Digital Cameras: A friendly guide for entry level users

[TJ]

Now, before i begin, i will testify that i know very little about cameras.
My claim to fame is having an expensive camera that i have no idea how to use :)

But, lately, i have been getting asked alot about what camera to buy as ppl now begin to realise that a digital camera is a great thing. It is 2005 after all, and technology is getting cheaper and better.

A few points I personally believe in , and by no means are these actually right... ;)

1 - do not buy anything without optical zoom. your better off putting your money into a shredder, and then setting it on fire. digital zoom is dirty, and wrong. it doesnt zoom, it magnifies an area of a picture to look bigger. avoid it all costs. This also means your intial purchase price will also rise , but its well worth the money. 3 times is standard, go for more if you can afford it

2- I get this at work so much , so ill mention it now - digital cameras chew batteries - invest in a charger and rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries.. your normal alkaline aa's will get raped hard in any camera. there is no way two ways about it. Try to go for something with a lithium battery - once again, this adds to cost.

3 - dont get pissed off when the salesperson gives you only 16mb of memory (32 if your lucky). Unless its some pack deal, thats the industry standard. I only got 32mb with my camera, and that was a near on 2000 dollar purchase.
Memory prices have dropped hard in the last year ie when i began working for dick smith 10 months ago, 256mb of xd memory was 220 dollars. its now 85 dollars. Sd was about 200 for 256mb, its now 55. Buy as big as you can, do it once do it right, or end up with 20 64mb cards, which you then lose etc. For cameras around 3mp, 256mb is plenty, for 4 5 6 etc, you may want to think about 512mb. I have 1 gig, and at 8mp its good for 420 pics without turning on special modes, which can push a pic to around 8mb each ! End of the day it is an added extra , and if your tight on budget leave it till later.

4 - beware the ebay china deal ... Ive seen people selling 6mp , 7mp, cameras on ebay for way under what you consider normal price. Heres the reason - they have utter shit lenses. While mp is an important part of a camera, it is not the be all and end all. A 100mp camera with a shit 5c china lens in it will get owned by any decent 3mp camera with a decent lens. i had a customer bring me one of these and talk it up. His comments where along the lines that camera stores where rip offs because of what we charge for only 3 little mp compared to his wonderful 7mp camera... until i proceeded to open a 3.2mp pentax, take one picture, and show him what it looked like on a pc. He bought it on the spot. End of the day mp stands for millions of pixels and it really relates to picture size. Sure you want it to be higher rather then lower, as you cant really stretch a 2mp picture far before it turns to poo. Just remember, 3.2mp is a a4 size of paper, and who is going to print bigger then that 99.9% of the time? At 20 odd dollars at a camera place, definitely not me!

5 - dont buy on looks - always look at the features, not the fact it has a shiny chrome casing. simple. dont be lured in by the asthetic appeal of a camera.

6- do not buy a digital camera if your main goal is to take videos. they dont do it well at all, in fact i would say they are pathetic. see if as a bonus not an expectation.

7- shop around, and listen to opinions. dont be afraid to ask questions, dont be afraid to question comments. dont be afraid to ask why when your told something. Unfortunately alot of people work on commision, so are more then happy to push you into a sale.

Get out there, and happy shopping! Remember i dont know all, but if you need to know something feel free to ask. im Sure people like Franz and Fil will have something to say about this, i await some sort of ownage :P


These are a few suggested buys in the entry level of the market


http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/429ad68a00f557bc2740c0a87f9c075b/Product/View/XG4770

optical zoom, decent lens for the price, easy to use, inbuilt memory. good beginer.


http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/429ad68a00f557bc2740c0a87f9c075b/Product/View/XG3402

good amount of zoom, 4mp with a good lens


http://www.cpluse.com/Module/Show.aspx?ID=1062

huge fan of these , awesome lens, takes great pics, still easy to use. as article says, has a couple of flaws. ive seen these from 399 to 799, so look around.


there is so much more to pick from, so thats just a quick run down.

happy shopping

tj

[R31 POWER]

Good stuff T,I never knew about more then half of what you had posted.

[Miami]

tj - which dick smiths you at??

[TJ]

balcatta :)

[suburban]

ncie little write up there man

[Calais_RB30]

awesome, cheers for that.

[LNYMRKO]

Nice writeup, Papparazzi. ;)

[Monza]

Thanks TJ.

Wish you had of done that two weeks back when I started looking. Ended up buying a Canon Ixus 30 which I am very happy with.

I found a couple of other good review sites for people interested

www.dpreview.com

and

http://reviews.cnet.com/

[TJ]

Nice writeup, Papparazzi. ;)


The rustling of the bushes and the flash of light wasnt wind and ligthening Lenny :)

[Daniel VR4]

Good writeup tj, im a fan of digital cameras as well...they are hell good....but seriously not for videos.....the videos turn out ok but their so so....i had like 3 diff digicams b4 this and from my opinion....canon and casio are one of the best brands.....kodaks alrite too....depends actually on wat u want....and how much you got to spend....aight anyways buy one...haha!!

[Starion_turbo]

Im in the market for one.

Every decent picture I see taken these days are by Canons. Trouble is that they are fairly pricy.

[TJ]

Canon make some awesome stuff

power shot pro 1 - 8mp

10d
20d
30d

all 1500 dollars and up


this was more aimed beginners

low end canon stuff is ok

[Remix]

Well done champ, good write up! The old Olympus C-770 never fails the job for me.. however I would love to go digi SLR one day.

[TJ]

30d is now retail of 1199, because its an older model

ebay used gotta be under 1k now :)

[OmEg_A7]

Dont u mean 300d?

Dont mix them up the 300D and the 20D are two very different cameras.
Both are digi SLR, but the 300D is 6.3mp, and the 20D is 8mp.

If you can afford a camera like a digi slr, then go for a 20d they are a superior camera.

I have a 300d, they are awesome, but the lens you get with it is fairly limited, and glass is rather expensive, the best thing about these cameras over digi non SLR is the ability to alter shutter speeds and have timed exposures, making it perfect for night photography.

[TJ]

yeah dude i meant 300d, i was at work and typing like a nutter on my lunch break

300d is now 1200 odd retail :)

[Daniel VR4]

the slr i is too small i reckon to hold....but thats a hell nice digicam....buy a digicam...its great..!

[BASSULA]

my olympus C-750 has done extreemly well in its time that I have had it..

the equilivant now (770 I think) is even a touch better and for the $700 price range I honestly dont think there is much else that is this good...

if you want a nice point n click camera to like take out on the town etc tho the canon IXUS cameras are great I bought the missus the IXUS 320 and it takes awesome photos for such a lil cam.. its an expensive lil cam but the quality is damn good.. ;)

cheers

[RICEY]

You say u know nothing about cameras then ramble on an essay on them so why should we use any of the info you posted hahaha

[Amfibius]

I am a photography advanced amateur and i'm fortunate enough to own some pro gear and have done some paid work. I migrated upwards to a DSLR from little digital point-and-shoots a few years back. What TJ said is quite correct. These are some of my pointers for beginners.

The sensor IMO is the most important part of an entry level camera. Unfortunately it's hard to tell what is a "good" sensor and what is a "bad" sensor just by reading the specs. You will have to see the pictures at 100% magnification to decide.

A "good" sensor will capture detail with minimum noise, have true to life colours, and have a wide dynamic range (dynamic range = ability to capture dark and light tones in the same image). For various reasons, sensors with the largest pixel pitch will perform better (though not always the case). This is one reason why a 4MP Nikon D2H outperforms an 8MP Sony F828 - the Nikon has a larger sensor.

This carries on to my next point - which is, a higher megapixel rating is not necessarily better. Camera makers realize that consumers equate more MP with better quality, so there is a race to cram even more MP into tiny sensors. This reduces the pixel pitch which means each individual pixel is struggling to get any light. This will degrade the performance of the sensor. There are ways around it - like rearranging the electronics of the sensor so that the transistors sit behind the sensor, or adding microlenses on top of the sensor, or improving the post-processing circuitry (a'la Canon DIGIC2). Then there is the whole debate about CMOS vs. CCD sensors which I won't get into.

Hopefully I have convinced you not to look at the MP rating alone. An expensive camera with "only" 5MP will probably outperform a cheaper camera with 8MP.

I will post more about the lens and body if you want me to :)

[suburban]

more...

[Amfibius]

Lenses. Once again, the performance of the lens does not depend on the maker. You cannot make a blanket statement that all Leica or Zeiss lenses are good. The Sony cameras are labelled Zeiss but do not use legendary Zeiss glass. Instead the lenses are designed by Zeiss but manufactured by Sony. The performance of some of these Sony lenses are well below average - the Sony F828 (their top of the line camera) is an example. OTOH the Leica lens as fitted to the Panasonic DMC-LC1 is a genuine Leica item which is reflected in the high purchase price.

So how can you tell how well the lens is performing? 2 ways - you can look at lens test charts (lines per mm, MTF charts, etc) or you can examine the pictures yourself. Nobody publishes lens test charts for P&S digicams so i'll just have to tell you what to look for.

Sharpness and resolution. Difficult to tell on a P&S because most apply sharpening when the file is processed. The amount of sharpening varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Generally, the performance of the lens is best at the center and poorest at the edge. Take a picture of some vegetation and look at the resolution of the leaves or grass from center to edge. You may well see individual leaves in the center blurring out to a mass of colour at the edge.

Optical defects. Chromatic aberration is very easy to spot. Basically, around an area of high contrast (e.g highlight on a car, the edge of a building against bright sky) you may see a purple fringe. On some cameras this is so bad that a tree taken against the sky looks purple. Vignetting is where the light falls off at the edge of the sensor. To check for vignetting, take a picture of an even coloured surface under even lighting, e.g. a painted wall on a sunny day. The tone of the wall should be the same at the corner as it is in the center.

Then there are technical aspects to the lens. The job of a camera lens is to gather and focus light. For various reasons, physically larger lenses are better at this. The lenses maximum aperture (or how big the lens will open) is another critical factor. Apertures are quoted in terms of fractions of the focal length. A typical P&S lens would be 7mm F/2.8, meaning that the maximum aperture is (7/2.8) = 2.5mm. Compare this to a cheap SLR lens, the 50mm F/1.8 which sells for $200. The aperture is (50/1.8) = 27.7mm. A camera with a physically larger aperture will be better able to gather light in low light conditions. The tradeoff is that larger apertures are difficult and more expensive to design.

IMO the amount of optical zoom is not a critical factor in determining lens purchase. I do not care if a camera is 3x zoom if the performance of the lens degrades so much at the telephoto end that it renders the camera unusable. I would rather have a high quality 2x optical zoom and walk closer to my subject. Remember that zoom is a convenience feature.

One final word: P&S cameras are driven by marketing. Beware of high MP claims and ridiculous amounts of "zoom". Most likely these are interpolated, e.g. a 4MP sensor can "do" 6MP if the missing pixels are interpolated. A 3x zoom becomes a 6x zoom if the center bit is cropped and interpolated. The results are universally disappointing. You can fudge your own "digital zoom" on your home computer and in fact I regularly do it when I find my lenses are not long enough. Ask yourself which you would rather have process your image - the cheap digicam or your powerful desktop computer? Thought so :)

[ED40]

wish i saw this thread before i bought a cheap ebay one.... lol

appreciate the info!

[V8ENZ]

I know this is an old ****ing thread, but it was easier than starting a new one.

I'm in the market for a new digi camera (bathurst next w'end and i want some piccies with the grid girls) it will also be used for work, pictures for instruction manuals ect.

I am useless at taking photos and have a little photoshop ability.

I would like to stay on the lower side of $600 if possible.

what camera would you guys recommend?

Cheers

Nik

[[SPESHAL]]

Canon Ixus. Done me well. Slips in your pocket too. If size isnt an issue, Canon Powershot.

[TJ]

Nik shoulda bought my Sony I had for 200 bucks! Coulda got a 1 gig card for another 140ish, charger and batteries for about 60, so 400 all up, able to take 1000 photos all weekend without issue.

[V8ENZ]

**** aye TJ

forgot to add, i have a 1gig sd card so want a digi that will take it

[[2_FLY]]

Hey nik this is the next model down from the camera i use and has a good enough zoom for car action as well as long distance arse shots.
http://www.camerastore.com.au/Panasonic+Lumix+DMC%2DFZ7+%28Silver%29-details.htm

[V8ENZ]

looks pretty flash gav, cheers

[ben351]

http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/IMP/IMP161/INGPCYHE0435.jpg

heres my baby ... nothing flash but it does the job hey :D

[BAXR6T]

lol
ive got a small kodak v603... does the job nice and clear !

[V8ENZ]

ok, so i just bought a Panasonic DMC-FZ7
it was a toss between the panasonic and a Canon Powershot S3 IS at almost the same price.

ended up with the FZ7 because of the better battery and Gavs recommendation.

there was a claim that the FZ7 suffers more noise at high ISO levels but sounded like BS.

expect some hi res boob shots from bathurst.

[Fryman]

Ok heres a question...

I got a dsc-n1 sony

Now you see how people take pictures where it focuses on one object in the foreground and blurs the background. I cannot for the life of me do it..

For example.. take a floor and put a flyspray can on the floor.. now use the either center autofocus or spot autofocus, it takes the picture nicely but doesnt do the background foreground object focus thing that i want it to do... Any ideas! SOME people say its possible, others say you need a proper digital SLR type camera to get that result.

[TJ]

Youll need a slr, or luck and skill. you need to play with the distance etc you take the pic from, might be able to blur it due to changing the focal lenght.