Camera Recommendations

[wendywc]

Great shots, boboboy! I especially love your glasscat and angelfish.

try holding the camera in different positions, ie upside down, flash to the left, or to the right, experiment with the angle of camera to tank,

I definately agree with all that you say, especially this... it's probably the most important thing to do when you're using flash.

 

[nmonks]

I think this statement needs a little clarification. A lot of consumer-end cameras produce their pictures in the JPEG format, so converting them on your computer to RAW, TIFF, or some other "better" format is pointless, because the compression is already there.

In my experience, there isn't actually much wrong with the JPEGs that come from consumer-end cameras. They are good enough for printing in books and magazines, and easily good enough for publishing on the web.

Realistically, few people are going to buy Photoshop, and frankly, most people who have it barely use 5% of what it can do. Photoshop Elements is easily good enough for a lot of work, and GIMP is almost as good as Photoshop and costs nothing to download (and best of all, runs on virtually any computer and operating system). If you have a Mac, then iPhoto comes with lots of useful tools for cropping, tweaking the colours, changing contrast, and so on, all presented in a very easy to use way.

Cheers,

Neale

lastly use a "good" quality photo editor. first save the pic in the apps native format ie PSD for photoshop if you save pics in compressed formats like JPG the pics from these apps will usually be smaller and better quality, than those saved by cheaper editors.

 

[raptorrex]

I think this statement needs a little clarification. A lot of consumer-end cameras produce their pictures in the JPEG format, so converting them on your computer to RAW, TIFF, or some other "better" format is pointless, because the compression is already there.

In my experience, there isn't actually much wrong with the JPEGs that come from consumer-end cameras. They are good enough for printing in books and magazines, and easily good enough for publishing on the web.


Cheers,

Neale

lastly use a "good" quality photo editor. first save the pic in the apps native format ie PSD for photoshop if you save pics in compressed formats like JPG the pics from these apps will usually be smaller and better quality, than those saved by cheaper editors.

lol not quite, but almost. if you save to a compressed format from a compressed format you you will lose quality( i don't say this it is standard practice throughout the photographic industry. ask any pro what the first thing he does with his photos, and the answer is save it to psd, try it.

as far as the jpg format on customer cameras goes, a quite agree, though the better the camera/ manufacturer the better quality jpg algorithm it will come with. again check this out. i have an old 640x480 digi cam, the pictures are unuasble for anything if they have any detail in. but as we know 640x48 can produce very acceptable pictures. the difference is the jpg algorithm. but i was not making comment on the camera end, just the results you save after editing or reducing an pic


you are quit right that photoshop is well out of reach for most of us, i mealy used it as an example. it is plane fact that a Jpg formatted and written by photoshop, i cant speak for Gimp, will be smaller and or better quality than say one reduced and saved in ms paint! as with cameras you get what you pay for!!

 

[Mr.September15]

I have a Song 7.2 MP and It doesnt take good shots or I just dont know how to use it. Does anyone know any tips on changing the settings so it can take good shots?

ok could do with some of your pic to see what is going on. also the exact modle number so i can see it features, and work out some solutions for you. i will give a few tips now though:

set the close up setting, if the camera has one, it may be called "Macro"

pick an area with high contrast difference, most cameras work on infra red or phase detection, to work out focus. providing you keep the camera on the same plane you can re compose the pic after focus lock.

there is often a long, ish, delay after you press the shutter, often the fish have moved!!!! try to follow your subject, it takes practise, if you follow the fish, as you press the shutter, keep the following action going till the picture come up on the camera screen.

try holding the camera in different positions, ie upside down, flash to the left, or to the right, experiment with the angle of camera to tank,

above all study the pics you get, identify any problems, then try the pics again, using any of the above mentioned tricks. remember those that work, and do it every time you come across that situation.

lastly use a "good" quality photo editor. first save the pic in the apps native format ie PSD for photoshop if you save pics in compressed formats like JPG the pics from these apps will usually be smaller and better quality, than those saved by cheaper editors.

My model thing is

DSC-P200 Silver Cyber-shot Digital Camera
And I tried to use the macro mode and It turned out ok, the pictures are in the members fish photos under the subject title "Marine Pictures"

 

[-=Joel=-]

Not really in your price however I use a Konica Minolta Dynax 5D a DSLR

I tend to use the Shutter Speed option in conjection with the iso to get pictures using just tank lights for a more natural look.

Flash is no good for caputring the true colours of fish and it tends to leave them washed out and dull.

Ok so these may not be perfect but im not a professional Lol, just a keen amateur.

 

[raptorrex]

thats a good start mr.septenber15. the colours look good, love the Clown!!!!

looking at them it may be worth looking at ether setting focus manually or giving the spot focus system a try. this may well sharpen the pics up a bit. but mostly it just a case of taking pics, looking at them. going back and doing it again.

as for flash, well as i say i use it, largely its a matter of taste. though the point about the colour being incorrect, is, not quite so clear. both film and the ccd sensor in cameras are colour balanced to day light. thats a Kelvin rating 5500 or so, off hand i cant remember, the rating of a tube, atm, though there are more than one. so if you photograph a fish under fluorescent light its colour will be incorrect, on Daylight film or ccd settings.
now the fact that you see your fish in those lights with your eyes can make them look the wrong colour!!! i am aware that your eyes adjust to compensat, but if you always see the fish in those lights how will your brain know what colour it should be. the best light by far to photograph fish is daylight, so because flash is balanced to daylight, the colour is very unlikely to be wrong!!!!!!!! flash is indeed very contrasty, and apt to be quite harsh, it gives lots of problems with reflections but the colour is correct. unless you have a very cheap camera. having said this i would love to do my photos in daylight with no flash. just isnt practical, for me! also taking picture indoors without flash will result in even more problem, as you will be into correction of tungsten lights rated at 3200-600 kelvin, for those who give a fig.
out of interest i use a Lumicron LDC 660s that was £150 from tesco lol, I did notice that your camera has two jpg compression settings, i always use the fine setting, err we actually i use the super fine setting, coz i have three settings.

its up to you now man practice, experiment, as i mentioned before!!

post with any more problems if possible Ii or someone will help

 

[-=Joel=-]

Here is an example, just very quickly taken and quality is terrible Lol.

Flash

Non Flash

The non flash in my opinion is alot better detail, colour, exposure and more true to what I see.

Joel

 

[Fremlin]

I have taken quite a few pics of fish. I use my digital SLR which is unfortunately out of your price range. The only real advice I will give anyone buying a camera is to make sure it has a fully manual mode on it. All the presets are very good usually but you can never compensate for having control of the settings yourself.

 

[raptorrex]

I have taken quite a few pics of fish. I use my digital SLR which is unfortunately out of your price range. The only real advice I will give anyone buying a camera is to make sure it has a fully manual mode on it. All the presets are very good usually but you can never compensate for having control of the settings yourself.

yep couldnt agree more. after thirteen years in the trade. my Canon F1n circa 1978, plus the 55mm f1.2 aspheric is still the best kit i ever had, well maybe my Bronica SQa plus 105mm lens produced the best actual quality, 13% spot meter as standard the best screen till the F1Fn came out and not a single electronic shutter speed to be seen. both cameras were fully manual though the Bronica had TTL flash!!! Ok so you could fit auto exposure heads to both, but the Canon one was a monster, lol and crap too. the Bronica one cost as much as the camera lol. The Leica mp5 with the 35mm f1.4 was an amazing camera but carrying close to £3,500 worth of camera was never very comfortable, and that was at 1986 prices!!!!!!!!!! manual too incidentally.

Te he bit presumptuous to assume we cant afford a digital SLR though i think.


as for the flash question, your pics are harsh high contrasty and not that sharp, reflection refraction and dirty glass have not helped!

All these taken with flash on full auto and in macro mode

you can see some of the problems of taking pics through glass on some. but not one is wrong in colour, and no work was done in photoshop except cropping and scaling. apart from converting the file to JPG to get smeller files but keep the quality. the shot of the Glass cat is a crop that is only 1 10th the original pic!! oops forgot i did tone down the Cray version of red eye on some. sorry forgot, honest, really, im_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

[Fremlin]

Te he bit presumptuous to assume we cant afford a digital SLR though i think.

I only said that because in the first post it said they only had £100 to spend

 

[raptorrex]

Te he bit presumptuous to assume we cant afford a digital SLR though i think.

I only said that because in the first post it said they only had £100 to spend

lol only joking man,

 

[Miss Wiggle]

wow lovely pics everyone

i'm trying to get my head around all this technical stuff, get a bit out of my depth though!

so the things i should look to try and get are
adjustable shutter speed
sports mode
macro mode


ummm anything else?

i'd really appreciate some make/model recommendations for something in my price range that's half decent.

also what's the difference between digital and optical zoom, and what's best?

thanks

 

[-=Joel=-]

Optical zoom is the best as no, or very little, detail is lost. Not sure whats around these days but 10x optical zoom is more than most people will need.

The fuji finepix range is pretty good:

For a little more than £100 look at this one:

http/www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/135359/art...s5600-zoom.html

Sure you can get a better price or bundles items if you look around.

I used to use this before moving to DSLR.

Here are a few samples:

Optical zoom

Normal

Macro

 

[wendywc]

Gorgeous pics, -=Joel=-!! 8)

Got any sample fish pics with that camera?

 

[-=Joel=-]

Thank you.

Sadly I only seem to find this one. They must be all on my old machine Lol.