digital camera advice, please

Best advice, check out reviews of cameras online, user reviews at places like internetcamerasdirect are really helpful.

What exactly was wrong?

Digital Photography Review
Steve's Digicams
(S400 review, DMC-FZ1 review)

Look in the forums and see what people are complaining and raving about, this is the most essential step. That said, I would go for the Elph in a heartbeat.

Don't underestimate the value of it's tininess and lightness either... it's smaller than a pack of cigarettes so you'll be much more likely to bring it out with you and actually use it. And lose it too of course but you know.

Also, U+K - get the biggest memory card you can afford. Otherwise you'll just end up buying a bigger one anyway, though if you do, they're much cheaper online than in any real shops.

You're right about 3x being insufficient, I think - that's what I have (on my Canon A40), and really, if you're ever in a position where you want to use a zoom (a gig is a good example), it's simply not enough. The digital zoom function is okay, but only good enough quality for online stuff.

Think about how you intend to carry the camera - size does matter, and I wish mine was smaller. I can just about squeeze it into my jeans pocket, but it looks silly and sticks into my hip. I'd only worry about its hardiness if you have a history of breaking delicate machinery.

I think it's probably up to you to make sure you avoid the "dork with a camera" situation :)

size does matter, and I wish mine was smaller. I can just about squeeze it into my jeans pocket, but it looks silly and sticks into my hip. I'd only worry about its hardiness if you have a history of breaking delicate machinery.

Um, I'm not sure! Are these the only two options? Certainly I find 2 million pixels produces perfectly adequate pictures. I'm not sure why you'd need more, really, though I have never actually printed them out on photographic paper. If it's obviously too low quality when you do that (and someone else will have to answer that), then that might make your mind up for you.

Do you mind if I ask what the whole tit-fitting thing is about? Will you be wearing your camera around your neck, or do you (ulp) have a storage facility there?

Perhaps it's worth looking for a compromise in the 3m pixels range (if you haven't done so already). I'd say neither of the cameras you mention really fulfil all your criteria. For example, although it's possibly too bulky for you, the Olympus C-720 has 3m pixels and an 8x optical zoom, and is available for $319 at the link provided.

(the above info was just what I found online - it's not a personal recommendation)

It's where I tend to hide cameras to bring them into gigs.

For example, although it's possibly too bulky for you, the Olympus C-720 has 3m pixels and an 8x optical zoom, and is available for $319 at the link provided.

Yeah, it's definitely too bulky, and it has no stabilization on the zoom.

(If you choose to go without stabilisation, there are surely cheaper things like it)

On top of that, there are very few situations where you'll ever need that kind of zoom range. Aside from wildlife and sports, none come to mind. 3x is a bigger spread than you'd expect - most pro film zooms will run from 28-70 or 70-200 (depending on the manufacturer).

Apparently, "This particular lens is also exceptional in the fact that it maintains the fast f/2.8 aperture throughout the entire focal range," according to Steve's Digicam site.

Lots of good advice on this thread. Keep it coming...

Also Sean, I have a question for you.

Of course for half the price now I could get a cam that does twice what mine does. And so Im thinking of getting a new one. I'd love a powershot G5 but for another 500-1000 I could think about getting a digital SLR like a Nikon or Pentax. I'm not sure I want to spring for that much on a camera tho.

Does anyone know if there's a market at all (either in shop trade-ins or via ebay) for older digital cams? I have a feeling mine's a bit worthless now, which considering it was $1500 is a damn shame.

Whats the powershot g5 like - worth getting, or should I spring up for a proper slr that i can manually focus/change lenses on?

I remember those floppy drive cams. I always wondered how you'd fit more than about 5 pics at a time on them.

Haha I wrote "kokdak" up there. Whoops.

Also, I read a review of the T1 at dcresource and found this worrying in the minus column: 'Images often have fuzzy, "video capture look"'

fwiw, I didn't mean to imply that I thought you were an asshole - it made me laugh.

Has anyone tried the Canon SI IS? (or it might be 51 SI, or S1 5I....or any combination really). The Digital Rebel XT looks great but is still a bit pricey in the UK. Any other suggestions?

It's slr shaped, got a 12x optical zoom, and a leica lens. It cost £300 on tottenham court road, but internet firms are having problems with supply. The review I read compared it very favourably with panasonic's next step up the FZ20, I guess the major difference is that the FZ20 has manual focus.

martin, pick up a jessops catalogue next time you're passing by (there's one on new oxford street, next to where FP used to be)

2) Capturing images in low light. When it gets really dark in the room, most point-and-shoot cameras have only two options: a completely black picture, or completely overexposed foreground when the flash kicks in. With a digital SLR you have better control over the settings, so if you know what you’re doing it’ll be a lot easier to get that shot in low light. Also, with some point-and-shoot cameras that only have an LCD screen for framing your shot, you won’t even be able to see what you’re shooting until you take the picture. With SLR’s through-the-lens focusing system, you only have to worry about the sensitivity of your eye, not the camera’s imaging sensor.

3) Action shots. Digital SLRs have much faster reaction time than point-and-shoot cameras, allowing you to capture images with split-second precision when you’re using the camera in manual mode. By contrast, the shutter delay on point-and-shoot cameras is often so unbearably long that by the time the picture is actually taken, the moment is already gone.

SLR cameras do have that instant mechanical feedback with the shutter press that yr electronic compacts don't have. Also, whether it's film or CCD, you're ultimately paying for the optics and in an SLR they're going to be quite a bit better.

(big xpost)

My Canon Ixus i is pretty good at low-light images; I can adjust the ISO setting in four steps and the backlit LCD screen gives plenty of detail. I think the compacts have got quite a bit better at this. You can manage about 7 shots in 3sec in continuous shooting mode too (with the LCD display off).

(The viewfinder on Pam's Canon FtB SLR is so filthy that manual focusing in low-level is actually really hard!)

What will annoy me about it? How awful with the images be with 0.1 megapixels? Why only 80 images, when cameras with smaller memories claim to store 200? Why are the cheapest with zooms around £70?

I have an FZ20, and the lens is indeed amazing. Unfortunately, Panasonic didn't bother to build much of a camera behind it. You get flat, flavorless color, high noise at all ISOs and totally unacceptable noise in low light, a hot shoe that's pretty much vestigal since Panasonic doesn't make any useful flash to go on it, infrared focusing that does nothing beyond five feet, and on, and on, and on.

But it's a great lens. Rule of thumb, though: Panasonic makes microwaves. Canon makes cameras.

With the size of a digi-cam CCD all talk of 'lens quality' is kind of meaningless. I would all but guarantee that the average viewer (even above-average) of a photo taken under average conditions (handheld) can't tell the difference from one lens to another. On top of that, the Lumix 'Leica' lens is just Leica badged, from what I've heard - there's nothing all that special about the glass.

That goes for 35mm lenses too. You can spend $2000 on the newest piece of Leica glass but 99 times out of 100 its performance will not be noticeably better than an $89 Canon or Nikon (for example) 50mm lens and 990 times out of a thousand will be indistinguishable from a $300 Voigtlander rangefinder lens.

But if I were going to Europe on vacation and just wanted something for memories and good-times pics (that can still be blown up to 8x10 and look OK), I doubt I'd want to pack and carry anything that large. The Lumix is an almost perfect pocket camera (as are the ELPHs, though I haven't used one since the 2MP days).

(mostly plastic) It comes down to command of your tool and its functions, afaic, and I want more functions to command.

But I still wouldn't want to cart it around with me everywhere I went. That's just cumbersome. If you just want something pocketable and you don't care about having best image quality ever, there's no point even looking at the SLRs.

i'm guessing 'everything' and 'dreadful'. the results will demoralise you and stop you taking photography any further.

you can get one better specced than mine for about 150 pounds these days (sigh), i wouldn't really touch anything less than that unless you were only ever shooting for the web. (and even then i'd prefer to resize / crop from the bigger picture that a higher resolution camera will give you)

> Why are the cheapest with zooms around £70?

zooms add a bunch of mechanics to what is otherwise a pinhole camera with added ccd. that's also the kind of level where they start adding lcd viewfinders to the back, hence the leap in price.

seriously, i wouldn't pay less than 100-150 pounds for one - you'll get something halfway decent for that. figure in the fact that it'll last a few years and you're talking less than a pound a week.

Ed, are talking about SteveM's Stratford Station shots?

i'm going to buy the minolta dimage A2 next. 8 megapixels of goodness.

So speaking in blunt financial terms -- I plan on having around $300 to spend on a digital camera next month before my European trip. Best suggestions in that price range at this present time?

Here's what I'd do. Spend $200 on a Canon Powershot A510. The price is right for a camera that's not aonly great for P&S, but has a pretty impressive battery of manual controls as well if you want to get fancy. You can do a lot with it. Then spend $60 on a 512MB memory card, so you won't have to worry about changing cards or some such nonsense. You'll get about 400-500 shots onto one of those. Then spen your remaining $40 on a battery charger and maybe 8 rechargable AAs. The Powershot doesn't eat batteries, but you neverr want to be caught without them.

My $.02.

My Canon Ixus i is nearly 18 months old and has taken around 6500 photos - the NB-3L Li-Ion battery pack has been recharged upwards of 100 times and is now getting near the end of its useful life (only about 25-30 shots before the low-batt indicator starts flashing).

The NB-3L is £23 (free delivery) on Amazon but generics with the same specs go for £9-£12 on other sites. Is this a false economy? Are they crap?

(need a smaller Enter key so I can re-read before I hit it)

Sooo..... the Canon EOS 350D looks like nice, and there's one on sale around the corner from where I work, but would a camera of that quality be wasted on someone who doesn't know how to use it??? What else is good for that much??

(yes, despite what Ed told me about "get a cheaper body and a better lens)

The colours and everything, even when I'm using flash, is beautiful.

Also, is the EOS 400D so much improved that I should spend the extra $$$ on it? The 350D prices are pretty fantastic right now.

Aye. That's what I'm thinking...

a: fuji f30 (or f20, or f31 or similar)
b: panasonic lumix lx1 or lx2

my mate was using a Nikon D50 recently, taking photographs inside a tent on holiday.

The weird thing was the tent was grey inside but the camera was producing them as maroon in colour. We tried changing all the settings and filters but it still kept doing it.

Taking the camera outside and taking pictures of the grey was working okay.

Is this some strange mesh/polarising/wavelength bollocks?

We guessed it was, my D80 managed to reproduce the grey fine tho.

yes

stop with the nikon.

the advice I give is that below the 5d and the d200 the nikon and canon are a push in terms of bang for buck, so long as you go in with the inderstanding that you're NEVER EVER going to be getting one of the fancy expensive models (i.e. the 5d or the d200 on up...). If you intend to ever get a big rig, then you basically have to go canon.

I'm still trying to stall w/ my D70 until the next generation 5D comes out.

i bit the bullet

have you had any problems with dust getting on the sensor?

Oh yeah there's dust on it now. But the thing I figured and the advice I was given was to not worry too much about it unless you do a lot of deep focus stuff or if you've got a client job coming up.

Two friends of mine both have panasonic FZ50s. They seem to like them. I'm considering buying one. Should I?

Maybe this is a good piece of advice from upthread: But it's a great lens. Rule of thumb, though: Panasonic makes microwaves. Canon makes cameras.

Don't the better (say US$300 and up) Panasonics use Schneider lenses?

I don't know (what that means).

But I've read some reviews and they seem to say great lens, ok everything else, slightly overpriced. I've just been speaking with my friend and he really likes his still. He's just a novice though, obvs.

Several makers have lenses branded as Schneiders, Zeiss and Leica. I've never seen any evidence that those lenses are actually of the quality of $1000+ glass, but maybe.

Nothing wrong with Panasonic. They've been making consumer electronics forever.

cool. So, in that price range (kind of $500-700) what brand/model would be the best?

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P73 4EVER.

in that price range, if it were me, I'd look at the low-end Nikon and Canon dSLR kits. Not that much bigger than an FZ50, with serious advantages in usability (an SLR viewfinder, for one, better autofocus and metering). And you can shoot it in auto mode if you like or learn how to do it old-school.

Nikon D40 and Canon Rebel XT would be the models, I believe.

Lovely, thanks for the advice.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/494401-REG/Nikon_D40x_Digital_Camera_Kit.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/494375-REG/Canon_EOS_Digital_Rebel_XTi.html

those both come in a bit over your budget, but there are sub-$700 kits available on the B&H site.

ask ally abt the d40

Lo

Can someone please recommend to me a digital photograph printing company online ? My printer is fooked and i have loads of pics i need printing.

I use photobox.co.uk (no good if you're in the US, obv) - cheap if you buy lots of print credits in bulk and their large reprint prices are reasonable too.

On the subject of affordable D-SLRs - I see that Jessops are doing the Pentax D100 (with 18-55mm lens) for £299 at the moment. I imagine you can use all the nice Pentax K-mount lenses on it, so a bit of a bargain. I think Colette/Toby of this parish have one.

Nikon D40 is about £50 more and they're knocking out the old Canon 350D (Rebel XT) for about the same. Olympus have a D-SLR for £350-ish too. Makes me wonder if Canon will introduce a bargain basement entry-level model next year to try and compete (the 400D [Rebel XTi] is still much more expensive than the new kids on the block).

snapfish seem ok. i only ever use these things with free offers though - a little googling can usually get you 50 free prints for signing up anywhere.

D100 - yes, that does sound pretty bargainous! that's about what I paid in the US 6 months ago in fact. Ledge here has one too.

IIRC there's a problem with the D40 and other lenses? Something about only being compatible with v new expensive ones?

(Sorry to use "Colette/Toby" as if you were a single indivisible entity!)

(Pentax) K100D I think y'all mean. Can't believe how cheap these things are getting. The auto white balance is a bit iffy but apart from that it's pretty decent. I've been thinking about getting a zoom lens but am currently baffled by the bewildering array of options, jargon, etc. Any pointers?

just got colette a pentax 50-200mm that seems pretty decent, but no idea whether that's the kind of thing you mean? K100D, yep.

Yeah, something like that - where did you get it from?

can anyone recommend a cheap long lens? i have Canon 350D and very little cash.

G-kit - depends what you mean by cheap. For a total outlay of around £45 (incl shipping), I managed to get an M42-EOS adaptor ring and a Carl Zeiss Jena f3.5/135mm manual lens off eBay. I can't afford any of the Canon EF/EF-S lenses outside of the f3.5-5.6/18-55mm (which was free) and the f1.8/50mm (which was £60 and totally essential), so going with older third-party lenses with adaptable mounts seemed to be the way to go.

(I'm probably repeating myself here).

Oh, and Pentax users - there's no shortage of K-mount lenses.

This looks like a smashing portrait prime option for Pentaxians.

This might be rubbish, but worth a punt for three quid!

MJ, that's exactly what I mean! I have both the lenses I can afford (18-55 and Thrifty Fifty), but I want something longer. Basically, I want the cheapest available (which is likely to be out of my price range anyway). Thanks for the tip, I'll take a peep at those.

ledge - amazon.com! i imagine it's thinking about waiting a month and buying in the US?

I have one of those pentax-a f1.7 50mm lenses that I use with my Pentax *ist DS. A really lovely lens, beautifully crisp and you can get incredibly shallow depth of field when you open it right up to f1.7.

Fuck, I'm thinking of buying a FUJIFILM FINEPIX S9600 coz I've found one at a pretty decent price (for Australia, anyway).

Any comments on this thing?

Photobox did a good job for me, I tested them out with a 30"x20" print (I did the enlargement myself ) and the results are pretty good, not quite the vibrancy of colour I was expecting but I think that has much to do with my monitor calibration and the default apple gamma settings.

Drooone, no particular advice, however drpreview is not a bad place to have a look.

Hey, my post about actually going ahead and buying it disappeared.

Sorry if this has been covered before. I'm looking for the best photo editing software under $100 for Intel Mac. I had an earlier version of Adobe Elements and liked it fine. I used it quite a bit for touch-ups and tweaking exposure, contrast, and saturation. I guess you could say that I'm a prosumer (more consumer than pro) who is looking for software that can do somewhat serious photo editing.

Should I go for Elements 4, or is there something better out there? I've read some less than stellar reviews of Elements 4. Thanks.

You could try Graphic Converter, which is cheaper and fine for the basic stuff you describe, but really, Photoshop/Elements has not much competition for the serious stuff.

Try the free Irfanview or the opensource G.I.M.P http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

Everyone tells me GIMP is a bit of a dog, performance-wise.

The problem with Elements 4 is that it's not a Universal Binary, so it won't run that fast on Intel Macs. If you have Boot Camp or Parallels, you'll actually get better performance running the Windows version of Elements.

There's no scheduled release for an OS X Elements 5 (which would surely be Universal), but a Universal CS3 is finally out, so you'd hope that maybe by the end of the year for Elements?

Who knew Alba was such an expert on this stuff? I shouldn't be surprised, really.

Gimp drives me mad at work; I'm sure there are ways to optimise it (as there are with PS Elements) but it takes an age to load. All the GFX dudes (with their fancy Macs) use PS CS3 but they do things in there (and in Inferno, etc) that are way beyond anything I'd ever imagine finding myself doing with my pictures. But you never know.

I use Elements 3.0 and but have serious CS3-envy cos I've now seen what you can do with curves and that.

I'm not an expert! I just eavesdrop on experts.

I had assumed that Elements 4 was universal. That's not good. Why can't these software companies get with the program? It's been over a year now.

I feel embarrassed coming on this hardcore thread and asking whether anyone can recommend the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T20... It's the right size, 8.1 and has a cover on the lens. Has anyone used it? Is there a similar model that people might recommend? It should fit in a pocket, be bashable and not too difficult to just point'n'click. Such shame I feel at the amateuredness of my query u_u

'amateuredness' is totally a word btw

errr does drooone still need d40 advice from 2 months ago? :\

I do! Or, maybe sorta: I'd like to get a Digital SLR soon and I'd like to spend less than $1000 on the whole kit unless someone really convinces me it'd be worth it to invest more.

I've got a 35mm Canon EOS Rebel G that I never use but the lens would work on the Canon DSLRs, right? I'd check first... but so I'm looking at the Nikon D40 and the Canon EOS XT/XTi. What else? Suggestions?

Right now I have a Sony so I'll need new memory cards anyway. I'm also interested in the Olympus Stylus 770 SW, because it's waterproof to 10 meters, which means it's dust-proof too, which is the biggest problem I've had with the Sony: dust on interior lens surfaces. But the Olympus uses the xD cards, and it would be nice if I didn't have to invest in 3 different card types.

So, I need a waterproof and dustproof compact digital, and I need a DSLR that won't break the bank. Ideas?

i like the d40 a lot. i don't know enough about the canon model specs to really compare and contrast though. the only problem i've personally had with the d40 is that, due to a lack of a specific internal motor mechanism, apparently a lot of lenses will only work on manual focus (ie all of the ones that are reasonably priced, which kind of defeats the purpose of getting the less expensive body--6 of 1, half dozen of the other basically). THIS INFORMATION WAS NOWHERE ON INTERNETS WHEN I RESEARCHED PURCHASING THIS CAMERA and when someone bought me a second lens for it but is out there now. :\

tho pls to note that this mainly seems to affect the entire array of 50mms and one 70mm-300mm (the one i have) so if you don't really care about those then my advice is not necessary.

Damn, that sucks. Thanks, though... that's good to know. Yeah, I see the price difference between the AF-S and non AF-S 70-300 lenses. The only thing I know about lenses is "they're expensive" so I'll probably have to manage with a basic 18-55 kit lens until I get my learn on.

yeah tbh i've been managing pretty ok with just the basic kit lens, the other lens was a rather ostentatious gift!

My plan is to stumble upon the frozen corpse of a well-equipped wildlife photographer in the mountains of Utah and, after reading the hastily-written last will and testament describing his final encounter with a rampaging bear and leaving his worldly possessions to the next thing that finds 'em, taking all his lenses neatly packed in Pelican cases and the Canon EOS 1D Mark III that shot the bear that kilt him.

Canon EOS lenses are backward/forward compatible (except you can't use 'digital' lenses on film bodies - not sure if they mount and work, but they will vignette and all). So you should be fine with whatever zoom you have on the Rebel G.

errr does drooone still need d40 advice from 2 months ago?

Hey! No I don't,but thanks for offering.

I ended up going with a pretend SLR Fuji thing. s9600. I got it at a fairly good price, I'm quite happy with it - for what it is.

Next camera, I'm going to go an SLR for sure. I was fucking around with
a mate of mine's SLR the other day, and it was SO sweet. I
was drunk at the time and can't remember what brand it was.

I've got a 35mm Canon EOS Rebel G that I never use but the lens would work on the Canon DSLRs, right?

If it's a Canon EF lens then it will definitely work. If another brand then it might not. For instance Sigma EF lenses more than around 5 years old will only work on the D30 and D60 because of changes Canon made to the electronics on later DSLRs.

If you want to go DSLR on the cheap you could do worse than searching out a good D60 on ebay. I got a mint, boxed body a month ago for £176 ($360). Couple that with the low prices of the above mentioned compatibility-challenged Sigma lenses (I also got a Pro-series f2.8 28-70 zoom for £85) to expand your kit or spend the remainder of your $1000 on an L-series Canon lens, 'cos it's the bits of glass that make the difference.

Yeah it's the Canon lens that came with the G, an auto-focus 18-55 or something like that (I'm not certain because it's in NC and I'm in OR).

As far as buying used or off of Ebay, I've always purchased a protection plan with my digitals because I inevitably drop them or end up in a lake when they're in my pocket and so far that has saved my ass 4 times. How might you suggest I insure an SLR against that sort of thing? I'm not a professional (yet), but I do need to use these cameras in fairly inhospitable environments and shit is bound to happen. Should I find the best deal out there - buyer beware etc - and just plan on replacing or upgrading when something catastrophic happens?

Yeah it's the Canon lens that came with the G, an auto-focus 18-55 or something like that

Hmm… 18-55? Is it an EF-S lens? In which case Canon says: "The lens can only be mounted on the Digital Rebel, EOS 20D, EOS 30D, Digital Rebel XT and Digital Rebel XTi with shorter back focus than ordinary EF lenses." i.e. there's a bit that sticks out beyond the mount which fouls the mirror on other bodies.

I don't know how it is in the US, but over here protection plans bought along with the products are regarded as a complete rip-off, most of your premium goes as commission to the retailer. Just google "photographic equipment insurance" or better still join a photo club/association that does a deal with an insurer, for instance.

I guess it can't be an EF-S because I got it in 1997. I'm really not certain what it is because it's 2900 miles away at the moment, but it's probably a standard EF mount and I can probably use it with a new Canon DSLR. Thanks for the heads-up, though.

I agree totally about protection plans for electronics in general, but for portable stuff that's going to get dropped the 25% markup has saved me from having to spend cumulatively over a grand on replacing whole cameras. Best Buy's plan includes cleaning dust out of interior lens surfaces you can't get to otherwise. I might do without the plan on that Olympus since it's supposed to be shock-, dust-, water-, crush-, and freeze-proof, but for instance the Sony I have now I need to take in to get the dust cleaned off of the inside of the lens because Sony's seals are crap, and that camera has already been in Spider Lake on the Rubicon Trail and the protection plan fixed it for free.

But yeah equipment insurance will be the way to go eventually, when I'm running around the desert with multiple HD-video setups and, like you said, all that glass. I wonder what dollar value in equipment makes insurance cost-effective.

So... Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T20... What do people think? Anyone here used one for fun quick snaps?

I only had the older Cyber-Shot, with 2m pixel and no zoom. It did a decent job as a small digi camera for fun quick snaps perfectly.

My father has the older version,DSC P100, which was/is fantastic. I don't think I'd be too keen to have the one you mention: it looks a lot like an old one I have which was hard to handle. (I had to hold my hands in a weird way to avoid taking pics of my fingers. heh) I don't know about the quality of the pics.

oh god yes that was a problem wasn't it, and sometimes the lens cover would slide over (turning the camera on and wasted the battery) if you carried it without a case in your pocket.

oh wow my model is the really old one http://www.imaging-resource.com/EVENTS/PKNA02/1032753610.html

Ah that's a good point re. camera cover. I'd need to do a little job on that, put in an extra bump or something. Easily resolved. The lens is in an odd position, it could be used with one hand i.e. the rights, it would be a bit awkward using left hand fingertips. It's just so slim and seems so user friendly. Is there as good a one on the market? It's 8.1M which seems a bargain at prices quoted. Does it take photos quickly? (I am so ignorant of proper terms!).

does anyone know if the Sigma EF 430 ST electronic flash is compatible with Digital SLR Nikon camera?

google is officially shit for trying to find this sort of info, (fuck your shop bot search system)

the lumix fx30 just arrived for me today, battery is still charging so i haven't tried it yet but i'm pretty psyched. i got it for £165 even though it's a brand new model. it's about £250 in the high street.

http://mos.futurenet.com/publications/uk/i0/12/uki0129w/categories/gadgets/digital-cameras/digital-cameras/images/panasonic-lumix-fx30-289-75.jpg

Score! How did you manage that (currently shopping for cameras and desperate for links that deliver cheap to Ireland)?

i got it from http://www.ukdigitalcameras.co.uk/, they will easily ship to ireland but i'm not sure of the cost. i shopped around a bit before buying this and phoned/emailed various retailers to ask about delivery times (am off on my hols at the weekend so wanted to make sure i would receive it by then). this site didnt have the cheapest listed price but, to my amazement, when i phoned them the call was answered by a friendly, helpful and well informed human voice ( a shock after waiting in various hold queues or being directed to various voicemail inboxs during my previous queries) - with no quibbles they pricematched the camera to the cheapest version i could find in the uk, when i told them the site address on the phone, and the camera arrived well packaged today at 8am, having ordered it yesterday afternoon. would definately recommend them.

Woah! Okay, I'll give them a try. Thanks jed_.

does anyone know if the Sigma EF 430 ST electronic flash is compatible with Digital SLR Nikon camera? I've managed to find one person saying on the net that it isn't, something to do with it being TTL and the digital SLRs being iTTL. Does that make sense to anyone?

using the language of ttl vs. ittl is basically worthless and possibly the reason that you're having so much trouble discerning what's what wrt flashes. the basic question you need to ask is if you can get ttl capabilities off a given flash using your nikon.

ttl means thru-the-lens, which means that the flash is given information that is aquired by the camera thru its lens and sends out the appropriate amt of light to make a neutral exposure.

iTTL is the fancy nikon system that lets you fire a flash remotely using the speedflash built in on the camera.

according to B y H, you want this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/352097-REG/Sigma_F149306_EF_500_DG_Super_Flash.html

thanks guys !

Does anyone own or have past experience with the Sony Cybershot DSC-W80? They're fairly cheap here and I need a camera that can be fit into a pocket, takes quick (and good) pictures and isn't terribly complicated! If there's better out there please advise!

Sony Cybershot DSC-P73 = greatest digital camera EVER. I shoot all my films on it, and it's tiny/very cheap.

i'm about to buy my first digital camera, and i have no idea where to begin. i basically want something cheap and easy to use. just found this for NZD$199:

Canon
Digital Camera
Model: A450

SKU: 42054

5 mega pixel resolution
3.2x optical zoom
2.0" LCD screen
Super fast DiG!C II imaging processor
Movie recording and playback
Print/Share button allows easy 'one push' printing and downloading of images
SD Memory card slot

(all the tech specs are meaningless to me)

and this one for the same price:

Samsung
Samsung S630B Digital Camera
Model: S630B

SKU: 43601

6 megapixel
3x optical zoom
2.5" LCD screen
advance shake reduction
in camera movie editing
user friendly 'effect' button

user friendly 'effect' button

?!?

kv_nol, I have a dsc-w30 which looks like an earlier model. Very happy with it, I wanted a point 'n' shoot with a bit of manual control and that's just what it is. Slow-sync flash and manual iso settings are a must for low-light party photos - mine goes up to iso 1000 which at that setting gives - eh, servicable photos if you're after atmosphere not quality. w80 claims to go up to 3200, lord knows how well that works. Pre-set focus, white balance also available if you want it, or just go the full auto route.

I did prefer my ixus for build quality, and maybe, just maybe, for picture quality too - but at this level i reckon they're all pretty similar, so better to go for one with the features you want.

Okay, starting to look like IXUS 70 or Sony DSC-W55. The only thing deciding the difference is build quality which I think the Canon does better on. Has anyone tried the Canon software? Is it fairly user friendly and complete?

Also thanks Ledge, that was a really helpful post. I now have two recommendations for the Ixus.

If you're going to do a lot of low-light shooting, the Fujifilm F-series cameras are the only ones with usable high ISOs. All the other brands, including Canon, have terrible, noisy pictures at high ISOs.

Would a festival and things could as a low-light situation? How about bars and things?

bars i would say so yes, anything indoor with moody lighting.

but most people would tend to use a flash in those situations.

maybe low light means cloudy days?

Reading the Amazon reviews (dear god) I'm thinking Canon now with a bigger memory card. The big plus is that it seems a bit more hard wearing! I really don't like the way Sony products in the past (my old minidisc player being the best example) where the body was fine but the doors and catches were made out of flimsy plastic.

Also I'd say that a bar etc I'll just flash. There's probably a way of changing settings to improve ISO. Reading one review about the Sony W80 there was a complaint about how bad the pictures looked. Fujifilm seem okay but I don't like the size, I want something that'll fit well in a pocket. I suppose a case would be wise all the same!

Festivals would be low-light at night or if you weren't close enough to the stage for the flash to hit it. Generally, all concert photography is low-light with a lot of movement. High ISOs are imperative for that kind of photography.

Slow-synch flash is a boon for low-light bar situations. Long exposure gives you freaky light-trail effects but also means you get warmer more natural looking colours than the usual cold blue flash effect.

Don't know how good either canon or sony software is - I just open up pictures in a folder, drag to hard drive and then use photoshop for tweaking.

Bought the IXUS 70. So far so fun. Thanks all!

so i was in NYC at the weekend, hey yorkers whats the dealio with shops in Time Square then?

i was looking for a camera lens, a nikon 18-200mm vr to be precise. all shops i'd looked in where about $750. But one shop in Time Square had a price tag of around $2800!

so i asked the guy and he was really wierd and knew almost nothing about cameras, but persisted to tell me that other shops must have been having me on!! ha ha

so i decided to leave, only to hear his voice shouting at me to come back and he'd sell it to me for $600

i still walked out. wtf was going on? did i just miss out on a geat bargain? or narrowly avoided a huge cash rogering?

"so"

after breaking my own camera by it flying out of my pocket and tumbling end over end down the sidewalk for about 20 feet, i ordered this one:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2007/01/25/Fujifilm-FinePix-F31fd/p1

i am v v excited - it looks like i will finally be able to eschew the flash most of the time

thanks for the tip mel!

Whats up? Not own enough mirrors?

Ste there are many electronics shops like that in New York, and i have no idea what their deal is - they seem to just print arbitrarily marked up price tags and stick them on random boxes and hope people will pay it. the magic words usually seem to be either "no" or "i saw that at J&R music world for [price you want to pay]" and suddenly you get the real price

Jarlrmai - ??

if i shoot in RAW on my D80 will it ignore my white balance settings?

i read that it should but i'm pretty sure the pictures i took last night were being altered when i changed the balance.

no

(though the broader point of shooting RAW is that you can make the WB whatever you want it to be after the fact, but custom/camera WB settings really help ballpark it in...)

i think i'm gonna buy the Canon EOS 400D that comes with 18-55mm Lens Kit...any day now

i'm so glad this is one area of tech gadgetry that i don't actually have any kind of obsession with

Have you used the Nikon D200, Jimmy?

Torn between buying a Sigma 30/1.4 for my D70 and upgrading to a D200 when prices drop close to Christmas (or D300 if it turns out to be a big improvement) or buying a 5D now and using my 50/1.4 that I already own.

ah, i see. when you load it into photoshop it gives you the option straight away to choose a white balance. But if you've used a preset WB then that overrides the unchanged option. strange.

after shooting multiple images in raw and jpeg last night i see no advantage whatsoever in shooting in raw. the photos where the same.

my mate has got hold of the d200 and she says her d50 is still miles better, there's no proper Auto function on the d200 and the battery runs way too quickly apparently.

my fujifilm rules, although the "face finder" is spooky - i'm going to turn it off, i think!

i think i'm gonna buy the Canon EOS 400D that comes with 18-55mm Lens Kit...any day now

One of us...one of us...

i've just purchased the sigma 30/1.4, the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the d40 just is not doing what i need.

Yeah, the Canon and Nikon kits lenses are a bit meh. Sigma 30/1.4 might be a great choice; I've not tried it, but after years of using a 50/1.8 on Pam's film SLR, the 50/1.8 EF on a Canon 300D was a bit of a shock (crop factor means a field-of-view more like 80mm) - not a close-up portrait lens at all. I'm used to it now but I still quite fancy a wider, fast prime like the Sigma (or, more realistically price-wise, an old manual Zeiss or Takumar).

thoughts on the EOS400D so far:

a bit annoying that the lo-res superfine setting outputs at only 72ppi. i've not checked the settings but i'm assuming i can take pics at higher ppi rate as well as higher resolution (i tend to not bother with higher res because it often seems pointless but i will do more printing soon). i got a 1gb CF card quite cheap at least.

18-55 lens seems adequate except for long-range close ups obv. can't get as close to things as i could with the Ixus digital zoom and with the res/ppi rate low this is a slight prob but will do for stuff only going on flickr and i will probably get one up to 200 soon, and then the fun can really begin.

one of my best pics so far:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1098/1473259328_5da32819e0.jpg

shot at 55mm but standing quite close. cropped the image severely tho so not as close as it looks. auto-focus. auto-contrast applied afterwards but no other effects. i'm not sure it looks particularly better than what i could've got with the Ixus tho. better focus needed perhaps.

what i ended up doing with a lot of my holiday photos was, in Photoshop, applying Auto-Contrast as per usual (if only the camera could have this as built-in option) but then, for pics with any darkened/shadowed areas contrasting with bright/sunlit parts above, duplicating the picture as a new layer, lassooing the dark area with high Feather level (around 60 pixels), deleting the remainder of the level by inversing the selection, then applying Equalise effect to the dark areas, then reduce opacity of the level to between 25 and 50% depending on the intensity of the contrast. this makes the dark areas not only nicely lighter but also satisfyingly more vivid and seemed to give far better results than it would with a standard digital camera's output. sounds quite convoluted but it did make quite a positive difference if at the expense of authenticity. may post examples later (or maybe it's for a PShop thread).

I don't really know anything about the relationship between ppi/size of image taken but I don't take any pictures in anything other than Large/Superfine or RAW. I figure, what's the point of having a 6.3MP camera if you're not using all that resolution? Also, for submitting files for photo lab printing, I wouldn't risk anything smaller than 3000x2000-ish (if I want a 12"x8" print at some point from Photobox, I'd really regret shooting something smaller).

Your Photoshopping skeelz outstrip mine, Steve! I just look at the histogram and pull out the sliders to fill up the unused dynamic range. Auto Levels can seriously skew colour tone if R/G/B are unevenly distributed to begin with, so I often do the Auto thing in LAB space. Bung the occasional S-curve on there. I only realised what the magnetic lasso tool in PSE3 was for this last weekend, so I never treat just parts of pictures. Maybe from now on, though...

Picture up there looks good, though! As I've said elsewhere - 50mm f/1.8 is a great next step. They should just give you a voucher for one when you buy the 400D kit cos it's bleedin' essential.

i very rarely use Auto-Levels for the reasons you give. but so often Auto-Contrast is like lifting slightly tinted sunglasses off the lens a lot of the time - restores vitality to the image as opposed to making it hyper-real like Auto-Levels can. interesting that i've found this with both Canon models i've owned. i don't know the real reasons why this is tho, i just go by what looks good. I never mess with Curves either.

so I never treat just parts of pictures. Maybe from now on, though...

I doubt it will really be necessary for you as with your decent lens, filters and handling your pics are turning out so well anyway but it might be worth experimenting with for any shots you have with dimly lit foregrounds, just for fun or out of interest.

If hard-drive space/download time wasn't already such a problem I'd shoot exclusively in RAW and use the Camera Raw plug-in in PSE3 to tease those extra bits of info out by recovering a half-stop or so of over/underexposure (it highlights areas where you're clipping and then you can fix them in 16-bit colour mode; with JPGs that info has gone). There's no way I'm filling a card with only 70-80 shots and then waiting all evening to USB-transfer them, and then filling the HDD with 10MB+ TIFFs. JPGs will have to do for now.

I have loads of pictures that would benefit from more selective PS tinkering, Steve - I just haven't investigated it fully. There's a pic of me on the shore at Whitstable with an annoying blown-out background of sky and sea which I got to look much better the other day with the Lasso Tool and Curves (except my hair looked weird - is feathering the way to deal with complex boundaries?) but I don't imagine spending a lot of time doing that.

On lenses (picking up our exchange on Flickr:)
Another cheap route into Canon-compatible lenses, of course - buy an old EOS film SLR with a lens or two on eBay. If they're Canon or Tamron lenses you can be fairly sure of compatibility with yr 400D; if Tokina or Sigma, less so but Sigma will apparently re-chip their lenses for free to ensure they work with newer Canon bodies. I'm looking into this (partly because I've got the film bug again! But maybe the other thread is more appropriate for that) - but I'd probably retain the film SLR and not sell on the body. Most people are wise enough to only sell the EOS bodies when they switch to digital, but quite a few clear out everything and start again (maybe cos they've gone for a Nikon or Olympus).

After losing out on an EOS 300 body for £11 in North London (could've picked it up! Forgot when the auction closed), I've been pitching pretty low for stuff. I drew up a little crib sheet as to how much I should bid if there's a 28-80 kit lens, or a longer zoom, or third-party telephoto, or Speedlite flash, case, filters, hoods, etc. Technically, this means I'd be prepared to bid £70 on a 50E/70-200mm/380EX with accessories (which would be a bargain) but I'm actually not. It would go for £100+ anyway.

I'm just about to big on another EOS film SLR. Which I won't win. Maybe I should just get a £20 Pentax Spotmatic and use my M42 lenses on it?

Bid, I meant. Actually, I didn't. Already £10 above my theoretical maximum.

i did something slightly stupid and broke my mediocore point-and-shoot. because the camera is basically a flimsy piece of plastic, it's unfixable. i want to get a replacement asap, and the two main requirements are:
1) under $300
2) good for low light.
are these qualities mutually exclusive?

right now i'm considering this guy, which can be had at a hefty discount as it's last year's model:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=144&modelid=13077

at this point i've totally confused myself by looking at too much stuff, so input would be greatly appreciated.

sorry i know you said you were burnt out on info but here's more:

it gets a good review on dpreview

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons3is/page14.asp

user reviews:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=canon_s3is

overall that looks very good. the conclusion is that it's a minor upgrade to what was already an excellent camera.

full review starts here

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons3is/

they are very thorough on that site. too thorough for my needs or yours, probably, but it's good to look at the comparison shots and the sample gallery on the last page of the review.

thanks!

so does anyone have insight on to some of these seemingly shady websites that sell cameras for super cheap. i found the camera i have been wanting on a website called thedigitalnerds.com and it is about $200 cheaper than anywhere else. what's the catch?

check resellerratings.com

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/AccessoriesLand - another 'digital nerds' shell company, rating is .91 of 10.

Very likely counterfeit. Made in China to resemble the real thing, but severely lacking where it counts. I saw something about this on the news recently.

WANT
http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/gr/gr_digital2/index.html

That's a very nice-looking compact, Milo. Interesting that it has 54MB internal storage so you can take a few shots even when you've filled up your SD card. Neat.

that does look nice and similar to the two that I have been considering. do people generally prefer nikons to canons?

that's the coolpix p5100 and the powershot g9, btw

o flickr I love you so

"Anyone have experience with <two mid-grade consumer zooms>, cuz I don't want to carry around a five-pound L zoom when I'm not using my primes?"
"NO NO NO that's a waste of camera, you need to look at the Canon 24-70mm, anything else would be dumb"
"No, thanks, really. It's big, it's long, it's heavy and frankly I just don't want to carry around anything that big. Anyone used one of these two zooms?"
"GET A BIG BAG! WORK ON YOUR ARM STRENGTH."

Milo - did you go for the 40D or the 5D in the end? (I can't remember your Flickr name, either!)

And as for mizzell's Nikon vs Canon enquiry, I suspect most Canonites don't have much experience with Nikon and vice versa. Not much between them, really, except that Canon has (or had) the pro market sort of sewn up as they were the only one of the two to offer full-frame (36x24mm sensor) D-SLRs until very recently. Now Nikon has the D3 - but it's about twice the price of Canon's 5D... As compacts go, I think the same is possbly true - Nikon have the edge at the entry level, Canons are better at the top end.

I sprang for the 5D - with the $500 printer rebate (plus selling the printer), the 5D was only a couple hundred more than the 40D for right now.

It's pretty great. Heavy, but great.

oooh that gr digital II looks ace

pls stop me from buying it

You should definitely buy one. Tell me how wonderful it is/how much it sucks.

I think Sigma finally released their APS-C sensor point and shoot.

http://www.sigma-dp1.com/

only eight bills from Amazon here in the US, same as a Ricoh - http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-DP1-14MP-Digital-Camera/dp/B0013DCOZC

max iso 800 not so impressive

dude I am going to stockholm soon I cannot afford that... tho it is nice... and I would need a camera for my trip... maybe when I'm there I could sleep rough? it would be summer...

OK, so I am going to buy a digital camera... just not that one

what would people recommend, up to £200

bonus points if it looks as sexy as the ricoh

(incidentally, would £170 be a good price for the orig. ricoh gr digital?)

i got a fujifilm f31, it's awesome

I want the Sigma DP! (or its descendants to be my next camera) seems to be a good compromise between image quality and weight. As for not going above ISO800, I haven't seen an ISO1600 on a sub $2000 camera that is actually worth having.

what the hell is iso?

the canon sd1000/ixus 70 looks good, and a snip at £110

ISO is the measure of how fast the 'film' is i.e how fast it reacts to light so one uses a higher iso for lower light situations or where you have fast movement.

on all the reviews I've been reading when they've done tests on high ISOs the photos have looked dogged, which kinda affirms what you said above I suppose : /

ISO is sensitivity to light; with film cameras, you can buy rolls of film with certain sensitivity settings (50-1600 being the usual range); the higher the number the less light you need to get a decent exposure, hence the faster the shutter speed, but at the expense of resolution (high-ISO film is grainy).

With digital cameras you can set the sensitivity of the sensor; i.e. a photo that would be properly exposed at 1/10sec at ISO 100, will be properly exposed at 1/80sec at ISO 800 (and so be more likely to be free from camera shake, motion blur, etc). The trade-off with digital is more noise in the image.

The tiny CCD sensors you find in most digital point-and-shoot cameras get very noisy above ISO 400. DSLRs with APS-C sized sensors are good to 800-1600 thesedays. The Nikon D3 full-frame DSLR can actually take acceptable photos at ISO 25600, which is so amazing it's almost a misprint.

"so amazing it's almost a misprint."

!!! haha

thanks mike

yeah, 1600 is fine on my cheapo pentax dslr. I don't mind a little noise if it means i can take a low-light shot without a tripod. I'm only sticking things up on flickr after all, not printing at a3 size.

I love my GRD.

Most wonderously good digital camera advice: do not drop it.

I am swimming in uncharted waters here. Sort of weighing the Canon EOS 40D against the Nikon D80. Anyone want to tip me one way or the other? Or discourage me from both and instead sticking with my buggy Cybershot?

The D80 is very nice but I think the EOS 40D is generally considered a notch above it. The old EOS 30D and D200 used to be considered a close match, and the D80 is a level below the D200. Also, Canon introduced Live View with the 40D (only available on the high-end D300/D3 cameras in Nikon's range at the moment), albeit a fairly basic implementation. The 40D also shoots a lot faster than the D80 (something like 6.5fps vs 3fps). I don't know how the respective kit lens bundles compare; 18-135mm with D80 (non-VR?) and 17-85mm IS with the 40D? Something like that?

The way the 40D price has dropped recently (from £700 to £500 body-only in the UK - incl cashback) makes it very attractive, especially as Canon don't seem to be offering many new, cheaper alternatives (the 450D and newly-announced 1000D are so feature-heavy that they're still well over £400).

I was going to ask why you're not considering the entry-level models for your first DSLR, but, to be honest, if I was starting over I might be considering the 40D/D80 level too. There's still new stock of the Canon EOS 400D out there though, and that would save you £150 or so you could put into lenses. The Nikon D40/D60 are great-looking cameras (and the D40 can be had, with a kit lens, for about £260 now) but the fact that they can only autofocus with AF-S lenses (no nice, cheap, fast primes) would put me off.

US prices are better across the board, of course. Pentax K10D + 50/1.4 = $1100 on Amazon US and I bet that's not even the best price out there.

Oh, and overriding all of the above really - assuming you can get your hands on these models rather than this being a purely online choice/purchase - just see which one you prefer in terms of handling/interface. The Nikons tend to be heavier but smaller in the hand, the Canons are large but light (Nikon put the AF motor in the camera bodies - except for D40/D60 - whereas Canon put it in the lens).

I really need to do something about my photograph skills (cause they are, like ABSENT). Might enroll in a photography course next year and get myself a proper camera. :-(

Cool. Thanks for the info. I'm definitely planning on doing some hands on with them in stores, but will probably end up purchasing online ...

While this will be my first DSLR for myself personally, it won't actually be the first one I've ever used. My camera for work is a Canon Digital Rebel XT, and I've used it occasionally. I've been consistently impressed by just how good pictures can look even being taken by me and my laughably-non-professional self.

(By "my camera for work," I clearly don't mean I take photographs for a living, but rather that I work at a TV station and find myself sometimes toting it along on assignments.)

can't recommend the GRD I enough... light and compact and the image quality is great. getting down to about £160 now too.

doesn't perform well in low light for colour shots but b&w in low light is fine - the noise looks like grain tbh

of course you're not going to get the full versatility of a dslr but the GRD's glass is good and the UI is amazing, which is a big help tbh

incidentally, if you plan on shooting raw the GRD II is the one to go for, though that'll run you as much as a canon eos 400D currently (is about £400?) - the GRD I's raw write time is painful, but I shoot JPEG and it's JPEG's are reportedly MUCH better than the GRD II's

probably academic really for you eric as you seem set on a dslr, but in case anyone else is looking for a camera in that high end compact bracket (canon G9, sigma DP1, panasonic LX series) , I'd say the GRD is a worthy choice

also, it is pure design pron:
http://blog.jackbaty.com/files/grdII.jpg

not that I know anything abt lenses an stuff but the GRD lens seems pretty fast to me too

plus it is prime : O

40d vs d80 comes down to whether you intend to spend shit loads of money on accessories, etc. canon lenses are generally better than nikon lenses. that said the value of camera at that level is pretty equal.

I'm really loving my Pentax K200D, which is similar in image quality to the 40D/D80, but has weather-sealing, and has shake-reduction built-in to the sensor, so every lens gets to be shake-resistant.

f'reals, look at the Pentax K20D. In-camera image stabilization (a lens-only feature for Canon and Nikon), high MP count, smaller and lighter than the 40D (which is basically the same size as my 5D I discovered), in the same ballpark pricewise.

No experience with the K200D - I kinda skipped it when I found it had a pentamirror rather than pentaprism (smaller-format digital SLR viewfinders are compromises to start with, the pentamirror makes it a bit darker). But it has most of the same good points in its favor.

Or you could look for an old-stock/used K10D and get something in between the K200D and the K20D.

Of the two you're looking at, I thought the 40D was a solid camera.

I am feeling reckless. This 40D comes with a Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard lens. How much do you think it's worth bidding up to?

Oh cripes, I just bought it.

dastoorio oh oh

What on Earth have I done? It's Euro fever.

haha, oh dear! i did that recently with a chair that i could not courier for a decent price.

40d vs d80 comes down to whether you intend to spend shit loads of money on accessories, etc.

By that you mean the Canon would require spending a ton on accessories and the Nikon not? or vice versa?

I think he's saying Canon's accessories are slightly better - ie if you want to get a whole kit of lenses (vs. one prime or one zoom), Canon might be the better option.

Oh yeah, if I'm going this route, I fully intend to get at least one sweet zoom lens (eventually). Used (I think) a 75-300mm lens today to shoot pics of the Twin Cities pride parade and it made capturing stuff so unbelievably easy.

Okay, I'm looking for a DSLR camera. The problem is that I can't seem to take "proper" action pictures with my digital cameras. Yes, I have more than one, all seem to produce fuzzy pics. I've been told that a DSLR camera would alleviate this fuzzy problem. :-( Is this true? Family member said that digital cameras can never replace a proper( )DSLR camera in this respect: action pix are too hard to take with a compact digital camera.

Uh, I want a good digital camera but not too expensive of course.

On a similar note, is there a compact camera out there with a response as good as a digital one, one of the great things about my D50 is that you can flick it on and take a picture in under a second. Most compacts I have played withtake longer. (Good lens and ability to adjust shutter and aperture manually also important).

think the gr digital lag is about 1.5 secs from turning on to talking picture; it has full manual and prime lens. 28mm f2.4

raw write time is excruciating tho

don't know wht the lag is for the canon G9/sigma DP1

I read Sloooooooow was the order of the day for the DP1 it was top of my list until I read that.

that basically makes up my shortlist plus the new Nikon Coolpix 6000, however for my secondary camera I like the idea of a fixed lens.

have you seen this, ed? don't know when it's to be officially announced; in fact, think it's still rumour at this point; the P6000

http://gizmodo.com/5022715/nikon-coolpix-p6000-gets-leaked-rumored-to-deliver-an-absurd-135-megapixels

That's the bunny I meant. The previous ones (P5100, P5000 reviewed well) so I will wait until that turns up. Optical viewfinder is such a massive plus.

Nathelie, what camera do you have at the moment, we may be able to school you to eliminate the fuzzy. (If you do want a DSLR then the D40x is a good start)

The follow-up to the P5000, it's aimed at people who want better quality shots than your average point-and-shoot without the bulk of a DSLR.

This sounds like exactly what I'm looking for.

as czn says, take a look at the cannon G9, ricoh GR and Sigma DP1 too.

for high compacts there's also the panasonic LC1 (think this is a rangefinder actually) and the leica digital compacts (the dlux?? or something)

http://www.overgaard.dk/thorstenovergaardcom_copyrighted_graphics/panasonic_DMC-lc1.jpg

The Leica's are all rebadged panasonics though

Ed, I have a Ricoh Caplio (or whatever the spelling is).

What are the advantages of a DSLR camera? Will it alleviate the fuzziness? I should change the shutterspeed maybe? But will it skew the depth perception? (I'm a NOOB)

dSLR = bigger sensor (not just in terms of megapixels but actually physical size) means it capture more information which helps with things like depth of field, higher iso performance etc mmmm bokeh!!

also you get to enter the world of lenses and all the exciting customisability that brings plus you have a lot more control over what your camera does

plus the pictures are better

So is my uncle in law right when he says that action pix will be easier to take with a dSLR?

DSLRs have sensors about 15-20 times the surface area of the sensors in most compacts which immediately gives them an advantage in terms of noise performance (i.e., you can whack up the sensitivity ("ISO") of the sensor in order to get a faster shutter-speed (thereby freezing action) without the picture dissolving into speckly cameraphone-style noise); there's also virtually no shutter lag with a DSLR. And using an SLR, digital or otherwise, is kind of an education in photography all by itself. Once you move out of the scene modes and take more control over the camera, you'll find yourself understanding far more about light and exposure and so on.

DSLRs can be a money pit though - there's no single lens that will do everything you once did with your compact (macro, telephoto, etc), so you may find yourself hunting for more gear very quickly. There's always one more accessory you convince yourself you need...

Anyway, the Nikon D40 is a very good entry-level DSLR (currently about £250 with a 18-55 lens in the UK) but, be aware (though this may never concern you), the D40/D60 cameras don't have complete compatibility with Nikon's range of lenses (for example, the cheap-ish 50mm/f1.8 prime - the sort of lens that used to be given away as standard on SLRs and a lens which is *ideal* for shooting kids indoors - won't autofocus on a D40 or D60).

Better still might be the Sony Alpha 200, which is a similar price and offers 10MP to the Nikon's 6MP. Sony bought Minolta which means all the old Minolta lenses work on Sony bodies; getting an Alpha 200 plus an old Minolta AF 50mm/f1.7 off eBay might be the cheapest way of getting into top-class DSLR photography.

The Canon stuff is great but they've deliberately chosen to go the feature-rich route (Live View, etc) so that even their entry-level cameras are £400-ish. The recently-discontinued EOS 400D must be going cheap now though.

xxxpost

autofocus is for wimps

I saw refurbished body only 400Ds on ebay for £220, which is the cheapest I've ever seen them

I'm never gonna get 200 quid for my trusty old 300D now, am I? (Not that I was selling...just, y'know, a thought).

sorry, £240

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CANON-EOS-DIGITAL-REBEL-XTi-400D-DSLR-REFURBISHED_W0QQitemZ250271038286QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item250271038286&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177

I use my gf's film canon slr (a rebel G) which she was depressed to find now going for £10 on ebay : O

Yes, missed out on a couple of £10-£15 Canon EOS film SLR auctions earlier this year before getting an EOS 10 for nothing on Freecycle. It takes nice pictures of flowers and that...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/2516514602_bb921a0b42_m.jpg

Ektachrome 100G transparency, that is. Lovely. Sorry, back to digital.

Yup, fraid they're cheap as now... My EOS 50E (with the grip and everything) only goes for £50 or so, if they sell at all...

And, as detailed on another thread, it's a pretty good time to get into medium format. We've spent a grand total of about £150 on Bronica SQ-A, plain & metered prisms, 120 & Polaroid film backs and a 150mm/f3.5 lens; that lot retailed for thousands back in the day. You gotta love eBay.

Disappointing review of new Sigma DP1.

What are the advantages of a DSLR camera? Will it alleviate the fuzziness? I should change the shutterspeed maybe? But will it skew the depth perception? (I'm a NOOB)

To get rid of the fuzziness, you need to manually set the shutter speed to something high - but that means you need a wider aperture, which reduces your depth of field. In other words, the area which is in focus becomes narrower (in terms of: distance from the camera and the target), so accurate focusing becomes more important.

Higher sensitivity alleviates this; and as Mr Jones says, DSLRs do better at higher sensitivities because they have larger sensors.

*Really* low depth of field is what messes up a viewer's depth perception; but you're unlikely to get that without specialist kit or (more likely) blurring it later in Photoshop.

The other problem with action shots is shutter lag - on a compact with high lag, the subject can move significantly between pressing the button and the picture being taken.

It's funny - y'know how you can sort of tell even from thumbnails on Flickr whether someone is using a compact or an SLR (maybe even digital or film, but I'm less sure about that) - well, I had a look at the Sigma DP1 group pools and...they look like compact photos. Some of them are very good (colour & contrast are good) but they're still ineffably compacty. They should look like DSLR pix taken with a slowish 28mm prime but somehow they don't. But maybe my photos look compacty, so who knows.

It's easy to tell low-quality film shots from low-quality digital shots, even with Flickr. The better the photo is, the harder it gets.

I know what you mean about "compacty" - and I wouldn't say your photos look like that at all.

apparently the canon 1000D is a great intro into DSLR territory? hmm i know what to save for. so what's a good lense for taking kiddie action pixors?

(oooookay that came out all wrong. kiddie action pix? you guys know what i mean, right?)

haha!

hello googlers!

so what's a good lense for taking kiddie action pixors?

I'd recommend doing what I do and using an old SLR 50mm prime lens. They're a lot faster than the zoom lenses that are the "default" lens nowadays, they're easy to find second-hand, and on most DSLRs they are a medium-telephoto lens, which is good for portraiture.

Thanks. I think I'm going for the Canon1000D. Save up some cash first and then buy it. It seems a really great entry DSLR camera. :-) Doesn't seem expensive at all. About 700 euros or something.

The 1000D will be absolutely terrific, Nath. I didn't recommend it upthread cos it's quite a bit more expensive that the entry-level offerings from Sony and Nikon but I think it's a fair bit better. It does the Live View thing too (you're able to compose the image on the LCD as you would with a compact, plus it does contrast-AF, so you can autofocus without the LCD going blank while the mirror flips up/down).

As ForestPines says, get a "thrifty fifty" - a 50mm f/1.8 lens. They're only about 60 quid and we've taken thousands of photos of the kids with ours. Vicky and Porkpie will vouch for it too (Porkpie did nearly a whole wedding with it!). The 50/1.4 is probably better in all regards, but that's 3-4 times the price.

Nath, have you bought yr 1000D yet? I ask because, simply by virtue of it being out a bit longer, the slightly-better-specced 450D appears to be going for less than the 1000D at the moment - or at least when you take in to account the Canon cashback offer, which I believe applies Europe-wide. After cashback, I've see the 450D + 18-55 IS lens for the equivalent of 545 euro.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I love my Pentax K200D, and if you don't already have a big investment in lenses, it has a lot of nice features that other cameras in its price range don't.

Michael, just checked. Might get that one. :-) Thanks for the tip.

what do we think about the sony alpha 350?

The dudes round the corner from me in (pro store) Calumet recommend the Sony range highly.

I think Sony have figured out a better Live View system than anyone else (uninterrupted phase-AF, I think) and have higher-res LCD screens, but whether either/both feature(s) is/are in the Alpha 350, I'm not sure. I think the Alpha 200 is a bit more basic but is an absolute bargain (especially with old, cheap Minolta AF lenses knocking around on eBay). But the Calumet chaps were specifically raving about the 350.

Sony bodies also have anti-shake built-in (which I think Schwantz was alluding to as a good feature of the Pentaxes too); this is a feature which is only available with certain lenses on Nikon and Canon. How effective it is, I've no idea.

I don't think you can really go far wrong with any of the current crop of consumer/prosumer DSLRs. The only issues I can think of are the restricted lens options on Nikon D40/D60 and the unusual sensors on Olympus (FourThirds) and Sigma (Foveon), neither of which are necessarily a negative thing, but warrant some careful consideration. And Canon are a bit pricey.

film advice, please

what 35mm film do you use, michael?

have been dabbling with some expired velvia 50 and tri-x 400. yet to have any processed, but should get some put in this weekend

Whatever I can get for nothing, Webinar! I have a drawer full of expired 120/135 stuff which I didn't pay anything for, which I'm working my way through. Back in the pre-digital days, I don't think I bought anything more exotic than Kodacolor Gold 200 or the Fujifilm equivalent - and Ilford 125 for B&W. I don't have any great experience of different film types.

Recently, I've had good results from Astia 100F, Provia 400F and Kodachrome 100G (but that's all transparency). I have a roll of Velvia 50 that I'm saving for autumn (or perhaps our planned trip to the South Cumbrian Coast).

From what Ive read, Sony added live view on the 300. the 300 is cheaper but has 10 MP where as the 350 is 14MP.

But that isn't that important. 10 MP is more than enough, no?

i dont know! I guess it depends on how big you want to print or how crop happy you are <----- very for me

ive read some comments that 14MP make low light shooting harder?

10MP is plenty - that's about 3900x2600 which, for 300dpi printing, means very high-quality prints (i.e. would withstand scrutiny under a loupe) up to 13"x8.5" (33x22cm). For poster-sized prints, you can usually drop the print density anyway, as they're not intended to be looked at from only an inch or two away.

The effect of packing more photosites into the same rectangle of silicon is that, as Sunny says, low-light shooting (high ISO) tends to get noisier. I wouldn't get too hung up on 10MP v 12MP v 14MP or the like.

I didn't realise there was an Alpha 300 - I thought it went 200-350-700. Most confusing.

Ah, right - turns out the 300 is a special single-dealer-only type affair. You can only get it (supposedly) at Jessops in the UK.

Reading more about these models seems to indicate that it's swings and roundabouts with the Quick AF Live View feature; Sony have introduced a tilting mirror into the prism to allow phase-AF without interrupting the image on the LCD but, in doing so, have made the viewfinder a bit small and crap. The LCD screen pops out on a hinge though, which is nice.

ok, let me ask you this. if you zoom, isnt that effectively like cropping so youre halving/quartering/etc your pixels?

Only if you use digital zoom. If the zoom is optical you don't loose pixels.

ok. gotcha.

Not if you're zooming optically, no. On some digital compacts you can zoom digitally, which *is* just cropping the image (and it looks rubbish).

On a DSLR, if you have say, a 28-135mm lens, then you're still projecting an image across the whole of the sensor zoomed all the way up to 135mm as you are at the wide end. There's no loss of resolution. There are other things to consider when zooming; most consumer-grade zooms are slower at the long end - i.e. they need longer exposure times; high-end zooms offer a constant maximum aperture and stay fast right the way to the long end.

xpost

ok. i think ive got it. thanks!

(probably a lot more questions to follow if camera is purchased)

This quote is from a message board thread discussing canon rebel xti vs xt vs sony 200 vs 300

what do this person mean by "glass"

The sony is fine. Go for it and the lenses. Get both the megapixels and the glass for the same price as the XT without the megapixels or the XTi without the glass.

do=does obv

By glass, they mean the lenses.

Thanks. This camera research is so painful so I'll put this question to you all:

If you had approx $600US to spend on a DSLR, which one would you buy?

also, why?

so thanks for all your replies, guys!!! geez. i went ahead and ordered a camera which arrives tomorrow. yay!

whice one?

sony Alpha 300. i was trying to decide between it and the canon xti. the sony just looked a whole lot better on paper. im already thinking about returning it for a canon XS or 20D

canon xti -> are those the rebel ones? i think in europe that's like the 1000D i will get (eventually), right? michael, i think i'll opt for the 1000D anyway: no cashback for taht 450D.

how did you start snapping pics with a DSLR? your pix are so amazing. if only some cameras had the "michael jones blissful pic" feature. :-) i mean, in all seriousness, how did you learn it? just snapping pics? i want to make nice pics too. *pouts*

i think the 1000D is the rebel XS? i found that AFTER i ordered the sony.

Sorry, Sunny! Didn't see yr question before it dropped off the New Answers page.

What's wrong with the Alpha 300? $600 doesn't get you either of the 2008 Canons (I don't think - they're around £400 over here anyway), so I would probably have said the Sony. The lack of cheap, fast AF primes for the entry-level Nikons puts me off. If you can get a Minolta AF 50/1.7 lens cheap on eBay for the Sony then you're set.

Canon naming conventions, btw:
Digital Rebel = 300D (first sub-$1000 DSLR in 2003, now around $300 on eBay)
Rebel XT = 350D (8MP replacement for the above)
Rebel XTi = 400D (10MP, bigger LCD, came out late 2006)
Rebel XSi = 450D (12MP, Live View, very prosumer, early 2008)
Rebel XS = 1000D (new "budget entry-level" grade, below 450D, shipping now)

Nath: thanks for the kind words but yeah, you just snap-snap-snap away. I have some vague background with film SLRs (Pam more so than me) so I knew the basics. But honestly, between a fast lens and Lightroom, it's never been easier to create images that give the impression that you know what you're doing.

Thanks, Michael.

I went to Office Depot and played around with the XTi and XSi after Id ordered the SOny. Id heard canons are small and light and that sounded kind of bad to me but these felt nothing like that. thats when my doubts started.

i did speak to my boss who recently did a weekend photography retreat with some semi-famous photographer. She said a guy in the class had an XTi and neither he or the photographer could get "true colors" out of it. Blues looked magenta i think she said.

So after that convo I was really confused.

Odd colour rendition sounds like a white balance setting issue - it's not something I've really noticed with my camera (but then I've probably never pored over stuff so critically). I just kind of accept that, in artificial lighting if you want something to look "correct", you should shoot Raw and fix up the colours afterwards.

Or in any circumstances where the scene's dominated by a single colour - that can confuse the camera's white-balance estimate.

A big field of grass -> it all goes a bit magenta.

There's a more general point to be made, I s'pose, about digital cameras - that the results straight off the memory card shouldn't necessarily be regarded as the final product.

With film, you had the expertise (or, perhaps, uninterested gum-chewing Fuji-machine loaders) of the processing lab to get your snaps into full colour loveliness. With digital, the camera does its best with the JPEG conversion (and there's plenty you can do in-camera with saturation, sharpness, WB, etc) but it may still require a bit of work. Shooting Raw gives you the most control but that truly is a digital "negative"; it's also subject to the camera's colour profile being correctly interpreted by the PC software (Photoshop, Lightroom, whatever). This could be the issue with Sunny's friend's classmate.

I'm a compulsive tweaker and it's been about 18 months since I uploaded a picture to Flickr without doing something, however subtle, to it in PSE or LR.

I am starting to stress about my monitor not being calibrated correctly.

That's another whole kettle of fish. Best to work exclusively in black and white...

You guys... Beginning to sense that my friend, who is enrolled in a photography course, isn't that weird. So it seems to be normal to be fidgety about pictures. :-) He's really compulsive. I now understand why he stopped uploading pixors to his website. :-)

It's just so easy to process images when you're already using something like Lightroom to import and organise your photos. If you "pick" your favourites from a day's shooting and filter down to just those, it can be a matter of minutes to work them up in LR and then export-to-disc/upload-directly-to-Flickr (I've never done the latter, I haven't investigated the free Flickr plugin). And if you're shooting Raw then you have to do something to them (even if it's just the default settings you get on import) in order to have an uploadable JPG*.

(* Yes, I know some cameras can do Raw + embedded JPG).

I've been shooting RAW exclusively for the last couple of years with my DSLR and the control over the image it gives you is something I just can't imagine doing without at any time in the future.

But then again I did invest in a couple of good books in using Photoshop and Camera RAW when I made the move so it's maybe not something that beginners might want to tackle.

um... I just bought a Nikon D700. I kind of have the shakes right now.

Woa! The no-money-left shakes, right?

I have a £500 Jessops voucher to replace my knackered lens. Choosing is hard!

The "oh shit oh shit oh shit better throw stuff on Ebay NOW" shakes.

time to go buy a pack of cigarettes, I think

I love how RAW images look coming out of my camera, but it is such a pain to use Aperture or Lightroom that I end up just shooting JPEGs and doing what I can to them in iPhoto. The latest version of iPhoto has decent photo-tweaking tools.

Having 'learned' in a chemical darkroom, Lightroom is a joy to use. It's the first program that intuitively made sense to me - the ability to visually manipulate the histogram/curves is fantastic. (You could do this on older Photoshops, I guess, but it was never as easy.)

Back when I got my first digital SLR, I was dying for someone to come up with a program that worked in terms of contrast grades and CMYK addition/subtraction (like physical enlargers). Never happened, and this is better all around, really.

Wow, Milo - don't you have a Canon 5D and a bunch of Canon glass? That's quite a switch. The D700 does look the business though.

Lotsa Canon photographers I know switching wholesale to Nikon for D3 (and now D700, by extension). Means cheap lenses are about, though!

5D, but only one lens. I think (thanks to last year's rebate) I can sell it at almost no loss to cover a big chunk of the Nikon.

I've had a project that I wanted to do for the longest (following Saturday night dirt track racing long term - I know a few drivers so I should be able to get into the 'pits') and on an impulse decided it was shite or get off the pot time. Am I ever going to be anything more than a schmuck with a nice camera, etc..
The 5D is a tremendous camera (still pissed about the dust, honestly, need to send it off for a free cleaning), but the ruggedness/dust protection and auto ISO are what sold me on the D700.

Also keen on being able to use older AI-S lenses that are relatively cheap, and F5/F100 bodies are going for a song if I can ever work up a spot to develop my own Tri-X again.

OK, right now I'm 1 million percent happy with the Canon 40D. Certainly it's the right "prosumer" balance for me, for now.

40D looked good but too many $$$$ for me

It's worth it imo. This picture of my parents' dog alone

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/2740183689_0f4293a51d.jpg

= me very happy.

(or = me very new to photography)

Lovely picture! And lovely doggie. :-)

Ah, right - I thought you had a few lenses, Milo. 35/1.4L was it?

EOS 5D sticks out like a sore thumb in the Canon line-up now - no self-cleaning sensor, no Live View, old-style menus (I think?). Canon's party line for the last year or so has been that the camera doesn't need replacing as it has no competition. Certainly not true now. The speculation is that there'll be two full-frame Canons announced in the next month - 4D and 7D, one around £2.3k, the other £1.7k. But these rumours have been rumbling in various forms since about 2006.

I don't know why Canon haven't implemented an AutoISO feature outside of the picture modes - is it a patent thing?

Nice doggie!

I cant see the doggie!

Can you see these two?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/2741121006_563fa07951.jpg

ok now i can see them (flickr is blocked on work comp). so good!

my canon sd850 powershot bit the dust after seven months. this MIGHT be related to the fact that we let our two year old take pictures with it, but I don't think he dropped it; the lens is stuck out now, and we just get a "lens error: restart camera" message. Searching around led me to this place: darntoothysam.com. Can anyone vouch for them? They sound alright and are probably way cheaper than sending it back to canon or buying a new camera. though I'm not so hot on fucking canon cameras after this.

This doesn't help, but our Canon Ixus APS L-1 died in a similar fashion on a trip to Scotland in 2002. We put it in a drawer, forgot about it, moved house, rediscovered it in a box in the shed last year and then - last week (having bought a couple of CR2 batteries for an APS SLR I got on eBay for six quid) - popped a battery in and VOILA, it works! I accept that forgetting about it for six years might not be the remedy you're after.

probably not, but waiting six years until my kid is 8 before I let him touch anything that cost more than $5 is probably a good idea.

Get him a camera of his own! My 3-y-o loves her Fisher Price digital thing and takes spooky shots like this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2010/2316921279_4dbdd0330f_m.jpg

I'm considering an entry-level digital SLR. Advice and opinions, please.

I did little bits of SLR photography at university, but this would mainly be for Em, who did a photography GCSE back during college but hasn't dabbled since.

Basically I think I want someone to tell me whether to get a 1000d or a 450d, and where from. And with what lens.

Stephen Fry wrote this about the 1000D a few weeks ago.

What's spot metering? How likely am I to want to shoot RAW in bursts? Which the 1000d has a slow speed for?

I think we're going to want to shoot Cosmo & Bob, Dartmoor, Exeter environs. Wildlife. Traffic. Architecture. i.e. not sport or kids. But animals. And dull green moorland.

What's Lightroom?

I think Sony, Nikon and possibly Pentax shade Canon for value-for-money at the entry level thesedays; Canon seem to have taken a decision to go feature-heavy with the 450D/1000D - kind of a trickle-down from the prosumer models. Having said that, we've got five Canons in the house, so I know where my bread is buttered and you can't really go wrong with them...

450D edges the 1000D in a few categories - pixel count (which is meaningless), highlight-tone priority (which is cool but if you shoot RAW and fiddle about afterwards in PS/LR/Aperture/etc is prob superfluous), marginally better viewfinder, bigger LCD (though not higher res), faster continuous shooting frame rate. A few months ago, there were rebate schemes on the 450D and it was practically the same price as the 1000D but now the 1000D has dropped and there's about £100 between them. 1000D + 18-55IS is £349 on Warehouse Express, 450D + 18-55IS is £443. So, the 1000D seems like the better deal.

Canon have improved the 18-55 kit lens with image stabilisation* but I barely use mine now; you may as well get it for the coppers it adds to the price. I'd definitely recommend getting the 50/1.8 prime - it's cheap, it's fast, it's ace. It won't do you for landscapes but the kit lens at the wide end, set to f/8.0, is pretty decent for that kind of thing.

(* - bear in mind, anti-shake tech is only available in certain Nikon and Canon lenses; Pentax and Sony deploy it in the camera body).

Aargh - xxxxxp

Spot metering - allows you to take a light reading from a very small part of the viewfinder scene and base your exposure on that, rather than some averaged or centre-weighted reading (which won't deal very well with scenes of high contrast).

Slow RAW - the 1000D doesn't have the processing power or the buffer depth of its more expensive cousins, so if you're shooting continously (i.e. "motor drive" mode in film parlance) in RAW, it will freeze after 4-5 shots while it writes the data to the card. My old 300D struggles with this - I missed a kiss in a wedding ceremony because of it.

Adobe Lightroom - fantastic organisational/processing tool for photographers; like Photoshop but without all the layers and graphic design stuff, but with added cataloguing/tagging/metadata-searching/etc. I'd be lost without it.

Steady Mike, who knows words like 'prosumer' and that pixel count is meaningless, recommended a camera to me earlier this year and I got it. It is called an Ixus 80 IS. I know this because it is right here next to me. I don't know much about how it works, but I am very happy with some of the pictures it has taken. In terms of quality, they might be the best pictures I have ever taken!

The upshot of this is that, when considering cameras, one should always simply do whatever Mike says.

Not true! Where are the Nikon lobby when you need them?

Jonesy is already my hi-fi guru, and seemingly my digital photography guru now too.

I have an old IXUS (450 maybe?) and also a pair of newer IXUS 70s that I bought for work and which I can use pretty much whenever I want.

My camera has been screwed for months, went from lovely clear shots to this...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/2842921469_ccb94beb98_m.jpg
...in one shot and I have been paralysed into indecision ever since. I want a small camera really but I have seen some photos taken on that Canon 1000D and they look great. It's worse than buying a computer!

Incidentally the camera finder on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/cameras/) is quite helpfu for comparing and contrasting but bear in mind you may have to look at a lot of HDR heavy shots.

I find spot-metering incredibly useful, and it's the metering setting I use most often by quite a way. It's seems almost indispensable for me at live gigs.

*It

I bought an Olympus E410 today, £300 with a 14-42mm lens and 40-150mm lens seemed like a good deal, it's my first foray into more advanced photography so hopefully it will take some good pictures. It had a good review in WhatDigital which would be a good site to check out for advice.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_1050.jpg

£350 with a free camera bag, and we'll be getting £30 cashback off Canon too, so £320 all together. From Jessops. On the high street. An actual physical shop.

http://i34.tinypic.com/2a7aner.png

xpost Woha! I'm jealous. Haven't bought mine yet but in due time I will. Two kids and changing the attic (into an adult playroom - no, not that kind of play) is hella expensive. :-) I'm hoping by the end of the year. First I'll need to develop a gazillion fuzzy pics I took with my dodgy digital cameras. Well, they aren't dodgy, just not that good when you photograph your mad active camera shy kids. :-)

Have to say that I quite like my iphone's camera!

Not a great picture by any means but this has enormous punctum for me:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3064/2963415015_4838a47a70_m.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_0111.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_0109.jpg

My husband's friend is pushing me into buying the Powershot G10. He says it's GREBT: like a reflex camera only without the bulkiness. WHAT TO DO. GAH.

I'm "obsessed" with the ability to photograph moving subjects (aka my kids). I am wondering what's the best: the 1000D or the G10. I have read one bad review about this (on the G10) so I'm in serious doubt. GAH

No contest, Stevie - the DSLR beats the compact, as good as the G10 reputedly is. If you were taking architectural shots, landscapes, static subjects, etc, the G10 would be fine 80% of the time. But portraits, action shots, instant response, etc - has to be the 1000D. But the G10 is worth considering if you don't want to lug an SLR around (but, again, the 1000D is very light, only about 100g heavier than the G10) and want a one-purchase solution (the G10's zoom lens range can't be matched by the kit lens on the 1000D, and you always end up buying more bits and bobs when you have an SLR - I recommend the 50/1.8! Again!). I've never used a compact as high-end as the G10 so perhaps it's capable of great things - do a search on Flickr for pics of kids/portraits taken with one. They're very close in price too.

Yeah, I've noticed a few reviews/opinions (or whatever you wanna call'em) that have called out the drawback on this. I noticed that people usually buy the G10 if they wanna have a compact camera that makes high quality shots of scenes/landscapes. Our friend keeps banging on about it mostly because he's fed up with lugging his heavy cameras around. I think I'll stick with the 1000D and also maybe enroll in a short photography course or something. I do want to learn to handle the camera better. :-(

It's all about the f/1.x lens, which the G10 does not have.

Although even with my f/1.4 lens, I have to basically just hold down the shutter button and throw away about 90% the pictures due to blurriness. But the ones that do turn out look great. I guess one other option would be a G10 with a external flash + reflector, which might make the with-flash shots look better.

It's also about the sensor size - cramming 14 million pixels into a 43mm2 sensor (G10) isn't going to produce image quality or low-light/high-ISO performance to match 10 million pixels on a 329mm2 sensor (1000D). Each microlens on the DSLR sensor is around 11 times the size of that on the G10 - that represents a huge advantage in signal-to-noise ratio. So, you can happily shoot at ISO800 on a DSLR with little noise but it'll probably look dire on a compact (if you even have the option).

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/3012805239_2efcb523b4.jpg

I don't know if any London-types are still thinking about making the leap into DSLR, but Camera World on Wells Street (and perhaps other branches) are knocking out (ex-demo) Pentax D100 Super w/18-55mm lens for £199 right now. First sub-£200 DSLR I've seen in an actual shop.

AN ACTUAL SHOP.

No, I am still savouring the capacities, probably unimpressive to you but often pleasing to me, of the camera that you recommended me to get about 5 months ago. With it I just took a nice picture of a foxy! I know, not the first, not the last, but this one is more close up than usual.

my sony is okay but im really regretting being convinced 10MP was enough :(

really, i just need better lenses

Yeah, it's all about the glass, not the pixel count. 10MP is totally enough, I think, unless you're making huge prints (and even then, a lot can be done at 150dpi or so). The huge pixel counts of the high-end Canons actually puts me off them a bit!

i like to crop though but i guess if i got a decent zoom i wouldnt have to crop!

Ah, I see. What have you got on yr camera currently? The 18-70mm? Is the long end of that not long enough? 70mm is actually too close for me (on a crop-sensor) most of the time. (I can't remember what camera you have? Is it the Alpha 200?)

Yeah its the 18-70mm. I cant get a photo of the kid thats candid close up because she spots the camera and grabs for it. i need the distance in the backyard or something. like parental paparazzi. i have the alpha 300 (10.2MP)

You might find an affordable old Minolta lens on eBay to fit your purposes (Sony mount = Minolta AF mount), e.g.
this one.

Do check compatibility though! I assume all these old Minolta AF lenses work fine on Sony bodies but you never know. Alternatively, there could be new third-party lenses from Tamron and Sigma which are not too expensive. Beyond that, Sony's own brand 55-200mm is around $230.

Jonesy, if I was to say "recommend me a sub-£300 lens for a Canon EOS", what would you say?

What are you after, Nick? A range that your kit lens doesn't cover or just something better in that area?

A common upgrade from the 18-55 for Canon EOS users is one of the fast third-party mid-range zooms - the Sigma 28-70/2.8 or the Tamron 28-75/2.8. The Canon equivalent costs upwards of £800 (I hired one once - it's great) but the Sigma and Tamron are supposed to be almost as good. They should both be available for £250 or less.

If that seems like too much overlap with what you already have, then there are loads of 55-200/70-200/70-300/etc telephoto zooms out there for under £200. Most of them aren't very good, mind. Thinking long term, if I were you, I might wait and save up for the 70-200/4.0L which is just over £400. You can get a Tamron 70-300/4.0-5.6 for £115 (or a Sigma for even less) but I wonder about build quality, speed of AF, sharpness, etc at that price. (Not that I can talk - I use a 15-y-o Sigma 70-210 which doesn't even step-down on my 300D...it was 20 quid).

I wouldn't be without my fast primes (28/1.8, 50/1.8) but that's because I do a lot of child photography and the buggers won't keep still. I think every Canon EOS user should own a 50/1.8 (the image-quality per £ for this lens is better than any other) but perhaps you won't find it as essential as I do.

OK, so who is excited by the RED DSMC coming out today?

Buy one of these, it'll be great

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/1226635490.jpg

I thought it wasn't going to be announced until next year? I wonder if Canon's 5D2 has affected Red's plans to develop an EF mount for the Red One? Red's lens prices are astronomical though ($20k for a set of five fast primes? Though I believe that's considered a bargain for filmmakers).

xp! Is that it then?

According to Engadget who seem to have some info there are mounts for both Nikon and canon lenses. Canon are of course a big supplier of film and TV lenses but don't make video cameras above prosumer/basic ENG so they are very used to selling lenses alone and possibly make more money out of it that DSLRs.

Everything Red does is staggeringly cheap in film and TV terms.

I keep expecting that Red thing to be a gif and transform into a giant robot any second.

Um, I think an increased range on what we've got would be terrific, but also something faster, too; we may not have kids, but we've got kittens, who likewise don't really do sitting still.

Well, fast (max aperture of f/2.8 or better over the whole range) you can do for sub-£300 if you forego Canon. You can't get anything wider than the wide end of the kit lens without spending £££. In fact, you can't get anything as wide as the kit at f/2.8 without spending £££. So that's the compromise - you have to lose some of the wide-angle end and gain a bit on the telephoto end. Fast telephoto zooms (70-200/2.8) are also £££, unfortunately - even the third-party ones. You can understand why - the sheer surface area of high-end optical glass you need to achieve f/2.8 at 200mm is huge. I think f/4.0 is pretty good for long lenses, so the 70-200/4.0L looks like a good, compact-ish choice there (the non-IS version anyway).

Tamron 28-75/2.8, keeping the kit lens for super-wide landscapes/architectural stuff at f/8.0 where shutter speed isn't an issue, maybe? (May be of no interest to you, but the Tamron works fine on film bodies too where 28mm is actually slightly wider than the widest the kit lens can achieve on a crop-sensor like the 1000D; the kit lens won't fit on a Canon EOS film body).

Welcome to the money pit!

I wouldn't be without my fast primes (28/1.8, 50/1.8) but that's because I do a lot of child photography and the buggers won't keep still.

michael, pls explain "primes" to me.

Prime lenses are ones that are fixed, isn't it? So you can't zoom them. You can get a faster lens if it's fixed than with a zoom.

interesting! my xmas wish list is going to be LONG this year

S'right - a prime lens is fixed focal length. Almost always better image quality than their zoom equivalents and, as Nick says, faster. In fact, some folk will claim that a 50/1.8 (£60/$80) at f/2.8 is sharper and richer than an L-series zoom like the 24-70/2.8L at that aperture (and that's £800/$1200). Lenses are generally at their softest wide-open (largest aperture = smallest f-stop), so maybe it's not that surprising that a lens that can't go faster than f/2.8 should lose out to a lens which has been stopped down a few clicks by f/2.8. But still, it's 1/15th the price!

While consumer-level Canon primes can compete with L-series zooms, the Canon L-series primes are in another category altogether and no zoom can touch them for image quality (the 35/1.4L, 85/1.2L and 400/5.6L are particularly revered...and not cheap).

Obviously, you have to "zoom with your feet" with a prime lens and it can be a right pain to change lenses for different situations, when a zoom would cover most everything.

Stet and I often drool over The Best Lens In The World (Canon Edition), which is the 85/1.2L - a lens which is pretty sharp wide-open and razor sharp by f/2.0.

yeah that new Red shit looks awesome. the possibilities for cheap, good-looking docs and field work are pretty limitless

Great thing about Canon is that their 50/1.8 is cheap and works on any Canon EOS body. This is not the case with the Nikkor 50/1.8, for example, which won't autofocus on a Nikon D40 or D60. Sony and Pentax don't have thrifty fifties in their ranges - only rather more expensive 50/1.4s. But, for Sony, you could at least get an old Minolta AF 50/1.7 (prob under $100 on eBay). The likes of Tokina, Sigma and Tamron don't do cheap standard primes either - Sigma do a 30/1.4 for about £250.

At one time, a fast prime is what you got with the camera - it was the kit lens (Pam's 1970s Canon FTb came with a 50/1.4). Olympus have semi-revived this idea by making one of their DSLRs available as a kit with a fast-ish 25/2.8 "pancake" prime (the crop factor with Olympus is 2.0x, so 25mm is like 50mm on a film body). But it's all zooms nowadays...

t's not that surprising that a lens that can't go faster than f/2.8 should lose out to a lens which has been stopped down a few clicks by f/2.8

That answers my next question, kind of, which was going to be "What do you do with an f/1.8?" Take pictures in candle light, maybe.

http://www.indiewire.com/ots/candlelit-small.jpg

I had a 1.8/50 on my first proper camera Olympus OM-1 and having that big an aperture is awesome is only because you can avoid flash in much worse conditions. I really want a prime lens, would have made my venice biennale photos that much better.

Yeah, 1.8 is 2/3rds of a stop faster than 2.8, and that could be the difference between motion blur and freezing action, or camera shake and no camera shake. Crazy shallow DoF too, which can be attractive...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2126/2139766274_1542c25863.jpg

barry lyndon was shot with a f/0.75

Wiki says 7.0:

Alcott used three f/0.70 lenses developed by Zeiss for NASA for use in the Apollo moon landings, which Kubrick discovered in his search for a lens that could film in low-light situations. The super-fast lens allowed him to shoot scenes lit with actual candlelight with an average lighting volume of only three candlepower. In fact, the film features the largest lens aperture in film history.

I meant .70, obv

Leica are bringing back the sub-f/1 lens of yore - a Noctilux 50/0.95. Six grand.

I need to watch those candlelit scenes again. I bet Kubrick had Ryan O'Neal nailed into his chair - "there's only 0.5mm DoF, goddamit! Don't even breathe!"

Well... depends on how far away the chair was. But yeah, still.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/fluxion23/Canon_7_with_50mm_f095.jpg

Want.

Ha ha. Stet to thread (eBay near-madness a few months ago)...

My usual lens is a Nikkor 50/1.8, and I love those extra stops at the wide end compared with your more normal kit lens - it really does help a lot when taking indoor shots. I don't really miss the zoom - I've got used to the length of the 50/1.8, and I find it more useful on a 1.5x digital body than I did when I was learning on film (with cameras for which a 50mm prime was the kit lens). If I need a different length, I have a 35-80/4-5.6 which I carry about because it fits nicely in my small camera bag. I don't find myself needing to change lenses very often at all, though, much less frequently than I use the 50/1.8's speed.

Then again, I impressed myself with my camera-holding skills the other month:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3069/2988709639_b7ac070142.jpg

That's an entirely handheld shot, no support at all. At 1/4s. I'm amazed it came out anywhere near. I must have had zen-like concentration skills that day.

I still want a leica/canon/Voigtländer rangefinder in my life.

(1.8 is 4/3rds of a stop faster than 2.8, not 2/3rds...whoops; so it'll get you 1/60th-sec as opposed to 1/25th for example).

Hands like Bill Werbeniuk after his 14th pint, Forest P.

how many of you guys regularly use a tripod. is it worth buying one?

I use a Tripod for shooting indoor, low-light, static scenes. It means you can use a very low ISO (and long shutter speed), which means less grain. They are not very useful for shooting moving objects.

See these two sets for examples of lots of mini-tripod shots:

http://flickr.com/photos/disbister/sets/72157606679147308/

http://flickr.com/photos/disbister/sets/72157594308510936/

how many of you guys regularly use a tripod. is it worth buying one?

Me, and absolutely. A flimsy 4-ft aluminum tripod will run you about $20, give or take 5, but it will hold your camera steady for most purposes (mine even folds up small enough to fit in my bag). Essential for night shots of anything that is not moving.

I bought four big, solid tripods for work about 18 months ago, and have one on longterm loan to myself. I think they're Libec? A tripod, I would say, is an essential. No this without one:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/3026592613_c330320335_o.jpg

I am a great fan of handy hard surfaces instead of tripods. Prop the camera set the shop and do a timed shutter release.

See

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3159/3026233567_35a9a78a8e.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3074/3027068660_4d8c6b8a15.jpg

I don't really like carrying tripods around but I do have quite a good Velbon one now which mainly gets used with our medium-format Bronica, thus:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2747530979_d08ed3798f.jpg

(All photos taken this way are of the kids, and this ain't the Parenting thread, so...)

Like Ed, I favour the handy hard-surface option, with a bit of straightening in LR afterwards:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/2928149976_5f386a8a2b.jpg

(10sec, f/8)

Handy hard surfaces are easier to come across in big urban conurbations than on Dartmoor, I suspect...

Good point. We did take the Velbon to Cumbria with us in the summer but it was never used outside of the cottage...

So how about point and shoot digital type cameras, can anyone recommend one of them. I have got through 2 in three years (each time just as they were out of warranty...la-di-da...) and would really like one that might last more than a year. Under a hundred pounds. Is that too much to ask for?

My ancient Canon Ixus 430 still works; the slider that flicks you between camera and playback is a bit temperamental, and battery life is pretty crappy now, but it still takes pictures.

nick stopped using that one since he got pwn3d by me

Yeah the IXUS/Digital Elphs are nice.

I still want a leica/canon/Voigtländer rangefinder in my life.

― Ed, Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

DITTO

also, my dad is demo-ing a M8 in a week or two, for "work" (lol write-off) and i think i might be able to touch it :D

i mean i technically have a canon RF, but a nicer one with a non-fixed lense would be cool

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3024/3059883882_898873e067_b.jpg

I'd rep for EOS, definitely.

which one do you have? (i cant see that pic by the way) if id had $1400 i probably would have gone for the 50D.

on the i actually spent money side of things, i bought a fisheye lense (for fun) and a minolta 50mm f/1.7 on ebay last week.

We've got the 1000D.

oh is it the rebel XS? When I was looking I finally came down to the rebel XTi or Sony alpha 300. The sony seemed liked the better camera of the two even though its not a traditional camera brand but what I really wanted was the Canon XSi. Couldn't come up with the extra $100 though.

I can see your photo now that im not on my flickr blocking work comp. very beautiful.

Yes, 1000D = Rebel XS. Sunny, how are you getting on with the Minolta 50/1.7? Hope I didn't steer you wrong there.

Good work, Sick M! I really like yr squared circle pix.

It hasnt arrived yet and now with the thanksgiving weekend I probably wont see it until next week. :( Im excited though!

i finally succumbed and am now the remorseful owner of a 1000d. hahaha damn yall it ain't even xmas and i already went over budget. hahah now i gotta learn how to use it. hah.

oh yeah i got a payback: i brought along a advertisement brochure (?) from another chain store. they paid me back.

paid 422 euros (which must seem really expensive cause the pound suxors).

Your Amazon list is handy, Nick. Can see me spending a lot of money in the near future.

Enrolled in a digi-photography course. WTF. Quite interesting really but quite heavy. Am now already craving a grip. hah. If I can keep it up, fork out the money (yay for recession), I'll probably enroll in a more intensive course. :-D

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3182235462_39ea33315c_o.jpg

I'm not Nick nor Michael but still happy with the result (pre-course).

wow thats nice, nath!

*beautiful*!

That's awesome.

Also using me as an example = flattering but kind of makes me lol a bit as I really don't have much idea what I'm doing! I've taken over 13,000 pictures with the EOS and, really, most of them are utter, utter crap!

Nick, dude, you make awesome pics. Really.

I'm already more aware of composition.But I forgot to up the ISO (to make the snow 'n' ice whiter. Ah well. Live'n'learn ey? :-)

Oh yeah, and what about a remote so you can do long exposure without ruining it due to shaking hands?OH YEAH ME WANT TOO .haha

Use the self-timer. There should also be a mirror lockup mode in the user menus

I really like this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Photographers-Eye-Composition-Design-Digital/dp/1905814046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232037158&sr=8-1

Jimmy is right, I took the following by using the self timer and the mirror lock:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2952233829_790ceabaf9.jpg

Wish I'd done a longer exposure to get some proper star trails though.

Nick, I have this one by teh same author. It's AWESOME. I also bought a more extensive one on digital photography. But this book is really great. A bit difficult at times, but it's helping me to see the composition and how I need to take good pics.

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos (Paperback)
by Michael Freeman (Author)

Oh haha, it's the same one I just noticed. Anyway yeah great book!

https://www.photoshop.com/user/stevienixed

click on the first album. that's what i took yesterday during our class. teacher said they were pretty good. WOOHOO

Stick them on yr Flickr! That one of the TV especially.

Will do! :-)

Those are great Nathalie, took me a few seconds to work the TV one out. Like the one of the hoodie texting.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/3271113081_473b503d02.jpg

This one? Teacher told me - while I was checking out on my camera- this one was great. He repeated it and also stated that the others were pretty good. WOOHOOO! I think I love taking pics of people the best. Partially because it is more "interesting" (for me) but also cause I am quite shy when it comes to taking pics. Like with interviewing people, this is something I love because it challenges me. A landscape doesn't talk back (like fuck off! leave me alone!). :-)

Wow, nath... that's exactly the pic I was about to post. That one stuck out to me instantly.

Thanks Kenan!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3430/3271113027_c526cfbf75.jpg

Lovely pic but you couldn't fuck this up even if you were blind and hands tied behind your back. (I'm lying. I noticed how crappy some other people's pics were.) I also love the fact we were all taking pics of the same place: it created competition. haha I have an inferiority complex but am competitive as fuck when push comes to shove. :-)

xpost (That is, I was about to post it, except the flash player on my mac won't open the site you linked, so I was trying to get a screen cap from the PC... gah. That flash player thing is quite awful. It should be removed from the internet, and if possible humiliated somehow.)

Yeah, I don't know why the fuck the teacher doesn't introduce Flickr but instead wanted us to use this. We have to upload the pics we like best and then he evaluates'em on his comp (and on the big screen).

Oh yeah, is a polarisation filter handy? Do you need a Canon one (for a Canon camera)? How about a remote control which the teacher keeps banging on about?

Also should get a proper bag. Yesterday we were caught in a rain 'n' hail storm and I didn't have a bag! WAH! Panic!

Oh yeah, is a polarisation filter handy?

Yes, quite. But only if you know what it does. :)

And a remote control is also very handy for taking long exposures in low light, where pushing the shutter button would bump the camera. Apart from that, I can't think of a use for it.

haha Yeah, it's for eliminating reflection (on water and windows), no?

Self-portraits.

Aye, that's a polariser.

Also deepens saturation a little, depending how it's used (if it's a circular polariser).

That's one thing it does. I don't know how it works, honestly, but it can do amazing things with sunsets.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3204115666_a571ed3df2.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_filter#Polarizer

Nice shot nick.
Took this yesterday and i wish i'd thought more about the composition rather than have the post in the middle.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3344/3269682984_76d75f8298.jpg

wow. thats beautiful.

Why thank you Sunny. Oh you meant NG's pic. (hahah just being silly here, it's

ah grr i wanted to add: it's a great pic...

just remember to breathe.

My macro tube just arrived. Fuck.

Fuck? Where did you order it from? We don't have many photography shops here. :-(

Got it off Amazon for about £6 (+£4 p&p); totally rudimentary, but it works - it is just a set of machined tubes that sit between your lens and your camera body, thus vastly reducing the focal distance between the end of the lens and the subject. Hopefully I'll get some mad iris shots soon, but as it makes the lens SUPER long, it's also super shaky, and you loser autofocus and aperture control, as the camera body can't control the lens electronics anymore.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3331/3271514271_dfc968ed23.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3502/3271511099_7e5d4562e9.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3452/3272333246_ef51a61ff9.jpg

That top one's my new wallpaper

Get a bigger size off my photostream if you want - http://flickr.com/photos/njsouthall/

Actually, an extreme close-up of Bob's nose would be good.

Mission accepted.

Mission accomplished.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/3272371528_67430b6d10.jpg

cat 'n' eye shot are AWESOME!

There's a fantastic close-up of a cat's tongue somewhere on flickr - it looks like a huge piece of pink velcro - which was my wallpaper for a long time.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3273281733_c7e16b5a5b_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3512/3274243280_40b5b52d89_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3504/3274263028_0c88f3d047_b.jpg

Oh wow, want one!
Just had a look on Amazon, can't believe the price.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3305/3274294272_3502fe0819_b.jpg

That's it, i'm ordering now.
These are great nick, what else can you find?

Clothes are interesting at this level, the weave and stitching...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3342/3274322184_a3e4a6aa32_b.jpg

Guess the album (without looking at my photostream for the title!).

I've just bought one too!

Extension tubes are great fun. I have a Hanimex manual focus lens (£5) which gets down to 1:3 anyway, so in combination with the tubes it's the most cumbersome thing in the world but at least I can control aperture:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/2592649089_37052ed5fd.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2184/2540293690_8d403962a0.jpg

And the magic of the polariser:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2191/2516303522_bc3cf7d5d1.jpg

i put it in my amazon basket. not bothered to search for a shop here. :-) it seems GREBT! if i seem to have a droplet of talent for photography, my knitting needles will be neglected and i will enroll in a proper photo. course. :-D

god theyre $169 for sony alpha

what is a good mm for a macro lens or doesnt it matter?

it's like any other lens; wider includes more of the surrounding object, tighter is tighter. It just depends on what you want to accomplish.

I just got a Canon Power shot A470. Reasons:
1. $80
2. Seemed decent, my brother (main photo dude I know) likes Canon
3. It has orange on it
4. I never do anything beyond point 'n' shoot

What's $169, Sunny - extension tubes or polariser?

Canon-branded tubes are expensive too; Kenko do cheaper tubes which retain the connection between camera and lens (can set aperture, autofocus). But the tubes Nick and I have are literally just tubes - no electronics, they just have the Canon mount. It's only a step above separating the lens from the body with a toilet roll. About £10. Someone must do these cheapo tubes for the Minolta/Sony mount?

Macro lenses are typically in the 50-150mm range (true macro lenses, ones that get down to 1:1, are all primes; there are zooms that call themselves macro but they're usually 1:3 at best). Often a manufacturer will have a slightly slower version of an existing prime (say, 50mm or 100mm) which focuses a lot closer. I think Canon do a 50/2.5 Macro, for example (alongside their 50/1.2L, 50/1.4, 50/1.8 primes). Canon also do a specialist manual-focus lens which goes to 5:1 (hairs on spiders' legs type of thing).

Polarisers are not mount-specific, they just screw into yr lens, so you just buy by filter diameter. Start from about £20.

What bags do you use? I'm gonna get one eventually (kids being expensive yo). Think I'll get a backpack cause it seems handier when you take pics. :-)

Oh Michael, do I remember correctly you usually use the uh... tripod when photographing your kids? With Elisabeth this seems a bit stupid cause she's still crawling most of the time.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41lBVhBQOtL._SS400_.jpg

this seems very handy!

I hardly ever use the tripod with the kids. Well, I do with the Bronica, but this ain't the medium-format thread! That one photo you commented on (where Ava took it herself with the remote control) was with a tripod but it's a rarity. Gotta move with 'em!

I have a Gorillapod but I haven't used it much and it's promised to a friend (who has a G7).

I have a Crumpler Ben's Glamour III bag. Very nice. Everyone's got 'em now, of course! (Or maybe I've only noticed since I got one in 2006).

I would like a camera rucksack, even though my parents got me a bag for xmas. Saw a v trendy black waterproof one for about £100 but can't remember where or what make. This one made of hemp looks pretty good: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Sativa-Professional-camera-rucksack-6877

Michael, i was talking about a kenko macro tube on amazon being $169. If I wanted to take macro photos like the ones upthread which lens should I get? I'm not interested in the zoom macros

Nick and I both spent just a few quid on cheap tubes; we're using our standard 50/1.8 primes (without being able to autofocus or control aperture) or, in my case, a very cheap Hanimex manual-focus 80-200mm lens with an adaptor (with which I can control aperture) a la:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1224/1462261839_7aac56db54.jpg

You have a Minolta AF 50/1.7, don't you? Some cheap tubes or a reversing ring on that and you'd be able to take shots like the ones above.

I just got a Canon Power shot A470.

Best $80 camera you can buy, I'd bet. I am going to marry Canon one day. I love their Powershots, and I love the fact that most of them (not yours, but that's ok) include every manual feature and auto mode that the DSLRs have, for like $150 bucks. No other camera company is so generous with features on a point-n-shoot camera, especially considering that most people will never use anyway. I love them for it.

BUT more importantly, really -- the images are sharp, saturated-but-not-oversaturated, very little pincushion or blurring on the edge of the image from any Canon camera I've seen... they just make damn good lenses, fantastic sensors, and they seem to always do a little extra. Like, an f/ 3.0 lens on your camera is generous, considering it's made to be stuffed in a back pocket.

My IXUS 850IS doesn't have manual or aperture priority modes, which I miss a bit from my old Fuji.

My later macros are done with the kit 18-55mm lens; much easier to control focus than on the f/1.8 (I'm controlling focus by physically leaning in closer rather than turning the focal ring!).

Why not?

Dunno; just feels a bit like cheating!

I move the camera to get focus all the time, and I figure, yannow, it's either in focus or it isn't.

"I am going to marry Canon one day."

did you tell Julia already?

But yeah I agree with you. The one my parents gave me, is just beyond crap. Srsly. I was so "ARGH!!!" today I wanted to set it in profile program mode but it doesn't even HAVE it. I mean if you have a hybrid cam at least include that ffs

Over Christmas my dad offered to give me his old (really old) Minolta 35mm -- really nice camera -- but I couldn't accept it. Film? Pushing the button just once or three times to get the shot I want instead of 20 or 30 times? I don't know how to do that. Plus... film. What do I do with film?

Now that I think of it, I wonder if I still have my mum's old Canon. Maybe there's a LENS I could use! WWOOOOHHOOOOO

did you tell Julia already?

luckily this country's bigamy laws have not anticipated this new kind of union. I can have it all.

Film is marvellous - better dynamic range, great colours straight out of the camera (OK, that's not really true - the lab processing is analogous to the Photoshop/Lightroom fiddling many of us do now with digital, but it's out of your hands), great skin-tones, etc, etc. The disadvantages are legion, of course, and I hardly need mention them here. (My cheap/half-decent colour-negative high-street processing option has bitten the dust this year: Jacobs have whacked up their prices...)

But film was my saviour tonight...because my 300D is dead. After 30,000+ actuations*, the shutter has given up the ghost and every frame is perfect black. So I shot my daughter's 4th birthday party on Fuji Superia 1600 until a friend came to the rescue with her 400D (which I now have on short-term loan). I'll take the 300D to a repair shop on Monday but I don't hold out much hope. So much for cutting up the credit cards this month...

(* Don't worry, Nick - they are supposed to last a fair bit longer than that and the 30,000 were just our shots; it was already two years old when we got it on eBay in 2006).

You have so many cameras !!

Maybe it's a bit like me with guitars, but I only have, um

- Fender acoustic (which I play)
- Telecaster copy electric (which I don't, really)
- CPX700 electro-acoustic (which stopped working and I haven't got out of its case this year)
- 12-string (in another town)

-- I bet you have more cameras than that.

I'm talking to Mike but I shouldn't wonder <heh> if it goes for others on this thread also.

Let's see now (these are mine + Pam's)...

Canon EOS 300D (2003-vintage DSLR, bought secondhand on eBay, now seemingly RIP)
Canon EOS 10 (1990 35mm-film SLR, Freecycled)
Canon EOS IX7 (1998 APS-film SLR, £6 on eBay)
Canon FTb (1974 manual 35mm SLR about £120 from Jessops Vintage in Bloomsbury with 50/1.4 lens 10 years ago)
Bronica SQ-A (1984-ish 6x6 medium-format SLR, another eBay bargain)
Canon Ixus i (2004 4MP digital compact, present at the births of both our kids, still great for little movies)
Canon Ixus L1 (1998 APS-film compact, present on Millennium Eve and so many other events during the, er, block party era)
Olympus XA-2 (1980 35mm-film compact, main camera throughout the '90s following the saltwater demise of my AF-10)
Minolta-16 II (1960 16mm-film sub-mini compact; we have some mid-'70s cartridges for this, but where to get them developed?)
Blackbird, fly (2008 plastic fixed-lens TLR)

Various nonfunctional TLRs, box Brownies, Instamatic, Polaroids, etc...

Oh, I forgot the Pentax K1000! Meter doesn't work but still usable with a little guesswork.

this is mine, which i am madly in love with:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414Gp1sib4L._SL500_AA280_.jpg

i really need to work on my photography skillz more so i can deserve my gorgeous camera.

and nath, you'll just end up taking gorgeous photos of your knitting/yarn/whatev if you get camera-addicted. i'm obsessing over photographing jewelry, so i'm neglecting mine, but here's a sock yarn pic i took:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/3189822482_133281003f.jpg

someone i know from rav is giving me her lightbox. that will be pretty fucking cool to try.

ARGH @ Mike; I'm at 17,000 after only a few months!

Blackbird, fly ???

Comma included, film not included.

Lightroom tells me there are 23,377 photos in the catalogue taken with the 300D; within that number are a few hundred duplicates (pre-Lightroom processing where I've saved adjusted versions of the files) but without that number is every photo we've taken and deleted on-camera without ever transferring to a computer (or subsequently deleted from LR). Going by the discrepancy between file numbering (eg, IMG_xxxx) and the number of photos in the catalogue, I'd estimate we throw away about 30-35% of captures. So that's 33-36k actuations. If the previous owner used it only half as as much as we have, it's more like 50-55k since summer 2004. That's a good innings.

Very impressed with the 400D I've borrowed; bigger & better LCD, faster AF, quieter mechanism, cleaner ISO 800/1600 and great continuous shooting (my 300D gets jammed after 2-3 RAWs and takes about 10sec to write to the card; the 400D can manage 8-10 RAWs and writes quick-like). As far as I can tell, 450D/1000D are basically the same, just with Live View and more pixels. If the 50D was a coupla hundred cheaper...

julia am i stupid and anal but didnt you need to focus on the front? you can correct me if i am wrong. VERY lovely yarn though and nice pic. i tend to be VERY lazy about my knit related pics because i always feel crap about my FOs(hah wld you know i feel inferior about this too)
the jewellery pics you post are just AWESOME. really.

i have or rather had way too many cameras. cant even remember which ones.

oh yeah a friend of mine said better to take BW pics for the moment. easier to see good composition

ooooh since i am going to japan again, should i check photography shops and ruin my bank account
hahaha oh yeah and buy some more knit related stuff

didnt you need to focus on the front?

Easier said than done. Exactly the kind of situation in which moving the camera is helpful.

My Nikon saves the number of shutter firings in the Exif tags on each photo; so I can tell you that even though it's 2 1/2 years old we've taken a measly 12,459 shots with it.

I'm thinking I should slow down.

canon is300 keeps asking me to

1) reload batteries, even though i am putting them in fresh out of the package
2) vignetting the pictures
3) randomly over or underexposing pics

what the hell is wrong

er, sorry, IS 300 is my car. this is a canon S2 IS.

Just took the plunge and bought the 1000D. So expect lots of pictures of beautiful cats, sunny Cardiff, and from July onwards, the new baby.

oh man you are in great company. hahah
tonight was ace in the class. learned all about LIGHTING, depth, MANUAL focus.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/3288616174_251004160c.jpg

i am so happy i can do this shit now.

cool!
now's there's just the other 50 quadratrillion things to shoot.
just added you as a contact btw, hope you don't mind?

of course not!

good :)

me too, nath.

hurrah!

Anyone here have/used a Canon G10? I'm thinking of replacing my ancient Nikon and it seems to be one of the best compact digitals (besides the Leica Luxs).

Nick, my friend who is doing a four year photography course bought himself a G10 and swears by it. Said I had to as well but I opted for a 1000D. He says it's the perfect option if you want a compact camera that does "everything."

okay guys i realized i didnt need a bigger lens as my mum had\has a reg reflex camera. i know the mm dont really correspond but it also seems when i take pics or am i fucked up for thinking that?

also saw the prices of lenses over at bic cameras site and fuck me but the prices arent that much cheaper. think i will eventually get my fifty mm lens here...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/3301018840_ea64f08acf_b.jpg

ahem, try again:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/3301018840_ea64f08acf_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3335/3300173875_bb0f96e01d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3476/3301070512_2830a8965a_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/3301028290_7fe08e1e2b_o.jpg

Like the second one best, but wish the kite was further off-centre for a bit more motion / drama. What you taking these with?

my nifty fifty died.
Great lens, but a bit fragile.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3442/3293077500_ce1da94529.jpg

The 1000D.

Yeah, I think if I'd spent a bit longer thinking about the shots, or did a bit of cropping, they'd look a lot better. But, I just wanted to get out this morning and give the new camera a whirl. I know nothing about photography, they were all taken with the standard "landscape" setting on the camera. I've ordered that book that you and Nathalie recommended upthread and I'm thinking of doing a photography course if there's one local.

It was fucking cold on that beach.

(xpost)

The rule of thirds is about the most important thing I've been told; chop the frame into thirds, either horizontally or vertically, and frame that way. it's a really simple, easy to remember idea that makes just about any image more interesting.

Well, I just went and bought a 40D. £170 to repair the 300D didn't really appeal, a week with a 400D convinced me that I couldn't go back, all the 2008 models are very expensive right now (and getting worse thanks to the weak £) and not that much of a step-up from the previous generation and the 5D is totally out of reach. Secondhand 40D ticked all the boxes (I can cope without hi-res LCD and contrast-AF Live View, I reckon).

The Last Credit Card Purchase Of All Time.

!!!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3310279558_e0c100e092.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3401/3309461769_46682bf81f.jpg

Not the best shots, but I'm happy with it anyway. :-)

Anyone here have/used a Canon G10? I'm thinking of replacing my ancient Nikon and it seems to be one of the best compact digitals (besides the Leica Luxs).

i've recently bought one! it's been v. fun so far has about 100 options for stuff i haven't really tried it all out yet. i have noticed some very very slight fisheye-like distortion around the edges but maybe i haven't been doing it right yet. i'll send some photos up after this weekend when i take it to town!!

HAHA nathalie great shots who gave you these ideas ;)

you bee doo bee dooo :-)

nath i like how the streak of light in the first one looks like its lighting up the entire sidewalk

Yeah I love it too! It's so much fun doing shit like that.Mostly cause you can show it to people who knows less of photography than I do and they all go "OH WOW! Amazing!"