Camera Choices

[skys]

my gallery was taken with a kodak but soon i ll start uploading photos taken with my canon.
not really gonna layout all the specs on here but you can check it out at

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos10d/page2.asp

[rthoman]

Was in my price range, and I have a VAIO laptop so I have all the sony stuff to go with it. I got the 256MB PRO memorystick too!

Imaging Device: 1/2.7" 3.2 Megapixel Effective Super HAD™ CCD
• Recording Media: Memory Stick® Media, Memory Stick PRO™ Media
• Zoom: 3X Optical, 3.2X Smart Zoom (at VGA size), 9.6X Total
• Filter Diameter: N/A
• Focal Length: 6 - 18mm
• 35mm Equivalent: 39 - 117mm
• Aperture: f2.8 - 5.6
• Focus: 3 Area Multi-Point AF, 5 Step Manual Preset
• Minimum Focus Distance: 19.7" (50 cm)
• Macro Focus Distance: 3.9" (10 cm)
• Shutter Speed: Auto, 1/30 – 1/2000 sec, Twilight 2 sec – 1/1000
• Manual Exposure: ±2.0 EV, 1/3 EV Steps
• Color LCD: 1.5" 123K Pixels Low Temperature Polysilicon TFT
• Flash Modes: Auto/Forced On/Forced Off/Slow Synchro
• Red-Eye Reduction: On/Off
• White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent
• Picture Effects: Black & White, Solarize, Sepia, Negative Art
• ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400
• Scene Modes: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Beach, Snow
• Self Timer: Yes, 10 Seconds
• Video Output: Yes NTSC/PAL Selectable
• Still Image Modes: JPEG (Fine/Std.), Burst, Email, Voice Memo
• MPEG Movie Modes: MPEG VX (640x480, 16fps, with audio); MPEG Video Mail (160x112, 8 fps with audio)
• Clip Motion: Normal (160x120), Mobile (80x72)
• Microphone/Speaker: Yes/Yes
• USB Terminal: Yes, Supports USB 2.0
• Memory Stick PRO™ Media Compatibility: Tested to support up to 1GB* media capacity; does not support high speed transfer function; does not support Access Control security function
• Battery Type/Capacity: NiMH AA, 2100 mAh Rated
• Supplied Software: Pixela™ Image Mixer Software for Sony v1.5, USB Driver SPVD-008
• OS Compatibility: Microsoft® Windows® 98/98SE/Me/2000 Professional/XP Home/Pro; Macintosh® OS 8.5.1/8.6/9.0/9.1/9.2
• Supplied Accessories: NH-AA-DA Rechargeable NiMH Batteries, BC-CS2 NiMH Battery Charger, A/V and USB Cables, Wrist Strap, MSA-16A 16MB Memory Stick® Media, Software CD-ROM
• Dimensions (W/H/D): 4 11/16" x 2 1/4" x 1 5/16" (119.5 x 57.7 x 32.6mm)
• Weight: 9.5 oz (259g) (w/Battery, Memory Stick® Media, Strap)

[QTOFFER]

I'm shopping for a digital camera and I found this neat site that has exhaustive reviews and test comparisons for most of the popular models on the market. It's really worth a look.

http://www.dpreview.com/

[Brad]

Yes, I happen to be an expert on digital photography...and that's all I'm going to say about it.

If you are shopping for a camera, and thinking of using it to take aquarium pictures, you should consider three things as key:

1) Macro mode. The camera had better have one. How close can it focus?
2) Accessory super-close up lenses. Not all cameras can take these, nor are they available for all cameras. Very useful for aquarium shots.
3) Resolution. 3MP makes excellent pictures, but purchasing higher resolution will enable you to crop into your pictures and still have lots of pixels left. So if the fish only occupies 1/3 of the picture, you could crop your 5MP camera into that 1/3 and still have a picture of maybe 1.6 Mpixels left.

You won't see a quality difference between 3MP and 5MP if you are only printing out 4x6 photos. They will be identical. Print 11x14's and it is a different story. The main benefit of the higher pixels is in the ability to crop that I mentioned above.

Finally, beware of various picture quality. In the day of film cameras, remember that FILM was responsible for much of the image quality result that you got. Imagine putting very BAD film into a very nice camera...bad result. Now, every digital camera has it's own permanent "film"... the part that is responsible for colour accuracy/contrast etc. You can't change it. If a digital camera doesn't do a good job of color/contrast etc, it isn't going to matter if it has a good lens or not.

[Menagerie]

This thread is overwhelming, but thankfully Brad broke it all down. And the link from QTOFFER is great~now can someone translate it for me?

[Guppyman]

Hi. Just started breaking in my new 8Mp Olympus C-8080Z. There is a pic posted in the "Show-Off" - Photography Forum under German Gold Guppy. The resolution is amazing. - Frank/Guppyman

[muse12]

I have a cannon powershot A80 with a 512 MB memory card.
11x digital zoom
can record long videos
I just can't get the settings right for taking crisp pics of my tank! It's pretty tricky.

[Verse914]

Muse
yeah, it does take some work getting pics with the A80. I borrowed one from work for the weekend, and it was pretty tough. I didnt mess with it too much as I have a Sony 828, but the A80 took great photos of everything else i shot.

Aaron

[muse12]

yeah
I find I have to have the halide on or nothing will look good.
And it is kind of hard getting it to use the macro setting when I'm using the digital zoom.

[peterp]

Well, I finally broke down and upgraded my old Nikon 5400 P&S to a Canon EOS 20D

• 8.2 million effective pixels, 8.5 total pixels.
  Image processor: DIGIC II
  Image sizes 3504 x 2336 (8.2 MP) Camera writes RAW and jpeg HI files at the same time
  ISO 100-3200
  9-point TTL autofocus
  Burst rate of 5 frames a second for 23 frames, then 1 FPS till the buffer clears.
  Power-on startup to ready to shoot is under 1/2 second.
  Onboard peanut flash has a guide of 42 feet at iso100.

Got the addon BG-E2 battery grip as well, so it can run off of 2 batteries at the same time or 6AA cells in an emergency (up to 2000 shots per charge with the bg-e2 mounted)

Also got a Sandisk 1gb eXtreme card (holds about 65 images, in RAW+jpg Hi mode)

Oh Did I mention the camera was fast, no perceivable shutter lag time at all
Now I just have to wade through all the manuals.