Digi Cameras

Anyone know of a decent buying guide online? I'd love a nice flowchart to tick the boxes of what features you need and for it to tell you at the end what you need.

I have a friend who works for Canon so I think I ought to make good use of him!

Zoomer...checked an earlier thread and see you have the 300D. How much did you get it for and which lens do you have with it?

Cheers,
Tom

 

Zoomer has a 28-105 and 75-300 if I recall (I sold him one of them).

It does depend what you need, what you're going to use the images for (web, printing, publishing), how much you're willing to spend over what time period (ie are you happy to add additional lenses and accessories later?).

I have a Canon EOS D30 body in addition to all my film gear, and used to have a nikon coolpix 700. My father has just acquired a 20D, so if you have any questions I can be of help with, let me know...

 

Cheers Isaac,
I may run a couple of questions by you when I've done a bit more research.

One I can think of now though....I'm really keen on the Panoramic format (4"x8" Prints...I think) I currently use a Panoramic camera I got from a charity shop for 50p! I need this feature and notice it says Landscape as one of the size options on the Canon website. Do you know if thats the same dimensions?

Tom

 

No.

DSLRs are designed somewhat differently to p&s cameras. With the P&S it is expected that people will use the images as-is, straight out of the camera.

With a DSLR, it is expected that post-processing is a part of the process of creating an image. Thus DSLRs do not apply high levels of image sharpening (since you can do it in software later), offer different image shapes (you can crop it later in software), etc. DSLRs are optimised to record the best data set they can (ie without messing up colour information, introducing sharpening or jpg artefacts, etc) rather than the best output image.

 

Ah ok, so I'd have to crop it to get that shape. Is that an easy thing to do on the software?

I'll probably be looking to print out a fair amount of shots at a shop and will be leaning towards that format.


Found an online comparison site btw. Although most of them I had to leave blank as I'm not up to speed yet.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare.asp

 

Yes, cropping is very easy. You should look to obtain Photoshop Elements (as full-blown Photoshop CS will cost you similar to a 300D) as this will have all you want and probably more.

Dpreview is a useful resource, but be wary of the forums. There's vast amounts of rubbish spouted there by people with very little knowledge. Reading their forums you'd get the impression that 95% of the products canon or nikon or whoever ship are defective and must be returned...

 

Agree with Isaac about dpvreview.com. Excellent site but the forums are best avoided, especially if you want to ask people's opinions about what to buy as that will start an instant Nikon vs. Canon vs. Olympus flamewar. I used to take part in the Olympus SLR forum but gave it up a long time ago.

Michael.

 

depending what you want to spend when i got my 300D it was £800 i think now its a load cheaper, but there is also the 20d thats just come out thats around the £1000 mark.

both great cameras idea if you dont know too much about photography and want to learn. as for software a ver good application is Capture 1 this is cheaper then photoshop CS but it may need a tool like photoshop to do any after effects and for printing.

the type of pictures you want like panoramic can be done 2 ways have a lens that has a low mm size so that you get as much in the frame as possible and then as Isaac said you crop as you wish.
the other is to take multiple images preferably with a tripod and then using software available either as part of CS or i belive there are free alternatives that do a pretty good job and piecing the images together.

I ask Isaac most of the time for advice so what ever i say will probably just mimic something he says, but if i can help i will.

 

Cheers for that folks. I think I'll go and have a bit of a 'Hands on' look when I get a chance to hit the shops. I don't know if I'm going to need anything too advanced so I might just go for one from the Powershot range. Depnds how much discount I can get really!

 

Ok so I've trawled through a few of the better web sites and thanked my lucky stars I'm only looking at the Canon range and not getting confused by everything else out there!
Now my budget is variable depending on whether I think I will get alot more for my money hence the wide spread of options I'm looking at...

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/300d.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/pro1.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/g6.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/s1is.html

(I've kind of ruled out the Pro1 as I figure I might aswell spend the small amount more and get the 300D)

Now I'm wondering what more would I be able to do with the 300D over the G6 for example. Or the G6 over the S1IS. Obviously there are issues with the pixels and clarity of shots but as far as features and proper photography is concened would I be losing out on much choosing the G6 over the 300D? I've been meaning to get into taking proper photos for a long time so is the G6 still going to let me take some interesting shots with adjustment of shutter speeds etc?
Cheers,
Tom

 

Ok, first things first...

Megapixels does NOT equal quality. My D30 is "only" 3MP, but because of the low noise of the sensor, availability of sharp optics, etc, it can produce A4 prints that will shame a 5MP p&s.

The G6 offers a similar level of control over shutter speed, aperture, metering, AF, etc as the 300D does. The 300D's advantages lie in the interchangable lenses, larger sensor (lower noise), flexibility (battery grip offers higher capacity, vertical shooting), higher sensitivity, etc. If you feel that those aren't things you'll use, it's hard to justify the 300d over the G6.

The pro 1 is, unfortunately, afflicted with the exact same problem that all the other 8MP digicams that use that sony CCD are. Namely, noise. The sensor is just too small to support that kind of resolution.

The S1's big feature (in more ways than one) is the lens. A 10X zoom range with image stabilisation is a big deal, and to get the same on the 300D you would have to spend £1600 or so on the 28-300L IS, which weighs in at 1670g. However, it is 3mp on a small sensor which will limit your output in terms of print size for acceptable quality.

To me, it would come down to the G6 and 300d, as it seems you're narrowing it down to also. The extra capabilities of the 300d are a knockout blow in my opinion, but I have got £3.5k tied up in canon EF glass which skews it a bit for me.

For day-to-day snapping, there's little to choose between them. As soon as you want to do something a little less ordinary, eg macro work, telephoto work then the 300d is the clear choice.

A taster of what a "mere" D30 can do:

 

Nice pic Isaac. Judging by the file size and the fairly obvious JPEG artefacts in the background this file has been heavily compressed so, don't (anyone else) take that as anything to do with the D30's image quality.

Michael.

 

Indeed, it is an example of the sort of picture that is difficult to obtain with anything other than an SLR.



That's an uncompressed, completely unprocessed image straight out of the camera. No sharpening, no levels, no colour balancing, etc...

 

Cheers Isaac, lovely picture that.
Just a couple of quick ones so I'm fully clued up...think I know what you mean but bit of explanation on the phrases below?

larger sensor (lower noise)
battery grip offers higher capacity, vertical shooting
higher sensitivity, etc.

Cheers,
Tom

 

Larger sensor... Say you have two sensors, both of which are 3 megapixels, but one is three times the physical size of the other. You can imagine that more light will fall ok the bigger one.

This leads to two things. The first is lower noise, which is the graining effect you see on digital cameras. The noise is lower because less amplification is required due to the larger amount of light available in the first place. The smaller sensor needs more amplification.

The other thing it allows is higher sensitivity. Since the cameras with smaller sensors produce acceptable images, can we not boost the amplification on the bigger sensor to the same sort of level? Yes, we can and that gives higher sensitivity, giving the ability to shoot in lower light levels. Whilst consumer point and shoot cameras are routinely limited to ISO 400 sensitivity, DSLRs are normally capable of ISO 1600 or ISO 3200. In practice, this means that you can shoot the "same" picture in 1/8th as much light.

The 300D has an accessory battery grip which attaches to the bottom of the camera. This grip can take two of the Li-Ion batteries rather than one, doubling the number of pictures you can take without swapping batteries. It also has a second shutter button and other controls, allowing pictures to be taken in vertical format with a normal hand position on the camera.

 

Got it...thanks alot Isaac.
Next step is the test drive and a price check and I think we'll have a descision
Tom.

 

Following Isaac's comments - one further benefit of the larger CCD is that the magnification is less i.e. 1.5x what a 35mm camera would be so a 50mm lens turns into a 75mm lens in 35mm terms.

The advantage of this is that if you are shooting a portrait for example, it's easy to throw the background out of focus because the depth of field can be kept small - try to do this on a standard digicam with a small CCD and you don't stand a chance e.g. my Canon A70 has a 35-105mm zoom in 35mm terms but the actual lens is a 7-21mm and it's simply not possible to get a small depth of field with a 21mm lens with an F4.5 (or whatever it is) aperature. On top of this, with such a wide angle lens you get a fair bit of barrel distortion.

So, I'd say big CCDs rule and you should go the digital SLR route. Personally I'm planning to trade in my Nikon F90X for a D70 when the old redundancy money comes through and, although my 35-105 Nikkor will be of little use on the D70 (as it will become a 53-157mm lens), my 50mm F1.4 will become a rather tasty fast 75mm portrait lens

Matt.

 

Just to add... test driving is particularly important. You might find canon's interface stupid and irritating and find that nikon is perfect for you. You also might decide that the 300D or any DSLR is too cumbersome.

There's an old saying, "F8 and be there". The meaning of it is that it doesn't necessarily matter what camera, what lens etc, as long as you get the shot. You can have the most wonderful camera in the world, but it's no good if you left it at home because it's too heavy. For example, I want one of the very small, slim digital cameras so that I can put it in my camelbak and have it with me when I'm out riding on the moors. I'd never take an slr because of size, weight, and damage caused to both it and me should I fall.

 

One more thing....presumably if I wanted black and white shots I'd just turn them black and white at the editing stage?

 

Heavymental - yes converting to B&W can be done with Photoshop or similar. What's more you have much more control over the process and can simulate things like orange filters etc. Many point and shoot cameras have a B&W mode built in but that's because the users of them probably don't want to be messing around with post-processing.

Heathcliff....is that you?

I know what you mean about a second small digicam. My Oly E-10 is really a bit cumbersome to be lugging around everywhere I go so I only take it when I know I'm planning to do some shooting.

Michael.