best digital camera

socal57che

socal57che

Active Member

Originally Posted by AW2
Olypmus is the company I swear by.
I shoot with a C-8080.
My wife's company switched to Olympus last year. (E-20n & E-1)
We swear AT them!
 
milomlo

milomlo

Active Member
Originally Posted by Stanlalee
Get a tripod and experiment/learn to use the camera in manual mode. try the macro botton if it cant auto fucus your close ups without fuzz. Dont ever use the flash.
I'm partial to Canon simply because my old outdated A40 still takes pictures better than alot of guys newer more expensive camera's of other brands. Only thing it doesn't do well is macro shots which I can expect from an outdated entry level cam. I fiqure if my pile of sh*t can take great pictures newer more advanced models should really be great.
I'm thinking about a Powershot S2 IS, not quite ready to plunk down SLR money for strictly leisure needs.

Stan - I have played with this camera so much. I just don't know much about it and I can't find the dang book
What resolution do you set your camera to. I use the Macro (the flower thing), but I still get blurring pics. I have not used a tripod though. Do you actually use your zoom or do you crop them in some software?
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
well I have an entry level cam which is only 2 megapixels but what you set your resolution at doesn't really have any influence on the quality of the pics unless you have to make them digitally larger than the resolution you shoot them at. My resolution is usually set at 1024x768 just because its my laptops screen size. I crop pics I post to 800x600 just so they arent to big to post but cropping shouldn't change the quality of the pic. If you have a compression setting like "fine" "superfine" or "normal" make sure to use the "superfine" or most detailed/least compresed setting. By manual mode I mean setting it to "M" on canon cameras and then setting the aperture and exposure manually (the owners manual would really help here but I'm sure most canons adjusment methods are simular or the same. on my canon after turning it to M it will say "set exposure" then you must hit the WB button then use the left/right buttons to adjust exposure time and the display button to adjust the aperture. keep reading farther down if you dont understand those settings. from there you can shoot or keep hitting the WB button to scroll to different adjustment parameters if you choose like white balance, photo effect, macro ect). A tripod is essential to well focused shots exept maybe in broad daylight. The darker the pic or area you are trying to take the longer the exposure has to be set to in order to capture enough light. while thats happening the camera cant be moving at all which is physically impossible without a tripod. the two main settings you should be fooling with are the aperture setting (which will be F something such as F6 or F2.8 ect) and exposure time which can be anywhere from fractions of a second to 8+ seconds. Those two variables determine how bright/dark and in the case of moving objects how focused the moving object will be. The lower the aperture setting the shorter the exposure time can be which works well for things that move like pulsing xenia (things that move require short exposure times to prevent blurring). For still shots wether to use a high aperture and long exposure vs low aperture and short exposure is purely experimental for me. course with a flash exposure time can really be cut down but for me flashes are only useful where there is considerable distance between the camera and target (not fish tank type pics). I dont fully understand ISO setting but for most entry level cams low ISO seems to reduce grain. My ISO is set at 50 but 100 is a good all around medium. The best cameras are grain free regardless of ISO settings.
the best practice for aperture and exposure settings are night shots. I used my car to learn and experiment with taking shots in manual mode. with night shots you'll have to change those settings substantially just from moving back or foward a few feet or where a street light happens to be.
http://dubfidub.homestead.com/files/gtinight8.jpg
http://dubfidub.homestead.com/files/2005GTI1.jpg
http://dubfidub.homestead.com/files/nightstag2.jpg
http://dubfidub.homestead.com/files/2005GTI6.jpg
you should be able to tell immediately if the macro mode is going to help when you pre focus. If before you take the pic it looks well focused and blur free but the pics come out fuzzy or blurry its likely due to lack of tripod. If you cant get a good focus with or without macro mode prior to taking the picture time to upgrade the camera.
hope I didn't type too much
 
milomlo

milomlo

Active Member
Wow! Thanks Stan!! You helped me sooo much. Taught me about setting I didn't even know I had. I will be practicing :) Thank you!
 
mystic7

mystic7

Member
Nice pics, Stanlalee. I wish my gallery was still online. I was more into candid street photography, particularly cute chicks ;-)
 
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