Page created 8 Jul 2002 by pedro
URL: http://www.pricewatch.com/
I'm in the market for a good-but-not fancy digital camera that I can use for taking pictures of things that don't need to be artsy or aren't worth paying for developing but are worth keeping. Does anyone have a digital camera? What are the specs? What do you like, and what do you wish was different about it? What would you recommend?
I have a Nikon Coolpix 990 that takes some darn good images. I like the swivel lens thingy, good for taking pictures over head of and low to the ground. I also like that it takes regular AA batteries that are about a million times cheaper than the bizarre kind that most digital cameras take. The 990 also takes 40 second video clips... very fun.The best prices I've seen on Nikon are here.
At work I use an Nikon 880. Also nice, just no swivel lens and there aren't as many lens attachments available, but's easy for non-photo people to use. I've never had any problems with either. I've also never heard anything bad about cannon, or fuji. I personally like the Nikon lens better and cannon usually costs more. Fuji has some neat features like mp3 players and bizarre stuff like that. I have a personal hatred for Sony cameras, lousy quality. We have an old one at work that I want to take a hammer to. The only good thing about Sony is that they do good in low light. I'm also not a big fan of Sony's memory cards and battery prices. Compact Flash cards are the good cheap way to go.
I taught digital photography at Syracuse for a little and I do all the photography stuff at work. So basically I can tell you more about almost every type of camera out there if you want. But then again you have my e-mail.
What kind of media does it use? What's the battery life like?
c'mon, man. $60 for the pencam!
if the pencam had a flash... but i want something a little more versatile.
Both Nikon cameras I use, use compact flash cards. I have a 128 mb Viking card that is about all I ever need. They come with an 8 or 16mb card depending on the camera, but that really doesn't hold enough. The 128 mb card holds between 13 and 319 images at 2048 x 1536 pixels depending on the jpeg compression used. At 640 x 480 the display says it'll take 999 images, but I've never tested it. It seems very durable and doesn't lose data with impact... yes I've dropped a card climbing before.The 990 uses 4 AA batteries. I have 3 sets of rechargeable batteries. The good set ($20) will last me several hours of shooting, with flash. The cheap AA batteries ($10) aren't much less. Basically you can shoot all day on one set of batteries unless you're over-using your flash. The 880 has a strange battery that, with the charger was about double what the Wal-Mart special AA's were. It lasts a little less than twice as long (I recharge it every couple of days). I prefer the AA's because it's a pain to replace the $35 880 battery.
What are the differences between the 880, 990, and 995?
Lots of differences. Body style, battery, flash, movie capability, chipset (I think)... I've seen comparison charts, but I can't remember where. Maybe cshopper.com?
NPU has a coolpix 950 and we used it for lots of pictures. I really liked it and wish I had one of my own. We also used some rechargeable NiMH batteries which seemed to increase the battery time, especially when using the flash. Anyway, smax can tell you more about them since he uses one daily, but I just wanted to chime in my praise for the coolpix. Also, my dad just got some little canon digital camera. If he left it as his place I'll play with it this weekend at let you know how it goes.
I've got a Kodak DX3500. It's a really nice camera, and I use shutterfly to get prints made from it and they all turn out with the same quality my old camera used to turn em out. I complain a bit about not being able to change the shutter speed - no good artsy photos with this Kodak but what can you expect from a digicam you pick up for a steal? The camera is around $200.If you've looked at jaxcage pedro, you know the quality of photos it takes. All of Anna's photos are taken at the medium setting. I got an 8 mb memory card for it and so it holds about 64 of the medium, 200 or so of the low res photos, and 16 of the professional quality photos. I use high quality to do Anna's posed 8 x 10s.
So I drank the goddamn kool-aid[tm] and got myself a lomo LC-A. It's a goddamned cult, but I love the thing.
I was looking the current film SLR offerings on Nikon's web site when I hopped on over the the digital section and saw the camera I want: the Nikon D100. It's the body of an N80 with a whole lot of pixels. Granted, it's WAY out of my price range, but a lot closer than the D1. I still think I'd rather have a nice SLR than a nice digital camera. What would rock is if they made a N80/D100 hybrid where you could interchange a film module and a digital module. Someday technology will catch up with my wild dreams. Maybe by that time my pocketbook will catch up with the technology.
Personally I can be done with film. I can't afford it. I just wish that there was a digital SLR that could perform to 35mm standards. Real film is nice and necissary in some situations, but when you realize the chemicals, the waste and the true static nature of film it seems really silly compared to digital.BTW- They do make hybred cameras and backs, but if you can't afford a D1... well the digital 4x5 backs cost as much as some houses up here in Maine.
I think I would like digital a lot better once I got a digital camera and started using it and making prints from it. I'm also nostalgic about being in the darkroom for some reason. I think that's just because of all the crazy fun that Åke and I had back in the day. Do you make prints from your digital photos? Or do you just archive them on a computer or CD or something?
I thought all the digital backs out there were for medium and large format cameras? Either way, I'd opt for the house in Maine without thinking twice. Where do you live in Maine? Are you anywhere near Moosehead Lake? We stayed in some little motel sort of near there on our way to Baxter State Park on our honeymoon. Absolutely beautiful country. Too bad I forgot to pack my camera and the cheapo point and shoot we bought broke so all the pictures we took from Maine were shot. Guess I should have had a digital camera.
So I'm on a mailing list where people are having a digital/film argument. The people involved are getting all riled up and it's kind of fun to watch. Someone also noted a new camera from Contax which I hadn't heard of (but then again, I haven't exactly been following the world of astronomically priced digital SLR's) that has some cool features, including autobracketing. Well, I was going to paste in one of the funnier posts, but I seem to have deleted the thread. Oops. We will now return to the scheduled programming.
I was fascinated by this autobracketing feature and it turns out lots of cameras have it. It seems it would only work really well for portraits and landscapes unless it could take three images really really fast. I need to get a job where they'll send me promo models of all the fancy new digital cameras so I can play all day long.
I rarely print things anymore. I still shoot 35mm and Advantex occasionally, 35 for slide and advantex because my cannon elph is fun to use and lighter to climb up a mountain with. The only time I print from digital is when someone else needs it. I got the 2 Nikons because the image quality is high enough for print, but I think I've only had a couple images in publications. I know my 990 has auto bracketing, I'm not sure about the 880. Never played with it. Maybe that's something to do today.I'm pretty sure you can get a digital back for a 120, but I've been wrong before. I guess that's medium format. I've shot 120 and 4x5 (8x10 once), so that just sounds like more fun. So far I haven't seen them for a 35mm. Something tells me the digital quality will surpass 35 and won't be an issue for long.
Sometimes I miss playing in the dark room, but when I think of the chemicals and what is involved in making a darkroom... wow. I still have hopes of being a photo/digital media prof someday, but until I change jobs dark rooms are for reminissing.
Maine... I live and work at Sugarloaf/USA. I'm the web guy here but I'm also in charge of photography and most things digital. Moposhead lake is a pretty good drive, but anything other than Canada is. Yes, it's closer for me to go to Canada than NH. the little "cam shot" on ther home page is what I do every day. I like getting paid to ski or wander a golf course taking pictures.
What a great job.
I just got my first bag of LOMO pictures developed, and they turned out amazingly well. I'd love to see a digital camera come out with this quality to the pictures. They've all got a soft touch and amazing color saturation. Damn fine light meter, too.
Your link is broken. "Your Gallery configuration was created using the config wizard from an older version of Gallery. It is out of date." Ha ha. Gallery wizard. Is that some sort of Microsoft product?
Also, if you wanted to achieve lomo quality with a digital camera, you could just use photoshop/gimp. A little gaussian for the softness, some dodging for the vingnetting, and increase the saturation and contrast for that over exposed look. Ha ha
The link is back. When I did a dist-upgrade it broke the gallery. GAR.
There is no way I'm getting a 320x200 image and getting it 600 pixels wide at lomo quality. Just no way. Also, the color is super bad on the pencam, as well as the ability to shoot in low light. It's just terrible, and doesn't do any kind of quality photography at all.Yes, the lomo is a crappy camera. I recognize this. I realize that I've been had by a marketing campaign. I knew this when I bought the thing. It's still a fun toy.
as for other cameras, I'd have to gimp way too much.
Well, regardless, the lomo does take cool picutres, and there's something cool about doing it with a real camera and not having to do all the gimp-fu just to lomoize it. So crackmonkey, I think it's cool that you have a lomo.In other news, I have a tripod for my slr! Time to take some cool night time photos.
The lomo does take cool pictures, I was just giving you a hard time.
i bought a pencam about two hours ago. it's the 1.3 megapixel doodad. i haven't opened the box yet though because i want to find out first whether it will work in linux. so far, i've found some list archives from may that indicated mixed success in getting it to work. basically, video: yes, via gphoto and still images: no.but that was in may and i can't find anything more recent. does anyone know what's up with this camera and support for it in linux?
i found the answer. it's a flat "NO".
At the conference last weekend there was a photographer from the Holy Land Trust (who was also the photographer for the Journey of the Magi) who was shooting a D1. He let me play with it and I was in awe. It was big and heavy and super cool. So if you'd like to contribute to the "Buy Lukas a Super Freakin Expensive Camera Fund," let me know and I'll send you my paypal ID.
Rather than create a new entree just for this I thought this one matched the theme closely enough (don't recall a digital audio equipment entree in the diner).So, I need to record some meetings and things and am trying to get an idea of what would be suitable. A dictaphone or other mini analogue cassette gizmo would be okay but I like the idea of having a digital recording I can chop down and distribute to participants electronically. The recording doesn't have to be of particularly good quality and the equipment should be compact and preferably cheap. I have access to Linux and Win2k for connectivity.
I am guessing a minidisc player or something similar would be suitable. I know nothing about such devices. Most of the models in highstreet stores seem to be players without any obvious recording ability. I'm looking for a recommendation a reasonably-priced device that can record (preferably for e.g. two hours at a time) and then transfer to a PC in a file common format.
Anyone have any opinions (good or bad) about what's out there?
But minidiscs are very cool. Minidisco is the premier site on the 'net for them. Recording units will cost you a penny or two though.Another option woudl be to get an MP3 player (like the Creative Jukebox) that will do recording -- however, if it exports in MP3, editing will be a pain. See if you can find mp3-editing software, or a jukebox that will export recorded audio in wav format via USB, and you may have a winner.
This editing issue is not really resolved by MD (by the way), since you pretty much have to export the MD by hooking it up to a soundcard with a mini-to-mini analog cable and editing teh wavs by hand, which is also time consuming. The new MDs have a USB connection, but I'm not sure if you can export from it, or just push to it. And I have no idea about Reenoox support for the Sony Net-MDs.
Surely you can do digital-digital minidisk-PC transfers.
The minidisk players I have seen have digital in but not out.
Just another way THE MAN is keeping us down. He wuz a-scared we wuz gunna be a-copyin' alla uz MDs to DAT and be swappin' 'em in the schoolyard at recess.
Cruising this site reveals a few with optical output but they tend to be the more expensive and really old.I see that there's a Sony Dictaphone like device which uses memory sticks. That would be okay for my purposes (so I wouldn't have to line-out and encode a minidisc recording) as I don't need particularly high quality work. A little on the expensive side though... I'll try and work out my balance between the memory stick convenience and the minidisc flexibility (can use it as a music player as well).
Is that you could get an IDE MD drive that would allow you to rip/encode MDs directly. That would be so rad I can't even express it.
it's a start
babs, give me a break
anyone have any experience with film scanners? I've got a ton of photos I want to scan but I'm really unhappy with the quality of my POS flatbed. So I'm considering getting an old SCSI film scanner and a firewire dongle and vuescan and just scanning my negatives. Models I've looked at and read about are the Coolscan III (LS-30) and the Canon FS2710. Right now anything will be better than the quality from my flatbed so I've also considered getting a new flatbed. But since almost all my scans would be film, I figure that would be the way to go. The one thing I wanted to scan that I don't have the negs for are our wedding proofs, but that's a ton of pics and I doubt I'll ever get around to scanning those. Anyway, thoughts, comments, riducule, advice, and opinions are appreciated.
lukas ask jordan in #ufo-chicago on slashnet.
so I bought a new digital camera over the weekend, a Kodak DX6430 or something, I'll post a link for it in a minute, but I just wanted to say how happy I am that I got one with a 10x optical zoom and 4 megapixels, but what I really wanted to recommend is that if anyone is in the market for one, or anything electronic really, check out Costco, I think I saved over $100 on my camera and memory card. I got a 256mb Secure Digital card there for $64, which is way cheap. I can now save 200 photos at high resolution on my camera, if I go down to lower resolution it goes up to like 500 or something. Now all I need is a better computer. I'm thinking about a Dell laptop because I can get it discounted through work, so a nice one with a 4 year warranty is only $1400, anyone had problems with Dell laptops? And why are electronics so difficult to decide on?
I looked at the DX6430 for my aunt (I think that was the one) and it looked like a pretty nice low-end professional kind of camera.As far as Dell laptops, with any company and product series, sometimes you get lemons, but we've remained happy with Dell at North Park and I would recommend them over almost any other PC laptop, with the exception of IBM. This is due not as much to my extensive testing of multiple products as to my long history with Dell products.
Not that you asked, but I think the Sony laptops are neat, but I think they're kind of gimmicky, especially when it's some "tiny dinky laptop" and then a zillion cords to attach everything else to it. That would seriously annoy me.
and they make some of the smallest laptops around, which is fun to say "here's my fully functional laptop, and it's half the size of a normal one." But I think that for the price, and especially with a 4 year at-home service warranty I am leaning toward a Dell. And for $100 more I can add in 4 years of accident coverage too, so water spills and electric surges and stuff are protected too. If I bought a computer at Best Buy it costs like $300 for their service warranty. But Costco, and here's where they kick ass, doesn't sell warranties. If you have a problem with something you bought there a while back, you just take it in and they'll replace it for you, so if you regularly back up your harddrive it's not a problem, if you have to salvage stuff though it could be an issue. Costco doesn't even question you when you return stuff, it's pretty sweet.
I looked through the list of entrees and didn't see or remember any devoted to computer hardware or software - definitely a point of discrimination when comparing to many other mod_virgules.Anyway, rather than creating such an entree I thought I'd ask here, since this one leans towards digital devices. Does anyone have a copy of Debian Slink x86 on CD? After reviving my old 486 I wanted to run Linux on it (just for shear cussedness) and, considering the hardware limitations, I think that means a 2.0 kernel. I have RedHat 5.1 and old Slackware discs to hand but am old and lazy and need apt-get. If anyone bought a copy of "Running Debian Linux" or somesuch it should have come with the disc(s). I can't really hook the beastie to the outside world so a net install is not feasible (it will be slow enough as it is with a x2 CDROM).
Hang on a mo. I think my old copy of Potato had the option of installing 2.0 instead of 2.2 (as Woody has 2.2 as well as 2.4). I'll check and see. Meanwhile if anyone has Slink I'd be interested (if you are a local and a UFO attendee I can pick it up and return it there).
nutella, i have woody running on a 486 with a 2.4 kernel. it works just fine, except that for some things (apt-get update and apt-get upgrade come to mind) i need to create some temporary swap space. it has some ungodly small amount of memory like 12MB or something.also: Silicon Nabiscos
I'll see if I can install Woody on the box. I'll have to make boot diskettes as it doesn't have an ATAPI or SCSI CDROM (Sony CDU33A). I understand that 2.4 is much less of a memory hog than 2.2 so it may be a better choice than 2.0 in this case.
My old Nikon 990 is just about dead.... I found this and am having a hard time resisting.
that's a good deal. plus you should be able to unlock some of the features from the 10D that are disabled in the firmware.
hmm.well, i'm very happy with my digital camera, the one recommended to me by gary. it's a pentax optio s4i, 4MP with a nice sized LCD on the back.
i love how tiny it is. i bought a pentax case that is the perfect size for the camera and one necessary accessory. so it just gets tossed into my bag for use all the time. i'll have to get some pictures up here from it. yesterday while exiting the library, i saw the most wonderful looking old thunderbird and now i have photographic evidence of how cool it was.
i've been taking a lot of pictures of all the traffic i've had to sit in lately...
I can find very few cameras that will support an ISO of over 400, at least for under a grand. The Digital Rebel with the above posted hack is 3200. I hate flashes. I'm also looking into a night vision lens to hook up to it. If you're wondering why, if you ever get your hands on night vision stuff, take it to the local bar. Yes, you'll be seen as creepy and/or crazy, but it is something you should see (or at least someday see the pictures I take with the setup). I also have a fisheye lens for my 990, and I would hate to give up the ability to buy a quality super wide angle lens for my next camera.I should really stop thinking about this. I can almost justify getting the darn thing.
anyone use online printing services and have one they like and recommend? I'm startgin to scan slides and old negs and want to make to some prints. I'm looking in the direction of mpix, shutterfly, or winkflash but just wanted to se if anyone had any advice.
I rather close to breaking down and ordering a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ5. Anyone shoot with one of these or other panasonic models?
I just entered the age of the digital camera and ordered a panasonic lumix fz5 from b&h. It's looks like a mini slr and has a 12x optical zoom witha leica lens and image stabilization. I know I'll be annoyed by the lack of a flash hotshoe and no manual focus but if I really wanted all the bells and whistles I'd just shell out for a DSLR. But since that's still too pricey this is the next best thing. or at least that's what I'm hoping. Just to be on the safe side I ordered soe film too.
I just discovered that Hasselblad make 39 megapixel cameras.
So it turns out there's a shop near me that rents them out, but I don't think I could handle walking around with a £25,000 camera!
lukas,I'm a big fan of MPIX.com -- decent prices, quick turn-around (pix in about 4 days), and they do really good work.
For no extra charge, you can get your prints on Kodak Edura paper (metallic print), which laser-etches your image onto the paper, then develops it with the normal C-41 process. The result is an almost 3-d like image, which makes portraits, skylines, etc. "pop" on the page. Developed a couple pix of neon signs on the paper, and they look "lit" even in low-light on the wall.