Comments on: Digital camera technology

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:32:00 +0000

I was looking for an upholsterer and just happened to come across your site. I admittedly had to wipe away the drool after seeing your shop and the beautiful machines you restore. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the process you must work very hard to perfect.

In any case, I could not help but comment that if you really want to take quality digital pictures, I would recommend a Canon Rebel XTI. I have used many of the entry level SLR cameras and this one is really no more difficult than an ordinary Point & Shoot. It will take incredibly sharp and professional pictures with no hesitation. They are a relatively pricy, but I promise that after a few pictures you will no doubt think its worth it.

I look forward to seeing more postings. I hope one day I would have a reason to use your services and visit your shop. Good luck!

-AP
Chester VT.

By: tango22

tango22 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:56:00 +0000

Here are a few more thoughts on Digital Camera Technology:

>Changing from one camera manufacturer to another won’t necessarily address your complaints about your Canon SD6000. Shutter delay is a common complaint with many digital cameras. It is the delay between the time when you “push the button” to when the image sensor actually “takes the picture”. On some cameras, it may be as much as 1/2 second or more. With many digital cameras, you may find that the shutter delay is much less if you turn off the LCD viewfinder and use only the optical viewfinder when shooting. (This will also greatly improve battery life).

>For non-studio non-professional situations, it’s almost always preferable to not use your flash, if at all possible. If your camera insists on using its flash even though you don’t want it to, you’re shooting in an Automatic mode. Switch to one of the program modes (P – Program; A -Aperture priority; T – shutter speed (Time) priority; M – full Manual).

>For shooting without flash in low or available light situations, you will probably want the following:
-The largest possible lens aperture (For example, f2.8 is a larger aperture than f3.5).
-The slowest useable shutter speed (Is the camera being hand-held? Is it on a tripod? Does the camera have Image Stabilization? These will all affect what is a “useable” slow shutter speed.)
- A shorter focal length lens. Telephoto lenses amplify camera shake. So if you’re using a zoom lens, get in closer to your subject, rather than just zooming in with the lens.
-The highest useable ISO setting (I say “useable” here because the higher the ISO, the more noise and degradation in the resulting image. Depending on your image quality requirements, your camera’s higher ISO settings may not be suitable for your needs. Some camera makers and some camera models do better with their high ISO signal-to-noise ratio than others.)

>Take a look at the DPReview website (http://www.dpreview.com/) before making any decisions about which camera to buy. It’s an EXCELLENT resource for digital photography information and reviews. Highly recommended!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:40:00 +0000

greetings

I too was a Canon fan . . . .
In my machine shop the digital age
has been a wonderous partner, allowing me to take tons of quick
pics of setups, assemblies etc & get them into my PC for documentation & reference. But the Canon shot craps after only 2 years. Several hours on the internet with some solid opinion searching I too am a very
satisfied Panasonic Lumix owner.
It seems the Panasonic people & the Leica people have produced a great line of digital cameras.

thanks for a very cool site,
scott
harrisonville, missouri

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:41:00 +0000

Steve – As long as there is good light, it will do a fine job without the flash. I’m also a dolt when it comes to photography, so I’m sure there’s better techniques for maximizing light.

By: RPMVT

RPMVT — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:53:00 +0000

Thanks for the tip Tim, this is helpful. As I take more photos I will look into replacing the canon with something like yo mentioned. I guess my main problem is that many times there is good light inside and I wish the flash was not on. I have taken photos of my kids inside and the flash wipes them out where as no flash has nice warm color/light.

Thanks again for writing Tim.
Steve

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:35:00 +0000

I feel your pain on the camera thing. I had a Canon Powershot A95 and while it took great pictures with plenty of light, especially taking product shots with studio-grade lights, it sucked otherwise.

A friend showed me pictures he took with his new camera – super-fast shutter speed and great image stabilization. He took shots ON a boat OF another boat and they were crystal clear. I picked this camera up before my trip to New Zealand and it has served me amazingly well. You can see the results on my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/10854096@N08/) and on my blog. It is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8. I picked it up from NewEgg with a 4GB SDHC card and spare battery for a bit over $300 shipped 2-day, quite a deal if you ask me.

In low light you still need to use the flash to avoid blurry pics, or up the ISO speed which introduces a lot of image noise. However it has an independent exposure setting for the flash, so it is easy to get good pictures indoors with the flash.

Happy to answer any other questions about it if you’re interested.
-Tim
http://supplespub.com