[Gllug] [Q] Digital Camera Recomendations

jane taylor jane at moonrose.demnospamon.co.uk
Fri Oct 19 14:37:05 UTC 2001


On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 13:31:48 +0100 (BST), you wrote:

~On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Steve Goodwin wrote:
~
~> > >
~> > > Moral of the story: buy one that has an ordinary viewfinder
~> > and turns
~
~An optical viewfinder is an absolute must. It is much easier to
~frame photos with, you can use it in bright sunlight and it
~doesn't eat the batteries so quickly.
I thought I'd never use the lcd. Ha! I find it a lot easier to use
than the viewfinder now, esp since folk are not yet used to thinking
that a camera away from the eye doesn't now mean they're not getting
taken... :-) Though I now have a spare battery and CF card as I've run
out of the card once and the batt. several times now. Used carefully
the battery will last quite a while as long as I don't use flash a
lot.

~> > its OK - my main gripe is that there is a delay of a few
~> > seconds bettwen me
~> > pressing the button and the picture being taken :-(
~
~The same goes for my Olympus c-960. I suspect this is the
~case for all digital cameras. It was the most difficult
~thing to get used to when moving from film.

And my Canon S10. Irritating as blazes when you're trying to take pics
of birds in flight (at the Hawk Conservancy, Andover, if anyone wants
a really good day out - but get there before midday). I've learned to
anticipate and try and press the button early, then delete if it
doesn't work...

~> IMHO, the most important part of the equation is colour balancing (more so
~> than resolution) which you can only _really_ find out by experimenting. If
~> you're after a family snaps type of camera then mine (Digimax 600) is
~> useless :( because all flesh tones get washed out because CCD can't tell the
~> diference. Using it on buildings and nature scenes are fine, however. (and
~> only cost £80!)
I'd say get one with spot metering, just in case. And another weirdy
is that if I'm looking at something mauve, the lcd sees it as a
completely different colour. Luckily it comes out ok on the pc...

~Of course the GIMP can work magic with colour correction after the fact :)
~Although obviously it's best to get a camera that takes good pics in the
~first place. My c-960 seems to do well, and olympus in general have a good
~name in digital cameras (well they did when I was looking 18 months ago).
~However I only download the photos under windows (sheer laziness I know)
~so I cannot vouch for it's linux compatability.

I tend to do the same, as I still haven't got my wretched CD writer
going under Linux...  But I do know under Mandrake on a laptop with a
CF to PC card adaptor it works brilliantly. I'd recommend this method
of download to anyone. 

Oh, another thing to think about - the formats and sizes of storage
cards are important if you really want to take a lot of photos.  And
they never give you a very big one so this is an extra cost you'll
probably have within weeks. 
 At 1200x960 I can get 113 moderately compressed images onto 48MB. At
800x600 heavily compressed it becomes 383!!! But minimal compression
at 1600x1200 it's just 31. 

Hidden costs I found were:
2880 dpi Photo printer £99 (now £69)
CDRW £110 (now you can get them for £60-ish)
Extra 48MB CF card £65 (a year ago!  now 64MB is £27, grrr)
Spare battery £28
CF-PCMCIA adaptor £10
all of which added up to more than I paid for the camera... but
obviously the CDRW and printer have been useful for many other things!


But I don't regret getting it. The time saving from having to buy
film, take films to be done, scan in the ones you like, go buy albums
is considerable, before you look at space saving (prints are bulky),
and I took a *lot*. 

Have fun,

-- 
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove nospam from replies, thanks!

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