Author |
Message |
Draheid
Moderator
09-09-2001
| Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 4:03 pm
Eggie: Yes, more Optical zoom is better than more 'megapixels'. When you digitally zoom, the camera has to magnify the existing pixels resulting in a final image that is not quite as sharp as with an optical zoom. I looked up your camera at Best Buy and found another for the same price, the HP's PhotoSmart 945 that has an 8x optical zoom (and 7x digital if needed) and the same 2" LCD display. The rest of the specs look very similar to the camera you are looking at too. Hope this helps.
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 6:11 pm
Thanks again for your input! Jimmer: I'd consider myself more than a beginner to baby steps intermediate with digital cameras since receiving my very first one about 2 years ago - Canon PowerShot A40 with 2.0 megapixel. DH was encouraging me to try a point and shoot digital because I took so many print pics, that he felt having the option to review and delete would be helpful to me. Another words, he's a tightwad...LOL! Film processing was costing me a lot before I got the digital camera. The reason I'm looking at a camera with higher MPs is because I like to take close up pics of flowers, bugs, dirt...ok, rocks!, and other assorted oddities. I guess it's the wanna-be pro photographer in me..lol! I'd like to learn more about resizing, cropping and possibly about special effects. With that said, I think this camera will be helpful for me to take the next steps into exploring/learning more about digital photography. My dh has this super-duper, black, heavy manual camera with a few different size lenses to attach onto the camera body. Photography is more of a hobby for him and he's taken those classes to learn about F-somethings, meter readings or whatever the heck you professional can do with those super-duper manual cameras in order to obtain those gorgeous sunset shots! Please know that I appreciate anyone who likes this field and understands the workings of this type of camera. Remember....I told you my brain is pea-sized. Dra: I took a look at the HP 945. I actually went out and looked at one at the local Best Buys near me. Thanks for pointing me to something similiar to the Olympus, which I'm pretty certain I'm going to purchase, because Egbob has taught me to be a tightwad too after 26 years of marriage...LOL! The difference in cost is about $70.00 if I buy by tomorrow. Also, when I held the HP and checked it out...played with it, I caught a glimpse of myself in a nearby walled-mirror and I looked like a professional photographer...LOL!! Now that was just a bit too scary for me at this time....giggle! Having a cute little silver point'n'shoot over a handsome black point'n'shoot is my preference for today. I do appreciate all your input, thanks very much!!
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 5:13 pm
I bought the Olympus C5500 point'n'shoot today. Let the Eggie adventure with digital photography continue....pictures to follow as soon as I read all the instructions...lol! Thanks again for all your thoughts and input!!
|
Wendo
Member
08-07-2000
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 6:57 pm
Cool! Congrats on the new camera.
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 7:03 pm
Oh crap, you are supposed to read instructions???
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 7:03 pm
Jimmer: Any ideas on the photos in my folder for making them better? Any help would be appreciated!
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 7:40 pm
Congratulations on your camera purchase Egbok! I’m sure you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of it and the images that you’ll make with it. I like the expression "making" a picture, more than "taking" a picture. The expression "taking a picture" implies a level of passivity on the part of the photographer. It’s like – here I am and here is the subject and I’ll simply click the shutter. Making the picture implies an active interest on the part of the photographer. In other words, the photographer didn’t just click the shutter. He or she thought about the composition and lighting, talked to the subject (assuming it’s not a tree) and maybe thought about the camera settings themselves. Julie, I am shocked that you are using auto mode . I don’t like to say it but reading the manual is a good idea <groan>. That way you can get a good idea of all the capabilities of the camera. The auto modes work fairly well, but they are designed for very generic conditions. Luvmyjrt: I really like your pictures! One quick suggestion I might make (and I’ll make some others later if you like) is you may want to try some pictures on cloudy days or even after it has stopped raining. I’m not saying this is true for you, but a lot of people won’t take their camera out unless it’s high noon on a sunny day (and that can be the worst conditions for taking a picture). The advantage to cloudy days is that you avoid harsh contrasts and obtain really vibrant colors – just don’t include the sky. Another great time to take pictures is early or late in the day, where the light is lovely and there is lovely shadowing (more dimension to your images). Hope this helps a bit.
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 10:47 pm
Jimmer, your comments above are very helpful to me! Thanks for sharing. After reading your post, I located a few samples of digital pics I made when coming upon some of nature's beauty in 2003. Can you please take a peek in my folder and view the 3 pics I posted and then possible give me your thoughts or hints to help me learn how to improve? And if I'm asking too much, please know that I'd completely understand. I haven't uploaded the software/CD manual for my new camera yet but I'm sure there will be lots for me to read and learn.
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 4:30 am
Jimmer: Thanks for the comments. I will definitely try that.....I'll bet it makes for some beautiful shots!
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 4:49 am
Jimmer: Can you give me some tips on photographing waterfalls. I like the professional photos where the water looks blurred and white and "whole". I looked for your folder, but you don't have one! So had to post here! Thanks!
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 7:24 am
Hi Egbok, I looked at your pictures. Very nice scenes. One problem that you come across more in digital photography than with print film is that digital photography is more similar to slides or transparencies in that the exposure latitude is much smaller. By that I mean that the camera can not capture as wide a range of brightness from light to dark, so scenes with sharp contrasts don’t tend to turn out as well. It’s a very difficult problem to deal with. One thing that you want to do is try to avoid “blowing the highlights”. With blown highlights, there is absolutely no detail (it’s pure white) and no detail can be recovered in post-processing. As a result, some digital photographers like to err on the side of under-exposure. You can recover some detail from under-exposed dark areas in post-processing, but once an area is blown out it is unrecoverable. Now having said that, the problem with under-exposing is that the darker areas of the image are too dark and get noisy. Plus for reasons that I won’t go into here, most of the detail is contained in the lighter areas. So basically you want to expose as bright as possible without blowing highlights. Of course, you have to also consider what is important in the image. If you were taking a picture of a person sitting on a car, you would be more concerned about getting the person exposed correctly and not the car’s bumper! And you can’t be worried about specular highlights – these are just small areas of reflected light that may get blown out and are not particularly important. So, try to avoid scenes that are very contrasty (hard to do sometimes), err to the side of under-exposure in those conditions, and try not to blow out anything that is important while keeping the image as bright as possible. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it??? Luvmyjrt, To get the lovely blurred water effect, you have to set the camera to shutter-priority (Tv) and set a slow shutter-speed and use a tripod. If you are shooting in fairly bright light, you may not be able to get a slow enough shutter-speed (too much light) to blur the image without over-exposing, but I think that the G6 has a built in neutral density filter that you can select to reduce the amount of light entering the lens, which should solve that problem. Hope this helps. I love photography and I’m happy to try to answer any questions as best I can. 
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 7:30 am
Another trick you can try with contrasty scenes is that many of these cameras offer exposure bracketing. The camera will take three pictures of the same scene, one right after the other. One will be under-exposed, regularly exposed and over-exposed. You can pick the one you like best. Another trick is to bring the three images into an image editing program like PhotoShop, and super-impose them over each other and mask out the areas of each image so that the right exposure is shown for each area and the overall combined image looks great. But this is getting complicated.
|
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 8:30 am
Okay Jimmer, help get me back into not falling into the auto mode all the time. What setting(s) would you start with? (baby steps for the beginner). Let's assume it is an inside shot of people-birthday party type setting.
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 9:39 am
Jimmer, thank you for "Lesson #1"... You've used some terminology relative to photography, that I've never heard before, but that is not a complaint! Rather, you've got me interested in learning more about "blowing the highlights". I suspect you are referring to manual modes, rather than auto mode? The first two pictures I posted in my folder of the ground fern type of plants were taken with auto mode - one with flash and the other without the flash. So if I used the manual mode and under exposed a bit, then perhaps my results might get me better results...certainly worth trying. After transferring the images to my PC, I can pick and choose my final results. And oh!, don't get me started on wanting to learn how to tweak my digital photos....that's a whole another subject for me to learn...LOL! I'm going to have fun practicing with my new camera and I'll come here to ask you questions as I stumble along. I'd really like to be fairly proficient with my camera by July for those photographic opportunities that will once again come my way. Thanks again Jimmer!
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 11:25 am
Well, my bubble was busted this morning! After unpacking all the software, etc., I began uploading the first of two CD's. Didn't get past the first CD due to "Fatal Error 1935". I called the Olympus toll free support number (yeah...just what I want to do with my precious spare hours at home before going into work today...LOL!) A nice young male voice politely asked for the Error message number and immediately responded with "ahh...yes, we are trying to get a fix for that error asap". Ohhh-KAY I say. So what are my options? 1. Take the camera back and ask for a replacement CD. 2. Have Olympus mail me the fixed version which will take 7-10 business days. I opted for the fixed version to be mailed to me. The young male tech was very apologetic and offered that with the USB cable provided, I could still take photos and download them to my PC to view. Although I appreciated his informative offer, I choose to wait for the "fixed" version of the CD until I begin playing around with my new camera. Do you hear my disappointed SIGHHHH....hee-hee! Oh well, such is life when it comes to technology and me. I'll patiently wait for the postman.
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 1:40 pm
You’re welcome for the “lesson” Egbok. Gosh that’s disappointing about your program not working. One thing you might consider is buying a card reader for the type of card that your camera uses. A lot of people prefer to use card readers rather than connecting their camera to the PC. That way you can leave your card reader permanently connected and not have to fuss about with cables, use special software or wear down the camera batteries when you transfer images. You just turn off the camera, take the card out of the camera, put it in the card reader and use Windows file explorer to copy your images to wherever you want them on your PC hard drive. Once you're satisfied that they copied okay and you have back-ups (and you should always do back-ups!), then you can put the card back into the camera and delete the images using the camera menu. The blowing the highlights can happen in any camera mode, auto or otherwise. It usually occurs when a small portion of the scene is significantly brighter than the rest of the scene. The camera exposes for the rest of the scene and over-exposes the bright part making it pure white with no detail. Then you need to decide if the bright part is really important to the scene and if it is, reduce the exposure (with exposure compensation). Plus the tricks I mentioned above. Julie, Canon seems to design their program mode to use very wide apertures, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. With in-door flash photography, with your camera, I would start in Av mode at about f 4.0 or f 5.6. That should give you enough depth of field and light and those are settings that your lens should perform well at. Take a look at the histogram after the first shot. Assuming a fairly average scene it should run across pretty much from end to end with higher peaks in the middle. Make sure that it’s not too flat on the right, which indicates under exposure. Try positive flash compensation if it is under-exposing. If it is still under-exposing after using positive flash compensation, it probably means that your flash isn’t powerful enough for the conditions and you’ll have to lower the f-stop (smaller number = wider aperture = more light through the lens). By the way, the above doesn’t exactly apply to a digital SLR which has different characteristics due to the lenses and the size of the CMOS chip.
|
Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Monday, April 04, 2005 - 7:28 pm
Eggie, card reader is definitely the way to go. You used to be able to get them free after rebate all the time at Office Max, but they have cut down on their free stuff. But you could go to ebay and inquire on your specific type of card, for example, "compact flash card reader" or "sd card reader." Or you could (shudder) pay full price for one at a place like Office Max or Staples or (bigger shudder) CompUsa (I hate them with a passion).
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 11:25 pm
Juju, thanks for the advice on getting a card reader. BTW, I don't like CompUsa either. Oh, and since I've got your attention, thanks for not going on an Alaskan cruise....you're waiting for me, riiiiight? Oh, and I'll bring the camera.....
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - 4:46 pm
Hey, Eggie! how are things on the digi cam front? I posted a few new pics of my pups in the Dogs thread.......Hope all is working for you!
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - 10:20 pm
Hi Luvmyjrt, thanks for asking! I've bought book titled blue pixel personal photocoach which I've been reading whenever I can grab some free time. I've tried taking a few pictures with my new camera but I haven't downloaded any to my computer yet. I can already tell by that I'm going to like this camera and so I would really like to understand more about how it works. So that's why I'm reading and taking baby steps. Wish me luck!! How's it going with your digi pictures?? I'll certainly go take a peek in the Dogs thread and I hope I'll see pics of your JRT!! Thanks for letting me know!! (I did tell you that someday I would like to get a jrt, didn't I?
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 4:25 am
OH Eggie, we need to T-a-l-k before you get a Jack Russell Terrorist! Just kidding, I love this little furball but when she was a puppy --- whew!
|
Cathie
Member
08-16-2000
| Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 7:24 pm
Is anyone using a Pentax digital camera? Our local Wolf Camera has a special this week for a Pentax *ist DS, with two lenses included, an 18-55mm and a 70-300mm zoom lens for $899. The camera body alone sells for $799. We have two Pentax 35mm cameras that we have used and loved for years and all of our lenses for them are supposed to work with this camera, too. The Wolf ad shows it as a 6.3MP camera, while the Pentax web site lists it at 6.0MP. My main question--how does the capability to use a 300mm zoom compare to the "optical zoom" on most digital cameras? The best I have seen is 10x optical zoom but I don't know what that would equate to in mm. All advice is welcome... 
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 8:08 pm
I don’t use Pentax (I use Canon) and I don’t know if that is a good price or not so I’m not going to be much help from that perspective. From what I understand though, Pentax makes a good camera body, though not as good as Canon or Nikon. When you buy an SLR you’re really buying a system. By that I mean you’re buying all the lenses, flashes and accessories, so you want to consider the product as a whole. Since you already have had a good experience with Pentax and have some lenses, maybe Pentax is the way to go. Just make absolutely certain that your lenses are compatible. But you might want to consider looking at Canon. The difference in the megapixel numbers is the larger number is how big the sensor is and the smaller number is the usable area of the sensor. Also, SLR lenses vary widely in quality and price. You can get some really cheap (and bad) optics or you can pay a lot of money for professional lenses. Most of the kit lenses aren’t all that great. One way this can be obvious is find out the price of the body without the included lens. You may find that there isn't much difference because the lens is so cheap. With respect to the super zooms on the point and shoots, there is no magic involved (well maybe a little because they can design the lens to fit the smaller sensor). Generally, the more extreme the zoom capability, the more the optics suffer. For example, you can get a Tamron lens for SLRs with a range of 28mm to 300 mm but it is very soft at wider apertures and it is a slow lens. But it does have a great zoom range, it's pretty compact and the price isn’t too bad. Don’t know how much this helped?
|
Egbok
Member
07-13-2000
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - 10:37 am
I'm baaaackkk! LOL!! I bought an Olympus xD USB Reader/Writer device. It's small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and reminds me of the size of a BIC lighter (remember those?). Anyway, I am so thrilled. I was able to remove my itty bitty xD card from my new camera, insert said itty bitty card into the R/W which I then plugged into a USB post and look what I was able to do!! This is Oscar!

|
Landi
Member
07-29-2002
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - 12:05 pm
good pic, great colors! oscar is such a cutie! and you really did well eggie!
|
Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - 12:31 pm
Wow! Nice work. Oscar looks cute! 
|
Froggiegirl621
Member
02-14-2003
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - 12:32 pm
OMG I wanna eat him up! Too cute!!! That camera is amazing, must get one. 
|
Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - 5:13 pm
Good work, Eggie. Card reader is the way to go.
|
Luvmyjrt
Member
09-18-2003
| Saturday, April 23, 2005 - 6:29 am
Yeah Eggie! So glad your snappin' away and like your camera!
|
|