Totally OT -advice on digital camera purchase

in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Richard Brookman at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk wrote on 29/10/04 8:57 am:

Ha Ha

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Austin Shackles at snipped-for-privacy@ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk wrote on 29/10/04 8:59 am:

Will have a look at link in a bit. Thanks

in article snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, Simon Barr at snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net wrote on 29/10/04 9:17 am:

Only got USB on the mac and have an inbuilt card reader on the printer.

Will also have a look at this link.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Tim Hobbs at snipped-for-privacy@101ambulance-urine.net wrote on 29/10/04 9:41 am:

I think thats where we got the camcorder from.

Got one on the Epson printer.

in article N5rgd.78$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-win.ntli.net, Nigel at snipped-for-privacy@letter.legin.org wrote on 29/10/04 1:56 pm:

Sounds sensible. I had a mobile phone once that you could do the same with. Bruce has got this charger that I bought from innovations that charges up ordinary AA batteries.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Mr.Nice. at snipped-for-privacy@-nospam-clara.co.uk wrote on 29/10/04 3:30 pm:

That's why I switched it off on the camcorder, which does take stills, which are OK if you don't want to enlarge them or take any photos as its getting dark.

in article iD$ snipped-for-privacy@raefell.demon.co.uk, hugh at hugh@[127.0.0.1] wrote on 29/10/04 7:22 pm:

Going to have a look at websites you've all mentioned. Thanks for all the advice. Will let you know what I get...once I've decided - might be next year!

On or around Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:32:59 +0100, Nikki Cluley enlightened us thusly:

experience with digicams is that you really do want NiMHs in 'em. Alkalines in the fuji were a waste of time - unless of course you have a whole lot of other stuff which can use the part-used batteries.

On or around Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:39:27 +0100, Nikki Cluley enlightened us thusly:

there'll be a whole crop of new cameras next yer, mind. new minolta SLR thing looks nice...but they reckon it's gonna sell in the US for about 1600 bucks just for the body.

FWIW, my thinking on going for an olympus was that olympus, being camera makers of some repute, ought to know how to make a lens.

it's S/H mainly 'cos I can't afford a new one.

So Nikki Cluley was, like

The card reader on our printer (HP Photosmart 1000) only accepts certain cards, and not the Compact Flash the Nikon uses, and it's also fantastically slow. We got a universal card reader (this one made by Lexar, but there are many others) for around 50GBP, which attaches via USB. It reads every card we have and a lot we don't and is very fast - when you're working with images up to 6MB this makes a lot of difference. Simple to use - once the card is in the reader, Windoze reads it as just another disk. Well worth it, IMO.

So Austin Shackles was, like

My first digital camera was an Olympus. Even though it was only 1.3 megawhatsits, it took pictures better than some cameras with twice the resolution. In the end I reckoned it was just that it had a a very good lens. Got rid of it when I went to digital SLR, but I would recommend the make for lens quality and general usefulness.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Austin Shackles at snipped-for-privacy@ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk wrote on 30/10/04 9:00 am:

This charger charges the part used batteries. Also tells you what life they have left in them. As long as they don't go down below 1.25ish they charge up to 1.5 pretty quick - handy for the Gameboy and some of Isaacs remote control vehicles. Does AAA upto D size battery.

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Austin Shackles at snipped-for-privacy@ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk wrote on 30/10/04 9:02 am:

Great - it will take even longer to make up my mind!

I like second hand - especially if its a bargain!

I'd have to agree that if you can going to DSLR is the best way forward. Okay, parting with a simlar amount of bunce to buying a new exhaust system with Cats for the rangie, or a replacement transfer box was a huge leap of faith, but the results are well worth it.

I went for a Nikon D70 with the 18-79 lens (just under £800 for those bits) and then added a 120-300 lense (2nd hand) and that seems to work well for me. OKay, so my wallet is lighter by just under a grand - but the biggest problem with digital camera's I found was always the lens, not the camera res - so by going DSLR I think I get the best of both worlds.

At the moment I am still very much in the honeymoon phase (4 months in) and still take too many photos - on the principle that the more I take at different settings at the moment then I can learn what makes a good shot. On the +ve though i've learned a lot about photography, and also added a old (its older than me!) SLR with similar lenses to compare results.

Si

in article clvsrs$km4$ snipped-for-privacy@titan.btinternet.com, Richard Brookman at snipped-for-privacy@nowhere.com wrote on 30/10/04 12:10 pm:

Ours does CF,SD/MS PRO, XD AND SM. I've got a multicard reader too(somewhere). Got it free with the camcorder.

Some of the cheap cameras are pretty poor, optically, but maybe OK for a web page. I currently use a Kodak camera which, in pixels, can give you a decent 10x8 print. Remember that you need quite a few printer pixels from an inkjet to get the colour variation between camera pixels.

I've recently been scanning in some old slides. Some of them, taken with a cheapish camera, are nicely exposed, good for colour, but just don't have the resolution. The difference when I went to an SLR is pretty obvious.

The cheapest slide/film scanner I know will scan about 1800 dpi, and I went for the next higher in the range. I'm not sure how often I'll get the full advantage of 2400 dpi, but it also came with better photo- editing software. Incidentally, if the film will record 1800 dpi, and the scanner scans at that, you won't get all the detail. You'll on;y be getting about 900dpi of detail. The edges in the image don't always line up with the edges in the sensor.

This is partly why high printer resolution will make a difference, even for a low-resolution picture.

Single-format readers can be had for under a tenner, maybe under a fiver is you don't want a USB cable (but a short one is handy). At that price, and the size they are, you can pack one with the camera. Though I am talking from te point of view of somebody who has many friends with computers. It's also handy for transferring files.

On or around Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:36:28 +0100, Nikki Cluley enlightened us thusly:

might work. especially in the fuji 1400, I found that AA alkalines only lasted for about 10 minutes, much less if usenig the display panel.

The Olympus seems to do better, but then again, the smallest set of batteries are 1800mAh, the other 2 are 2000, - I see you can now get 2300s. Naturally, as soon as I bought an inverter so that I could charge the buggers in the vehicle, I found someone selling a 12V charger plus set of 4 batteries. Mind, I bet the charger wasn't as fast as the Oly one, which is very quick indeed. gets the batteries a bit warm, mind.

On or around Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:40:16 +0100, Nikki Cluley enlightened us thusly:

the one I really fancied was the Oly 2100 UZ which has image stabilising as well, but they were a bit on the pricey side for me, even S/H. the one I did buy was a serious bargain, came with 5x128MB cards and 3 sets of batteries, and a decent case, plus of course the camera itself, fer about

165 inc postage ISTR. considering the memory cards were at the time 75 quidsworth.