Digital camera

[Buck]

Beautiful looking street Tea, much less manicured then my own. I doubt I'll ever visit Ballarat, but Australia as a whole beckons my visit.

 

[Tea]

CPUs. Not relevant to your task, James, but CPUs are really, really easy. Or at least they are with the Mavica, which has excellent macro abilities.

In fact, there is something of a mystery there. The Mavica has several pre-set focus buttons (well, one button, but you know what I mean) - 0.5m, 1m, 3m, 7m, infinity and auto.

For some reason that is utterly beyond my understanding, you can set these any way you like and it just cheerfuly ignores you and auto focuses anyway. Even more beyond my ken is that, for the sort of stuff I am interested in doing, it seems to produce the best results on the macro (0.5m) setting no matter how far away you are from the subject.

It makes no sense at all, but the best way to get pictures of medium-sized objects like motherboards is to ...

(Tea!)

(Sorry Tannin. I said CPUs first, and CPUs first it is. I'll talk about boards later.)

For CPUs and similar small objects, I still use 1024 resolution, get as close as I like, point and click. That's about it. And the results are often very pleasing:

Those two are by daylight, the next two are indoors with flash. Surprisingly enough, flash works just fine with this small stuff, so long as you are careful with camera angles.

And, of course, if you use a hard drive too, it can be lots of fun.

You can take things square-on too, of course, but it starts to look very, very boring rather quickly, and you have to line things up exactly straight, otherwise it looks poor.

 

[Mercutio]

Ignoring the native beauty of Tannin's hometown (that garden is spectacular), that last batch of images - the P5 reflected in the platter and the AMD 386, are both really outstanding photographs.

 

[time]

Yes, he's disturbingly good, isn't he? A good eye for composition and steady hands.

In another thread, Buck made the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the 75GXP autopsy pictures should have been taken with Tannin's Mavica, rather than the Nikon Coolpix 995. Not only does the Nikon have four times the resolution, it has a solid reputation for macro shooting.

Yet Tannin's pictures are vastly superior. In fact, they're as good as any I've seen in brochures etc, shot by pros. I can only hope that Tea manages to stop him getting a swelled head. :wink:

 

[Handruin]

Now you got me interested in a camera. I looked up the FD 1000 and wow is it expensive. (and discontinued)

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?cameras=sony_cd1000&method=sidebyside I see it's the CD version, is the FD just as expensive?

 

[Pradeep]

I think Tony has the FD-100, the FD1000 was a typo he corrected later. I couldn't find a review of it at dpreview.com.

Here it is:

FD100

 

[James]

Blah blah blah, lovely photos, how to take pictures, blah blah blah - but what I still want to know is what digital camera I should get.

 

[Pradeep]

Is Merc's G2 on crack?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0204/02042203g2crackcomment.asp

 

[time]

James is chafing, so here is my amateur attempt at selecting a camera for him. All you photo-phreaks can correct me later.

Firstly, the brands you can actually get in Oz: Canon, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Sony. You can also get Fuji and Minolta, but I've no idea where. I've seen Panasonic and Samsung too, but I'm not sure they should be mentioned in the same breath as proper brands.

Your target price appears to be AU$500 including tax, or about US$200. That excludes Nikon and Sony outright, and probably Canon as well.

You mentioned the Kodak DC3200, which is something you'd buy your nieces and nephews for Christmas. The showstopper feature here is its minimum focussing distance of 60cm. Combined with the weeny f4.7 lens, it's probably best for pictures of the sunlit side of a barn.

Next step up is the Kodak DX3215, which actually has a "macro" function that gets you up to 25cm away. Wow. Under AU$450 and it adds 2x optical zoom with a maximum aperture of f3.8. Sound better? But what's this, there's no automatic focussing, the bloody thing is infinite focus!

You can also set fire to your money with the Kodak DX3500, which at AU$500 gives you more pixels, takes away the zoom, and still offers only infinite focus.

You might still be able to pick up an obsolete Olympus C100 for as little as AU$450. No zoom, a weedy f4 lens, and minimum distance of 25cm. Batteries and charger are AU$85 extra (like Canon A series, they pretend you can get by with alkaline batteries).

Olympus C1 raises the quality bar, with an f2.8 maximum aperture, 2x optical zoom and 10cm minimum distance. But it's nearly AU$650. The battery comments still apply.

Now that we've blown your budget, let's consider the Canon A30 at about AU$600. f2.8, 3x optical zoom and 16cm minimum distance. Good allrounder, but don't forget it eats standard alkalines for breakfast. Budget for a rechargeable setup.

The best on paper for what you want would be the Nikon 2500, because of its swivelling lens and decent macro facility down to 4cm. It's also a 2 megapixel camera and tiny, but I'd guess it's nearly double what you'd want to pay.

Now for those of us that thought Tannin and Tea were mad, I checked the specs on the Sony FD100. The damn thing has a huge f1.8 maximum aperture, and a minimum autofocus distance of 3cm :excl: Plus 3x optical zoom and it comes bundled with a rechargeable lithium battery and charger.

Maybe Red Hill's finest do know what they are doing?

 

[Mercutio]

Is Merc's G2 on crack?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0204/02042203g2crackcomment.asp

Not yet. Believe me, I'm taking good care of it, although I haven't shot many images with it yet. The interface is a little clunky compared to my Kodak, too.

For what it's worth, I'd rather have a manual focus than automatic. I've had entirely too many pictures ruined after composition by a camera deciding to focus on infinity rather than the object I'm trying to photograph.

Iomega.com is selling 340MB microdrives for $70. Anyone interested in a link?

 

[Tea]

That idiot Tannin had gone and deleted every single damn file off his server, just because he was three and a half GB over his 20GB limit and he was too damn lazy to try to work out which files were the useless ones that should have been deleted years ago. Oh no. That would be too bloody easy for our Mr Swelled Bloody Head Tannin. Much more practical to nuke the whole damn lot - .jpg, .zip, .html, right down to the .htaccess file - and just put back the ones he wants to keep.

Ha!

Now I get to sort his mess out.

Still, at least I can impose a little bit or order while I'm at it: changing his impractical file name system to something that makes sense, for a start. What a mess he made of it!

Anyway, when I've finished, so long as no one objects, I'm going to make him go through his Storage Forum posts and amend his URLs to fit the new filenames.

Bloody men. It's probably going to take me all night.

Oh, and, er , guys? Do you really think Tannin is a photographer? Mr nose-in-a-book-all-day Tannin? Let's just say that he has better pictures and worse ones, and he had someone help with most of the better ones. She's a little shy, so I won't mention her name.

 

[Buck]

Tea,

Tell Tannin to use software to recover his files, unless of course he's already gone and over-written them.

As for his photography - help or not, his pictures have turned out better then those of "professional" review sites.

In regards to this thread in general, the information has been quite educational, although I am surprised that the likes of Tea and Mercutio visit this thread with their dial-up connections. More pictures of Ballarat would be nice, maybe the odd picture of Red Hill on Tannin's website would be nice touch too.

 

[Mercutio]

Mozilla blithely ignores off-server images, so unless I'm someplace where there's a faster internet connection and no Mozilla (ie working), I don't see them.

 

[Tannin]

Ahh, Tea is just a panic merchant. Nothing in the slightest unplanned or dangerous going on. I just downloaded the entire site to my local drive, backed it up to CD, and then deleted the remote copy. If Tea would stop running round in circles waving her hands in the air for an hour or so, I'd have the new, no-server-space-wasted site already FTPed back up. We have almost finished the motherboards section already.

But I have to admit, Tea helped with most of the pictures.

Seriously guys, those comments of yours above made my day. Thankyou!

Now, back to work before Tea starts frothing at the mouth again ...

 

[Pradeep]

20 GB of remote storage Tony? Or is that 20 MB?

Merc, make sure those 340MB Microdrives are Mk II models that spin at 3600rpm, and not the first gen models that spin at 4400rpm. The Mk I models did have reports of failures in some cameras (perhaps a heat related problem?)

From what I can work out here are the two different versions of the 340MB drives:

Product: UPC Code: SCM P/N IBM P/N
340 MB IBM Microdrive 087944-502500 MD340 07N4096
340 MB IBM Microdrive 087944-561699 MD340 07N5600

I'm guessing the second drive is the latest model.

Did you know there is a $50 dollar rebate on them?

http://www.microtechint.com/specialoffers/50off-mdrebate/index.html

 

[Tea]

Thanks for editing my posts, Tannin.

 

[Tannin]

No problem, little sister. All the URLs are different now that we have more-or-less reloaded the site, so I just adjusted the links.

Pradeep: yes, an FD-100. The 1000 was a mistake. And 20MB too. 20GB of server space would be nice, but it's actually 20MB.

 

[Pradeep]

I was just thinking how long 20GB would take to dl on a dial up modem and realised it must be MB.

Tony, did you see the post a few days ago with bizzarro english in it?

Lo = Hello?
Go = Gigabyte?
Mo = Megabyte?

Needless to say I didn't reply lol.

 

[Tannin]

20MB takes long enough!

Post? What post?

 

[Pradeep]

Sorry should have said thread. I believe it was in the "other place". No matter.

 

[James]

David,

I think that ranks as about the most useful response to a post of mine I've ever had. Thank you immensely.

You're very good at spending other people's money, aren't you? But seriously, I think what you're saying in a very nice way is that if I want to get a camera worthy of the name, I'm going to have to spend a bit more money.

Cameras are hard for me, because I don't know enough about them to make judgements on them from the specs. Televisions, computers, DVD players and so on I know inside out and I can ask questions manufacturers apparently can't answer (eg. "does it accept progressive scan? Okay, how about PAL progressive? Does the PAL progressive bypass the internal line doubler?" etc.) but with cameras I'm reduced to the "what's that circular glass thing at the front?" level, I'm afraid. I don't even know the right questions to ask.

Thanks again. Anyone have anything to add before I set off to the local camera shop, cash in my hand?

 

[Pradeep]

Buy from the USA?

 

[James]

Excellent timing : I've got to go to HK on business for the week of the 13th. So I can probably get more camera for my money - I'm going to sell my Sun box to cover it (the things I do!).

So what's a good, midpriced digital camera? I'll probably spend about A$800 or so (about HK$4K I guess). Maybe the A40?

 

[Tannin]

I'm afraid I can't offer any useful advice on that James. I just don't know anything much about them, other than my own Sony, which is almost certainly not the right thing for you.

Tea will no doubt finish off her mini-how-to sometime over the next few days with some tips on distance and scaling, and complaints about how hard it is to photograph motherboards.

 

[Buck]

Tannin,

Do you use the memory stick much with your camera, or do you primarily work with the floppy diskette? Additionally, how well has the battery performed for you?

BR

 

[Tea]

I've been meaning to buy a memory stick for some time, Buck. Not got around to it yet. Well, I did buy a 512k one, but discovered it was the wrong sort. (Bloody Sony.) But I gave it to my dad for his new Nikon, so it wasn't wasted. So 100% floppy at present. I should imagine that the only thing I'll use the stick for is non-computer stuff, such as if I take the camera to a family event or some such.

Battery life is OK. Just OK, not fantastic. It's lithium and lasts for maybe an hour or so if I'm shooting quite a lot, half that if I'm using flash, and I'd like it to be longer but it's not much trouble to plug it back into the juice most of the time. I imagine that a 4 times normal speed floppy (which the Mavica uses) must chew through quite a lot of juice.

Is it my imagiation, or is the life shorter now than it used to be already? I have given it quite a hammering, after all. Ten images to the floppy, on average, and I can't quite fit the backups onto one blank CD. That's quite a lot of snaps.

 

[Buck]

I've been meaning to buy a memory stick for some time, Buck. Not got around to it yet. Well, I did buy a 512k one, but discovered it was the wrong sort. (Bloody Sony.) But I gave it to my dad for his new Nikon, so it wasn't wasted. So 100% floppy at present. I should imagine that the only thing I'll use the stick for is non-computer stuff, such as if I take the camera to a family event or some such.

What file types have you picked for your pictures (JPEG Standard, TIFF)?

Battery life is OK. Just OK, not fantastic. It's lithium and lasts for maybe an hour or so if I'm shooting quite a lot, half that if I'm using flash, and I'd like it to be longer but it's not much trouble to plug it back into the juice most of the time. I imagine that a 4 times normal speed floppy (which the Mavica uses) must chew through quite a lot of juice.

Hmmm. I wonder how well that camera would perfom at a family event. Turn on the flash, take a few pictures, and the battery is dead. That would be annoying. However, I do like the quality of the pictures you've taken so far. I doubt it is all because of you, the camera must have some good qualities to it.

Is it my imagination, or is the life shorter now than it used to be already? I have given it quite a hammering, after all. Ten images to the floppy, on average, and I can't quite fit the backups onto one blank CD. That's quite a lot of snaps.

Ten images to the floppy? What file type and size are you shooting at again?

Thanks for you help.

BR

 

[Tea]

Those are rough estimates only, Buck. And assuming that I'm not really doing anything else much bar take pictures: i.e., getting on for constant use. At a family event, unless it was a wedding or something like that, you'd not take snaps at anything like that rate. This is when I've got a half-dozen items to potograph all lined up and take somewhere between ten and fifty shots of each, stopping every twenty or forty shots to look at them on-screen and see how I'm going.

The Sony has just two image formats: JPG and GIF. The gif is useless for anything except documents, it's grey-scale only. I usually shoot at 1024 x 768. The Sony has two different 1280 modes, plus 640 x 480, but 1024 works best for me. Sometimes I'll shoot at 1280 but the images get too cumbersome to work with easily, and the extra resolution doesn't achieve all that much. I think that a TIFF option would be ideal for motherboards. The file size would be enormous but I could crop and resize before converting to JPG or PNG. (Motherboards are very difficult, because you need masses of detail and they have lots of square edges. Not really good JPG material. Indeed, a proper GIF would be better for them - no need for more than 256 colours, sharp edged are a must.

I think the real answer for motherboards is my dad's Nikon. Another $2000. Sigh.

 

[Pradeep]

Tea, what camera did your Dad get? A film based or digital? I'm guessing the Coolpix 5000?

 

[Pradeep]

What kind of rechargeable battery is in your camera? A Lithium Ion batt should be good for 300-500 "full" recharges, or the equivalent of part charges, before it's charge capacity drops down too much.

 

[Tea]

Digital, Pradeep. He has an assortment of Canons for film, plus the usual miscelleny of dark room gear and lenses and stuff that keen photographers collect over the years.

Not sure the model, but you can probably work it out from the price. It was $2600 until the day before he bought it (maybe two months ago), when it dropped to $2000 - sometimes you just get lucky!

 

[Cliptin]

Excellent timing : I've got to go to HK on business for the week of the 13th. So I can probably get more camera for my money - I'm going to sell my Sun box to cover it (the things I do!).

So what's a good, midpriced digital camera? I'll probably spend about A$800 or so (about HK$4K I guess). Maybe the A40?

James, Curious to know what you ended up with.

 

[The JoJo]

I just bought my father a Canon Powershot G2 + 256MB kingston CF. The camera feels quite good, a bit heavy though. The zoom is easy to use. The only complain I might have is that the LCD is a bit small, and the font size perhaps a bit too small for elderly people. Other than that the camera felt quite good.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

I still use my "old" Olympus C-2500, which is still one of the best "affordable" (< US$1200) low-light digital still cameras to date -- except that it isn't manufactured and sold any longer. It has a large aspherical low-dispersion glass lens, uses both SmartMedia and CompactFlash, full-manual control capability.

Now, what I *really* need is a half-way affordable Nikon digital still camera that can accept the dozen or more expensive fast Nikkor conventional camera lenses (Nikon bayonet mount) that I have for use with my 35-year-old Nikon F and 20-year-old F3.

Unfortunately, the "cheapest" such a dream camera comes is still too much at about US$3600 for a Nikon D1H. And, using my "old" conventional Nikkor lenses on one of these "new" digital Nikons throws the camera into full manual mode without the use of the internal light meter. <argh>

 

[Fushigi]

I just bought my father a Canon Powershot G2 + 256MB kingston CF. The camera feels quite good, a bit heavy though. The zoom is easy to use. The only complain I might have is that the LCD is a bit small, and the font size perhaps a bit too small for elderly people. Other than that the camera felt quite good.

Nice. I've got the G1 and have been quite happy with it. Coupled with a 1GB MicroDrive it stored over 650 pics from our wedding through our honeymoon. All shots @ 2Kx1.5K max quality. Still had room for another 400+ shots.

Battery life is another strong suit.

When downloading hundreds of pics at a time, I did get some transmit probs over the USB line. This messed up some of the photos & I re-downloaded them individually. Doing 50+ shots at a time is fine, but doing hundreds may be a little troublesome. Doesn't the USB spec include error correction?

- Fushigi

 

[Pradeep]

I find the biggest problem with transferring hundreds of pics from Microdrive via USB is that it sucks the batteries dry pretty quick. For large transfers I use a PC Card adaptor, it's a little quicker as well.

 

[Fushigi]

We keep the camera charger by the PC so we just plug it in while downloading.

Oh, if you've got hundreds of photos on the drive, try to download them all and then delete them all instead of download - delete - download - delete - etc. Every time you delete the pics at the beginning of the drive, it apparently defrags & moves everything that remains to the beginning of the drive. Dunno if this is a CF trait or a microdrive trait, but shuffling 500+ images to the beginning of the drive takes a minute or two. Placing my head by the camera, I heard the drive heads going like mad...

- Fushigi

 

[Pradeep]

Once I've downloaded, I just format the Microdrive in the camera. I find this is far faster than deleting all images. Actually I had 32KB of bad clusters the other day, a chkdsk and scandisk marked them as bad and now it seems to be working OK, only lost one picture.

 

[Cliptin]

Scandisk on a camera? I thought I had heard it all. Have you tried to resize the clusters with Partition Magic?

 

[Pradeep]

Sadly my Nikon 995 only recognises FAT16. But apparently the newest breed of D-SLR have FAT32 support for >2GB Microdrives