Camera Search

[Niloc]

Cameras are completely foriegn to me, I checked out some camera sites, but I can't make heads or tails of it. So maybe if anyone would be so extremely kind and give me camera recommendations?

I'm looking for something cheap (under 300 if possible) and digital. I want an everyday point and shoot camera, real idiot proof; but also something to take some good decent mini pictures. Any recommendations?

I have an idiot proof camera :-)

It's a ViviCAM 3710

3.2MP

only have a 4x digital zoom, but the lowesst mode is 1024x768

you can tweak out the white ballance by chooseing one of 4 options (nice)

takes a good little macro anywhere from 8 - 12" away.

oh yeah, you can take mini movie clips as well.

doesn't come with a flash card, but you can pick one up easy nuf.

I got it for under $200 CAN.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jubilee]

You also want at the very least 3 Megapixels and the ability to choose how high of a quality pic you want to take.

I'm toying with getting a new camera, and the nikon coolpix 4600 is on sale nearby and looks pretty good.. but I have a question about this function in particular.

 

According to the review I read online, the camera doesn't support RAW or TIFF format pictures, but you can have a bunch of different sizes (high pixel width x length) for the pictures. However, I can do that with my current camera, but no matter how big I have the picture blow up, when I open it in adobe photoshop, it's still only 72 dpi.

 

So, without the ability to take Tiff or Raw pictures, does it really matter how big they are?

 

How do I determine if a camera will take higher quality pictures, not just larger ones? I would like to get 200-300 dpi, something print quality.

 

thanks,

 

/ali

[Demon]

Check the manufacturers website and look for the model number. Many manufacturers will have it listed or if they don't you can email their help section and provide the model number and name. Most of them are pretty good about getting back to you with the info requested within a few days.

[eastman]

The camera will take the picture and save it based on the settings you used (example - my camera has 3008x2008, 2400x1600 and 1536x1024). For the best quality, you will want the largest # of pixels.

 

Photoshop defaults to 72 dpi for JPGs, I believe because that is a reasonable approximate resolution for images on a monitor (my monitor is set for 1024x768 and is ~10" vertical so ~77 dpi).

 

In Photoshop, just change the resolution (in my old edition of Photoshop LE, you have to go into Image -> Image Size and adjust 2 of the 3 parameters before clicking OK - pixel size, resolution and print size). For a 3000x2000 image, the default Photoshop print is a 72 dpi 42"x28", but this can be resized to a 300 dpi print ~ 6.6"x10" and still remain 3000x2000 pixels. If you only change one parameter, then it either keeps the print size the same but will change the number of pixels to match the new resolution or the print size will change (at the same resolution) to reflect the new pixel setting (and the reverse is also true, changing the print size only will change the pixel setting).

 

Hope that made sense.

[Jubilee]

Ahh.. I thought that upping the DPI would just make it fuzzier..

 

I guess I have been going about this all wrong.. glad I asked before I went out and dropped 200 on a new camera!

[eastman]

By increasing the resolution (dpi) and decreasing the print size by the same ratio, the actual pixel information will all stay the same. Theresolution setting just tells the program how to interpret the image for display.

 

For most applications, a 300 dpi image file is good for printing.

[kmdl1066]

So, without the ability to take Tiff or Raw pictures, does it really matter how big they are?

 

How do I determine if a camera will take higher quality pictures, not just larger ones? I would like to get 200-300 dpi, something print quality.

 

thanks,

 

/ali

 

The dpi question has been answered, so I'll just make a comment about RAW and TIFF formats.

 

RAW and TIFF are what are known as 'lossless' formats. They don't throw away any picture information. This is good. However, it means that pictures in RAW and TIFF format take up a *lot* more storage space than JPG fomat. The JPG format uses a compression algorithm to make the storage space requirement smaller, but this means that it throws away some picture information.

 

When you're on holiday taking snaps that you want to print out on 6"by4", you want to be able to get a bunch of pictures on your 256 CF (or whatever card) and capturing the moment is more important than absolute perfection, so JPG is good. When you're trying to take the perfect posed wedding photo, you're going to take a number of pictures of exactly the same thing, choose the best of the lot, and then do a bunch of post-photography production work to make it a perfect picture. In this case every byte of information is important and you want TIFF (or even better RAW) format. You'll only get a few photo's on your same 256 CF card, but that's okay.

 

Any photo destined to be posted on the web has limited advantage from being captured in TIFF or RAW originally. Sooner or later you're going to have to drastically reduce the file size for posting and at that point you're going to apply a relatively harsh compression algorithm.

 

One thing with jpgs, every time you save them you apply the compression algorithm, so repeated savings can reduce your quality. For this reason, always keep a backup copy of the original photo transfered from the camera.

 

I know all this theory, now if only I could take decent photos!

 

Sean