OT: Digital cameras

In article <[email hidden]>, Mark South
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

"Bernard Hill" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article
<[email hidden]>, rob
burton <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Not so long ago I saw amazon selling Canon A60's for
£100, which is a very good deal, though I'm not sure if
you can still get them.

You can, but beware when they're from abroad. You pay VAT
and import duties amounting to perhaps 20% extra.

No, Amazon.co.uk is inside the UK borders and their listed
prices include VAT.

My apologies. For amazon I read eBay, where I saw some
yesterday. You are quite correct.

Quoted message said:

The A60 is a discontinued model now BTW.

Good grief. Makes my A20 look ancient...

--
Bernard Hill Selkirk, Scotland

Faolan said:

Oh boy, this is a cracker ;o)

1) Some cameras are more prone to blow outs than others.
Comes down to how the sensor handles the light, cheaper
you go the worst it can become...

Well maybe the sensor is an issue, but blow outs are down to
[censored] exposure in the vast majority of cases. Just take the
exposure off the sky or set it manually.

Quoted message said:

2) Depends on the camera and types of battery, a 10D dSLR
can pull about 400-500 shots with a 1Gb Microdrive,

With jpegs maybe, but if you're using it seriously (and why
wouldn't you be if you buy a camera like that?) you'll only
get 130 shots in RAW mode. But maybe I misunderstand you
because this was a battery question?

Quoted message said:

3) Depends on the size of MegaPixels and the final image
and resolution you choose, such as my 602 can fit about
440 shots (6MP fine) on a 1Gb Microdrive but a Canon
10D can do about 250 ish RAW iirc. 4)

No, 130.

Quoted message said:

I have not experienced this, but if you keep a sachet of
silica gel (you get this with most electronic items) in
your camera bag then you are helping to keep the
moisture out.

Good advice.

Quoted message said:

You note I have not said anything about MegaPixels, it's a
fallacy that people think that a 5Mp is better than a 3Mp
camera, it not's necessary so it comes down to how well
the picture is rendered. Don't fall into this trap.

As a general rule *most* 5MP cameras are better than *most*
3MP cameras. This is generally valid if you are comparing
the same type of camera,
i.e. compact vs. compact or DSLR vs. DSLR. But a 6MP DSLR is
better than an 8MP compact.

Paul
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Fran said:

Oh, and you'll probably want a card reader to plug into
your computer, so that you don't need to use the batteries
whilst transferring your photos to the HDD.

Yeah that's a good idea. I've lost count of the number of
times my 300D has run out of battery power whilst
transferring the images to the PC. It's never run out in
the field but it frequently runs out when transferring
files. I don't know why that is, but the transfer is very
slow, only USB 1.

Paul
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Graeme Cogger said:

Quoted message said:

- Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than
35mm?

Possibly. Digital cameras have a smaller dynamic range
than 35mm print film - more like 35mm slide film.

People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Digital
cameras have a much wider dynamic range than film, that's
their biggest advantage IMO. I can only assume that people
have this misconception with digital because they aren't
taking advantage of the wide dynamic range in the post
processing stage. Or maybe they have that misconception
because of over-exposure which seems to be extremely common
amongst digital camera users, for which the blame lies
largely with the exposure meters in the cameras, not the
camera sensors. [1]

Anyway, as I'm sure I've pointed out many times in the
past, whereas Velvia has a dynamic range of only 5 stops or
so, both of my digital cameras have had an exposure range
of 10-11 stops.

It's quite possible that cheaper digital cameras have a
narrower dynamic range, especially if they only produce 24
bit output, but I don't have any experience of cheap digital
cameras so I can't comment.

[1] As I've often recommended, expose for the sky and don't
worry if the image looks dark in the viewfinder (it
always does). You can easily brighten it later. I
frequently extract amazing detail from areas of the
image which initially look almost black. But you can't
do it the other way around.

Another way of looking at it is to compare exposure with
sound recording. With analogue tape recording it doesn't
matter if the signal occasionally goes into the red. It
causes a slight distortion but it's not that big a deal With
digital recording you must *never* allow the signal to go
into the red. The signal clips and result sounds awful.
Likewise with photography, if you over expose a film shot it
fades into white in a smooth way, but with digital you get a
sharp transition into white which looks a lot more nasty.
Never over-expose digital if you can possibly avoid it.

Paul
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Road_Hog said:

Okay, lots of technical answers already. General user
answer, I have an Olympus MJU 300 as my company camera
(also personal use) good quality build, metal casing and
pictures are equivalent to a 35mm and it's 3 meg camera.

Seconded. Also the Olympus MJU series are rated splashproof.
Rubber seals around anywhere that water might get in. I've
never had mine seriously damp (yet) but I don't doubt that
it would survive. My only minor niggle is that the lens
cover doesn't completely seal, so pocket fluff can
accumulate on the optics.
--
Dave

On 8 Jun 2004 02:56:54 -0700, [email hidden] (Chris

Gilbert) said:

Delete until your happy with the results.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

cards. Also, you'll find that you'll edit out your weaker
shots, making better use of what memory you've got.

I'd offer different advice to suggest that you don't
delete anything based on an in-camera review (unless the
shot is totally pants). Many times I've found that the
I've got my best results from pics that look less than
promising at first glance. A lot of folk advocate
[exposure] bracketting anyway. Maybe when I'm better at my
craft I can delete in-camera.

I also find that, even if a pic is not worth doing anything
with print/display-wise, I can still pick up on technique by
looking at the EXIF data for that pic: data such as shutter
speed, aperture, etc., is stored in this data and I've found
it useful to review this... at the very least to recognise
why a particular pic per scene doesn't work.

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
thenmc.org.ukindex.phpOpen ↗

NMC website: thenmc.org.ukthenmc.org.ukOpen ↗

Steve Orrell said:

First of all, I'd suggest you're more serious about your
photgraphy than you give yourself credit for, anyone who
can shoot 4x36 in a week is not hanging back for bets!

Ha! I take that many in a day! Half a roll a day is really
restrained
IMO. :-)

Paul
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Chris Gilbert said:

Iain Jones wrote

Quoted message said:

- Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than
35mm?

I have found that CCD doesn't necessarily respond in
exactly the same way as film, especially in extreme light
conditions. It's a case of practising with, which of course
you can do your hearts content. Delete until your happy
with the results.

Quoted message said:

- What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the
viewfinder primarily (rather than the LCD screen)?

Firstly, don't bother with digital viewfinders. They are a
complete of space. A review screen is essential and if
you're only using it to review what you've taken then it
wont impac too much on bettery life. Do not go for anything
that uses a proprietary battery so you can go for standard
rechargeables, as discussed.

The optical viewfinder on my Canon A40 *is* a waste of
space. It has an abysmal coverage of the field of view and I
have almost never used it for composition prefering the LCD
screen instead. I suppose I could get used to the crop
factor of the viewfinder much as I did with my Zenit SLR.

A review screen is not essential. Once you have figured out
how your camera's auto exposure works you can get away with
not using fancy things like live or review histograms to
check exposure most of the time. To save batteries I would
use the LCD to compose and switch the camera off just after
taking and not be tempted to look at the shots I had taken
with the LCD
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the
"Westminster Gasworks"
95/284 5/219 c.100/300 (>900m with drop>100m )

"Iain Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote
in message news:[email protected]
32.252.50... snip

Quoted message said:

For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting.
Any more advice is welcome.

Cheers Iain

Whilst looking at the MJU 300 & 400 also look at the Oly
C5050 and C750 I use the 750 because of the optical zoom x10
which I like when in the game parks. The only draw back I've
noticed with digital cameras is the shutter lag. I do U/W
photography and it's a bloody nightmare trying to guess
where the fish going to be in the time it takes the shutter
to operate. I must say I don't really notice this too much
with normal use. Richard

Fran said:

Thinking of batteries, I bought myself a 'new toy' over
the weekend and I'm very happy with it: one battery
charger from Maplins. It runs from either the mains or
a car battery (via the lighter) and can charge NiMhs or
Ni-Cds as long as you don't mix them. The big things
for me are:

I bought one of those a few months ago - I'm very
pleased with it (it does a particularly good job if you
leave the cells in the charger to trickle charge while
they cool down).

However, it sounds as though they've upgraded the
package slightly
- I got 2000mAh cells and, although the car adapter was
mentioned in the leaflet, it wasn't included. Is it simply
a lead with a plug for the charger on one end and a
cigarette lighter plug on the other, or does it have some
electronics in it ?

-adrian

"Iain Jones" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Phew! Thanks everyone so far for your help, after re-
reading my own post I was expecting more along the lines
of "get in the right newsgroup"!

I must admit most of the technical stuff went over my
head, but then I've just back back from work so I'll try
reading it again later. My old camera was auto-focus, and
that's about all I knew about it - no manual controls for
exposure/shutter speed/whatever.

In terms of how serious I am about photography, I spend
a bit of time framing the shot and do the odd
experiments like taking a picture into the sun (some
nice silhouttes as a result), and I've picked and chosen
who to develop them for me. I've only gone into the
technical side of it once,

and

Quoted message said:

that was asking what ISO film to use.

Saying all that though I'm reknowned for under-selling
myself ;-) but money's the big issue really, whatever I
get it'll be going onto the

credit

Quoted message said:

card to pay off slowly. What's tempting me most is no cost
of films & developing (getting towards £10 a go, to buy
the film then get it processed).

For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting.
Any more advice is welcome.

Cheers Iain

I bought a Panasonic DAM LOC which is a 4 mega pixel jobbie.
Bought it direct from Panasonic for £249 less than 2 months
ago and since then they have reduced the price twice (which
has really knarked me) to a very competitive £199. This is
my 1st digital camera and it has there are a few features on
it but I am just a point n shoot type although I have played
around with the exposure etc - that's the fun of these type
of things, you can experiment without the cost of having
them developed! It's quite a small camera but chunky if you
know what I mean!

Try panasonic.co.ukpanasonic.co.ukOpen ↗ for the details on it.

Here are a few of the shots I have taken with it.

pbase.comonmydayoffOpen ↗

Btw, people talk about RAW mode on here - what exactly does
that mean?

regards Alan

Quoted message said:

[1] As I've often recommended, expose for the sky and
don't worry if the image looks dark in the viewfinder
(it always does). You can easily brighten it later. I
frequently extract amazing detail from areas of the
image which initially look almost black. But you
can't do it the other way around.

It's possibly worth mentioning what Paul means by this
because, although he has often mentioned it, I don't recall
that he has explained the process and how simple it is and
someone who doesn't know might think there's some measure of
faffing about involved :-) Apologies if you have Paul. I
mustn't have been concentrating.

We're talking landscape here and most such shots have sky in
them. It's the sky bit that can sometimes, depending on
where the sun is and how much cloud there is in the image,
be over exposed and have blown out bits of pure white (which
are dead and can't be worked with - but could be replaced
and that's an entirely different story). To prevent this
happening simply briefly compose your shot and then swing
the camera up to point at the sky above the land that you
are going to include in the photo, that is the bit just
above the horizon so that the camera is looking at the sky
rather than the land, and then half press the shutter. The
camera will take an exposure reading from the bit you've
pointed at. Keep your finger half pressed on the shutter and
swing the camera back down to again compose the shot your
after. The camera will keep the exposure levels previously
set when you pointed at the sky.

It takes maybe one second to do this.

As Paul says, the image might appear dark and under exposed
but don't worry about that. If you have software you can
correct this later.

--
Dave Newton

Lake District walk&image site daves-lakeland-daves-lakeland-Open ↗
mountains.co.uk

Quoted message said:

AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800 AA NIMH
LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000

That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion
waaaaaaaaaay better now does it????

Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but
you do seem to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this
particular point.

And of course with the CRV3 Li-ion rechargeables (replaces 2
x AA) you've got even more flexibility (and better prices as
manuf in bulk and lots of competition!). Tho' downside to
Li-ion is that they degrade from the minute of manufacture:
use them or lose them . Mark Cavendish Cardiff, Wales

Quoted message said:

Paul, we have been here before!

Please look at the Canon specs for their cameras that use
AAs and you will find them comparable to the specs for
their battery pack cameras when running on NiMH.

e.g. the A80

powershot.comspecs.htmlOpen ↗

AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800 AA NIMH
LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000

I'm surprised.

Quoted message said:

That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion
waaaaaaaaaay better now does it????

Evidently not.

Quoted message said:

Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but
you do seem to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this
particular point.

I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was
simply going by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure
I've been told that AA battery life is terrible in digital
cameras, often running out after just 20 shots or so. Maybe
they were low capacity rechargeables, I don't know.

I've also read repeatedly how impressed users are with li-
ion batteries compared to AAs.

Paul
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Steve Orrell said:

I'd offer different advice to suggest that you don't
delete anything based on an in-camera review (unless the
shot is totally pants). Many times I've found that the
I've got my best results from pics that look less than
promising at first glance.

I totally agree. There have been a few occasions when my
first shot was the wrong expsosure so I took a second shot
but didn't delete the first, after which (on downloading to
the computer) I discovered that the second shot was out of
focus or suffered from camera shake whereas the first one
was really sharp. A brightness adjustment in Photoshop is
easy but sharpening a blurred photograph is impossible.

Quoted message said:

Maybe when I'm better at my craft I can delete in-camera.

The big problem is that of sharpness, you really can't tell
how sharp an image is in camera. Zooming in helps but isn't
perfect. One problem with RAW mode on the G3 was that you
couldn't zoom in to see the full detail (I think you were
only shown the .thm (thumbnail) file which was useless for
zooming. The 300D saves a jpeg with the RAW image. While I
first thought this was a pointless waste of space I now
realise that it's useful for zooming into to check
sharpness. Unfortunately the jpeg is only saved at medium
size so I can't check the sharpness at full size. Still,
it's better than nothing.

When taking pics quickly though, I rarely have time to go
into viewing mode and faff about with zooming. Simpler to
just take one or two extra shots and check the sharpness
later. Only if I was running out of shots would I start
looking critically. The sun shots today were a good example,
I took 13 altogether since I knew that most would not be
perfectly sharp.

Paul
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Paul Saunders said:

Steve Orrell said:

First of all, I'd suggest you're more serious about your
photgraphy than you give yourself credit for, anyone who
can shoot 4x36 in a week is not hanging back for bets!

Ha! I take that many in a day! Half a roll a day is really
restrained
IMO. :-)

Ah, but you've got that itchy finger thing that makes you
hit the shutter release shutter release shutter release,
plus I'm sure spaceitis will get you, even
subconsciously? ;-)

I'd take praps a roll-equivalent in a trip oot (Weds eve)
but I'd tail off in my enthusiasm over a week ;-)

SteveO

NE Climbers & walkers chat forum;
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Phil Cook wrote

Quoted message said:

The optical viewfinder on my Canon A40 *is* a waste of
space. It has an abysmal coverage of the field of view and
I have almost never used it for composition prefering the
LCD screen instead.

Ah, but that's not a digital viewfinder, is it ? Really,
digital viewfinders are pants and not worth paying the
extra for.

Quoted message said:

Zenit SLR.

Fine camera :-) Sadly consigned mine to the bin and replaced
it with an excellent Pentax A1. Since superceded by a Canon
AE1 and now the Fuji..

Quoted message said:

A review screen is not essential. Once you have figured
out how your camera's auto exposure works you can get away
with not using fancy things like live or review histograms
to check exposure most of the time.

I agree with you with regards reviewing exposures etc. I
really don't think it's a suitable tool for the job nor even
designed for it. Reviewing composition, however is very
useful and I do tend to edit on the go. Features like on-
camera crop also seem a bit over the top on higher spec
cameras as you're usually downloading to PC for onward
processing anyway.

Chris

Richard Bonnage said:

The only draw back I've noticed with digital cameras is
the shutter lag.

It's not shutter lag. It's auto-exposure and auto-focus lag.

Quoted message said:

I do U/W photography and it's a bloody nightmare trying to
guess where the fish going to be in the time it takes the
shutter to operate.

Set the exposure and focus manually and there won't be any
lag when you press the shutter release. Essential for
action subjects.

Note that there's no lag with my 300D even with auto-
exposure and auto-focus. "Pro" cameras are much better in
this respect.

Paul
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In article <[email hidden]>, pvs1
@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk says...

Quoted message said:

Graeme Cogger said:

Quoted message said:

- Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light
than 35mm?

Possibly. Digital cameras have a smaller dynamic range
than 35mm print film - more like 35mm slide film.

People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Digital
cameras have a much wider dynamic range than film, that's
their biggest advantage IMO. I can only assume that people
have this misconception with digital because they aren't
taking advantage of the wide dynamic range in the post
processing stage. Or maybe they have that misconception
because of over-exposure which seems to be extremely
common amongst digital camera users, for which the blame
lies largely with the exposure meters in the cameras, not
the camera sensors. [1]

Anyway, as I'm sure I've pointed out many times in the
past, whereas Velvia has a dynamic range of only 5 stops
or so, both of my digital cameras have had an exposure
range of 10-11 stops.

It's quite possible that cheaper digital cameras have a
narrower dynamic range, especially if they only produce 24
bit output, but I don't have any experience of cheap
digital cameras so I can't comment.

Sorry Paul, but I have to disagree. I did a quick search of
the highly respected 'Luminous Landscape' website (usually
my first stop for info on technical questions), and here are
a few links discussing the issue. The first one contends
that even the top DSLR out there (Canon 1Ds) has a range of
about 6 stops. The second one explains why using a 12 bit
colour depth does _not_ provide as great a dynamic range as
you would think. The third describes measurements of the
Canon D30, proving it to have a range of 6 stops (the newer
Canons are supposed to be similar). The final link, from
another site, describes someone's experiments to compare
dynamic range from scanned slide film and the Canon 10D - he
rates the 10D as slightly better than the scanned slide, but
much poorer than negative film.

luminous-landscape.com1dsOpen ↗
field-4.shtml luminous-landscape.comexposeOpen ↗
right.shtml luminous-landscape.comunderstandingOpen ↗
series/understandexposure.shtml 194.100.88.243petteOpen ↗
ri/pont/Pontification/m_Aesthetics_S
hootout/_Is_slide_better.html

URL: said:

In article
<[email hidden]>, Iain
Jones <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting.
Any more advice is welcome.

The Mju 410 is also a recently introduced improved version
of the 400. It offers an extra auto exposure mode designed
for snow and beach scenes, it records sound on movies, and
the lag on exposure has been reduced considerably. The 410
has been introduced at the old price of the 400 so that
means that both the 400 and 300 are available at reduced
prices compared to a few months ago.

Quoted message said:

Take a look at the Canon A80 and A75 as well. The weather
resistance of the Mjus are a plus

agreed

Quoted message said:

but Canon has a very good reputation for image quality.

Yes I would also agree. Lens quality is an important
consideration. Some of the digitial cameras available
offer good electronics with lots of gimmicks but to get
the best image you also need to source a camera that uses
good optics.

Mike Clark, <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
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mountain climbing, cycling, skiing, "> || _`\<,_ |__\ \>
| immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and ` || (_)/
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