Digital cameras

[Andra_Jenny]

Getting away from the technical for a bit a thought occurred to me on the way to morning workout,

The digital camera really improved my photography because you get that instant feedback, and because you can erase bad pictures on the fly, you do not worry about conserving film, and oddly, this seems to better enable you to get that good shot. You know if the lighting is correct, etc. It has been a real godsend.

 

[Weird Harold]

Mine pales in comparison, P3 536mhz, 128mbsdram, 20.4gb disc, 800x600 vid with 11mb mem, 8x dvd-rom, cdrw, Polk speakers, HP Officejet 600 color printer, Visioneer 7600 1200dpi(true) 36-bit color scanner. I want to get pictures for emailing and also to put into brochures and a business web site.

Now, I'm wondering if this hardware is going to be good for the digital camera. Harold, are you listening?

Your system should be fine for what you want to do with pictures. The only thing you might want to upgrade is the printer. My daughter just replaced an HP 600 with an HP 900 series printer and just absolutely raves about the picture quality.

Chuckus' system will probably process things a bit faster but the printer speed is going to be the major limiting factor.

 

[April]

Re: Re: Figures don't lie...

I'll have to look into a specialized scanner. I have a lot of old negatives and slides that I'd like to burn onto a CDROM for archival purposes. The prints have long been lost and I'm not even sure what's on the negatives.

I might be able to help you with that, Harold. The place I work at does burn cut negatives and slides to a Kodak Photo CD or a regular CD. I believe it runs about $20 for 24 exposures. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll get more info. Or you could simply call around your area. You should be able to find someone locally.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Figures don't lie...

Paintshop Pro has similar features, but it sounds like film factory is easier to use for multiple image prints.

Try Thumbs Plus (see above). There is a full function version you can download and try for 30 days. It will print out multiple images of any size you choose on the same page.

The thing I like most about PaintShop Pro, is that while other programs may do one thing better, PSP does just about everything with just about any image format.

I have EZ-Photo which collects images from all over the system and displays them in "albums" that can be shown as slide shows or converted to a screen saver. It has some limited editing capabilities as well. I keep it around because the slide show screen saver is one thing PSP doesn't do.

I have Adobe PhotDeluxe versions 1.0 and 2.0. They are easier to use for redeye reduction and compositing. Both are much slower and more memory intensive than PSP.

I've tried several other programs for organizing, printing, and othrwise manipulating pictures, but I keep coming back to PaintShop Pro because it's faster, can handle bigger images and more versatile.

For what I do, it suits my needs. That's really the bottom line for what program is "best."

[Edited by Weird Harold on 01-20-2001 at 03:01 PM]

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Re: Re: Figures don't lie...

I might be able to help you with that, Harold. The place I work at does burn cut negatives and slides to a Kodak Photo CD or a regular CD. I believe it runs about $20 for 24 exposures. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll get more info. Or you could simply call around your area. You should be able to find someone locally.

About a dollar per image is what I've found around here. The problem is that dollar per image adds up when you've got thirty some rolls of 36 exposures to process. <G> It's cheaper to wait for the cost of a scanner to come down a bit more and do it myself.

 

[April]

Yep, it sure is. Wow, that's a lot of film! I'd be there all freakin' day doing that. LOL Well, I thought I'd offer. Kind of my good deed for the day. LOL Whew, now I can be a bitch again!

 

[Weird Harold]

Yep, it sure is. Wow, that's a lot of film! I'd be there all freakin' day doing that. LOL Well, I thought I'd offer. Kind of my good deed for the day. LOL Whew, now I can be a bitch again!

I know that a couple of rolls were from a trip to Seaworld (in Florida)in 1978. At that time in my life, I figured ten rolls of 36 exposures were just about right for a day in a theme-park. (that's about one picture every two minutes.)

That brings up another advantage of a digital camera for me. I love to take pictures. I just don't care how soon they get developed, or do anything with the pictures once I've reviewed them. With a digital camera, I don't have to worry about the film deteriorating before I get around to having it developed. <G>

 

[Jake2001]

Lost quality in jpg save

That brings up another advantage of a digital camera for me. I love to take pictures. I just don't care how soon they get developed, or do anything with the pictures once I've reviewed them. With a digital camera, I don't have to worry about the film deteriorating before I get around to having it developed. <G>

Good point Harold. But speaking of deterioration, it is important remember that you lose some quality of resolution each time you save a picture in jpg format because of compression. I always download the original images from the camera and keep them intact on the harddrive or CD. When I save an edited image, I always add a 'b' to the file name. That way I can always go back and start with the highest quality image if I ever want to re-edit for some reason.

 

[Chuckus]

Chuckus' system will probably process things a bit faster but the printer speed is going to be the major limiting factor.

Harold you are exactly right on the money. The printer speed can make or break the whole thing. If you have a kick butt computer but an old printer, then you are kinda spinning your wheels........the printer is a big key to the whole thing too, a modest computer and a kick butt printer makes for great rendering of photos.

 

[fgarvb1]

I'm in for it now. The wife just bought a HP photosmart 315
digital camera. {groan!} The bastard who designed it and the joker who wrote the firmware download instructions should be boiled in oil after being staked out on an ant hill for a couple of days.

 

[Guest]

A novice

 

[Closet Desire]

Check out the...

...Fuji Finepix 4900 which has manual override everything. I just read an article about controlling depth of field which, as you point out, is a bit of a problem on most digitals. The truth is, of course, that until recently most digitals under £1,000 are snapshot cameras. If you can live with that then it's great. I'm not adept at this but on portraits you should be able to blur the background in your software program. If you're using a background for your portrait it shouldn't be a real trick to define the lines of the subject and blur, colour, cut or whatever the rest of it.

 

[Jake2001]

Re: Camera Controls

I love to take pics but I really am a novice, however there is one aspect of digitals that really separates the men from the boys for me and that is the ability to control depth of field. Most digitals have everything in focus. Sometimes that just wont work for me, especially with portraits. From what I see that feature really drives the price up. Anybody have experience with a digital that can handle that?

No Indy, what CD said is true. Be prepared to spend some bucks if you want to get features like that. Although it is possible to do just about anything in good software (like Adobe Photoshop), the more you do in the camera such as controlling the depth of field, the better off you are going to be.