly difficult to get up and running. There are definitely more available but these are models I've used.
Most of the cameras come with some form of photo import/editing program. Once you load it onto your computer it will detect the camera when you plug it in. It will the ask a series of questions to begin the download. I would also recommend Adobe Photshop LE this is a $99.00 photo editing program, that will do more than most people will ever need. It can found at Wal Mart, Staples, Comp USA, etc... it's also generally on sale some where. It will manipulate the size and quality of your pictures and allow you to choose the file format necessary. You will need something like this to post pic's to the web.
I have a Nikon CoolPix 5700. It's a great camera, but not too user friendly. Definitely not point and shoot either :rolleyes:
I would suggest you cruise over to http://www.steves-digicams.com/ or to http://www.dpreview.com/ and begin your education into the "other world" of digital cameras. The forums at dpreview would be very helpfull. Lots of helpfull folks there.
Most digital cameras come with their own software which you load into your computor. After taking photos, you plug a "USB" cable between your computor and your camera, turn on your camera and presto, your photos appear in your computor. Really easy once you do it a few times.
To post to this forum, there is a limit to the size of photos you can down load. A helpful program, which was suggested by another SawmillCreeker is Pixresizer found here http://bluefive.pair.com/updates.htm. Its free and effectively shrinks your photos to managable SawMill Crek size. (640 x 480 is a good size).
As far as cameras go, more "mega pixels" means sharper photos. Figure your spending limit and do a search on the above site to see what cameras are available. Really hard to go wrong. Technology in cameras is rather amazing.
Its takes time to do the reseach but the benefits of going digital makes up for it. No more film, no more trips to develop it, you can print your our photos. It great. :)
Good luck!
KP
Hi Todd,
.... You might want to take in these reviews as well.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14125
.... Every little bit counts ;)!
Boyd
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Todd Davidson
A couple of other comments.
- look for cameras with the largest optical zoom (vs. digital zoom). Optical means the lens is moving so you don't get distortion as you do when you use digital zoom. All of them will have digital zoom, it's a question of how much optical zoomyou can get.
- camera speed is an issue. The cheaper cameras have a serious lag between when you push the button and when the camera actually snaps the image. Ditto with storing. If you're planning to use the camera for pictures of people at famly events or while you're travelling, you need a faster camera. If all you're doing is taking pics of items to post here or on Ebay, camera speed doesn't matter.
- you don't need to go nuts and get an 8 megapixel camera unless you want to blow things up to a really large size.
We have the Fuji s5000, 10X optical zoom. I cannot imagine having less zoom, as we use it *all* the time. Lag is an issue for me, although I am used to it now and it doesn't seem so bad, it was hard to get used to though, and still occasionally bites me.
Here are a couple of reviews, I think the current version is called the s5100. Personally, the zoom is more important than the resolution
http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/fuji-finepix-s5000-reviews.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/fuji_s5000.html
We have had ours for a couple of years, there may very well be better options now.
Thank y'all for the info. I'm going to research this afternoon and then check out what Mal-Wart, Staples, etc have advertised this week. I would mainly be using the camera for before, during and after progress photos on remodeling jobs, a way to document my tools for insurance (am thinking that I could put pictures, model/serial #s, & values on a disc), and to be able to post some pictures here at SMC. LOML and I both have the 35mm Nikon N75 and will stay with film orientatedl photography for personal enjoyment / family style pictures.
Yet another "slippery slope", Todd! I haven't touched my Nikon SLR film camera in over 6 years...at least. My second digital was one that could use the same lenses. I'd sell the film camera, but it's really not worth enough to bother these days, so I keep it in the cabinet "just in case".Quote:
Originally Posted by Todd Davidson
Do choose a camera that is not a "base model". There are great and reasonably priced offerings now in the 3-5 mp range which gives you enough information in the shot to have nice prints made if you choose to do so. Ritzcamera.com has done well by me, too.
Todd, Don't sell the digital short on family pictures. We thought we would use our digital some of the time and the film camera some of the time, but we haven't used the film camera since. Our 3.2 megapixel digital takes such good pictures that you can't tell them apart from the ones our film camera takes, even blown up to 5x7. If you look really close you can tell on an 8x10, but its pretty hard, and certainly not something noticable once the picture is framed and hung. Walmart does 4x6 prints from digital media for 20 cents a print.
We have a Fuji that we've had for about 15 months. We bought ours on a trip to Chicago. We didn't get the best deal, but we got a lot of opportunity to hold and try out a LOT of different cameras. This one seemed to have the best combination of features we wanted and price. Ours has a digital viewfinder, so you see exactly what the camera sees. Our camera just becomes another disk drive when attached to the computer. I have an older version of Adobe PhotoShop SE that I use for resizing, etc. Our HP printers (one is print/scan/copy/fax and one is a 4x6 photo printer) also have decent software for printing that will maximize paper usage, cropping, etc.
My dad and I both Ebay'd our Canon SLR's and accessories just before the digital craze started. We got a lot of money for them then, but prices have seriously dropped since to the point where it probably wouldn't have been worth the hassle to sell everything due to packaging something so fragile.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Becker
If you do get into digital photography, I would recommend getting Adobe Photoshop Album for storing and organizing your pictures. There is a free version, or there is one you can buy that has a little extra functionality.
The big advanatge for me is the way it lets you attach tags to each picture. Once you get a few thousand digital images on your hard drive, it can be hard to lay hands on a particular picture without a feature like this. For example, with just a few clicks Album lets me narrow in on all pictures from Christmas 2003 that contain both my sister and my brother.
It pulls pictures directly off the camera into the catalog, it has some basic photo editing functions, and it can easily be linked to other more sophisticated photo editing packages for more serious editing. You can order prints over the web or share pictures over e-mail directly from within the software.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a huge fan.
Bart, the latest edition of Adobe Photoshop Elements includes the album capability along with it's greatly increased, yet easy to use, photo manipulation.
Excellent! I'd like to upgrade, since what I have is Album and Photoshop LE (which has been so neutered as to be nearly worthless beyond adjusting brightness and contrast).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Becker
Wolf/Ritz has done EXTREMELY well for me also on digicams! They stand behind their products as far as returns, price adjustments vs competitor, etc. I have bought 3 digital cams from them and am now looking at a compact cam for travel! I like the service, dependability of a local dealer vs buying over the internet for a hot price but usually no real guarantee.