[Gllug] [Q] Digital Camera Recomendations

Fri Oct 19 19:41:34 UTC 2001

I've got an excellant Olympus C-3000 Zoom, again USB.  I totally agree with you about the LCD - I don't take many pictures without it!!!  Batterys is something that you will find a problem with - so here is a recommendation - get one that takes standard batteries - the NiMH ones last very well - in my camera, they lasted for 3 days, and about 100 shots (and if you do run out without your charger, its nice and easy to go and buy some normal non-rechargeable ones!)  The 128mb smart card I have (which cost me £150 a year ago, and would now cost me £50 at ebuyer.com - bah!) stores 84 images at 2048x1536 with moderate compression on.

The slight delay when taking a photo is managable on this model - especially when u put it into sharp shooter mode - I went to Thruxton to watch the bike racing this year, and got some excellant shots - no blur - lovely pictures :)

As to using it with Linux - I am afraid I use Win2k for my daily grind, so I don't have any experience of that.

I would recommend it to anyone - it was about £500, and I reckon I have saved my outlay in film already - having already filled a 700mb CD with the 'keep' pictures :)

Cheers,

Richie

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On 19/10/2001 at 14:37 jane at moonrose.demnospamon.co.uk wrote:

>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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