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They're adequate. Although I would advise against buying a Canon Digital Rebel right now, as they're coming out with a new model soon and will doubtlessly reduce the price on this model when they do.
Note that digital SLRs, while capable of producing excellent pictures, can also be a bit of a hassle. I've been tempted, myself, but the cost, complexity, and comparative lack of portability have talked me out of a digital SLR time and time again.
You were there when my Kodak DC4800 stopped working properly; I've since replaced it with a Canon G5, and am pretty happy (although I miss the Kodak's uber-saturation, which now I have to add in post-production. *grin*)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Does anybody know when digital cameras will compare/surpass conventional film cameras? When do they get to that point? Is it 7 megapixels? I'm just curious. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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That's a more complex question than you'd think, Nick, because of the way digital cameras take color photos. Currently, most CCDs are made up of pixels that can only detect one color -- red, green, and blue -- so a figure like "5 megapixels" or "8 megapixels" is somewhat misleading due to the fact that it actually takes three pixels to produce a legitimate color. (There ARE CCDs out there that don't work on this principle, but they haven't really been adopted by major manufacturers and tested in decent cameras yet.) As I understand it, to match the depth of 35mm film, a standard CCD would have to have around 12-14 megapixels.
In reality, however, this is not particularly important -- even for professional photographers. I find it rather difficult to distinguish 8x10s taken with a 5MP camera versus those taken with film, mainly because techniques exist to smooth out the image in post.
quote:Which brand has the best "shutter speed" performance so you don't get blur at a price under $400?
Lots of really crappy cameras will do 1/1000 or better (no mechanics makes it really easy...), but are still useless. What you need is a "fast" lens that can take in lots of light without giving up too much depth of field, and/or a sensitive CCD that can resolve low-level signals without noise distortion, and/or better ambient + flash lighting. None of the above is cheap.
A good compromise in your range would be something like the Canon G3. NB: if you don't understand the terminology or reasoning above, a fancier toy alone won't help. Google time.
quote:Does anybody know when digital cameras will compare/surpass conventional film cameras?
For at least a couple of years now the limiting factor in all consumer cameras (film and digital) has been the optics. Really good CCDs are getting cheaper to manufacturer like most electronics, but glass is glass.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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Yeah I really want a digital. I have a pretty nice waterproof real camera, but I broke the film door off accidentally so I need to get it repaired. In the mean time I've been using disposable cameras and scanning the pictures in on my own scanner to digitize them. I'm trying to do before, inprogress and after shots of this house. I look at the befores we took when we first moved in, and we've already improved things a lot. The goal is to eventually get this stupid website up and running, for friends who care to see.
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By "shutter speed" do you mean the time between when you press the button and when it actually takes the picture? Because how slow that is on most digital cameras really ticks me off. (I try to photograph Ultimate games, where the action can be really fast, and I want to just click.) Are there many/any models out there (under $400) that have a better response time?
But it looks like you're actually talking about the "shutter speed" of the camera. Also a good thing to improve, but it doesn't make me quite as mad.
I don't like needing to hold the button down for three seconds before it actually takes the picture. It's really hard to capture good candid shots that way. Maybe I'm just really bad at predicting what is going to happen early enough.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Shutter speed is something different from shutter lag, which is itself different from the number of frames per second a camera can capture.
On my G5, there's just under a second of shutter lag; if I'm trying to get a shot of somebody leaping to catch a fly ball, I need to press the shutter before he starts the jump. This is actually GOOD by the standards of most digital cameras (although there are ones that are better), but it's still deeply, deeply frustrating for someone used to catching action shots on film cameras. Burst mode is, I find, an absolute requirement for digital action photography; basically, I'd click and hold the shutter when my target starts his jump, and my camera would take as many frames per second as it can for as long as I hold the shutter down (or, more likely, until it runs out of buffer memory and/or can't write to the storage card fast enough). There's a pretty wide range of ability here among digicams, and it's not always easy to figure out what matters more; some cameras with extremely fast fps have small buffers that force them to drop out of burst mode after five or six frames, for example; other cameras might have enormous buffers that take so long to clear that you can't take another picture for ten seconds after capturing a full burst.
Shutter SPEED on most digicams -- how quickly (or how long) the shutter remains open -- has actually gotten pretty good, in most cases. I haven't seen a camera lately that doesn't claim to go at least from 1/1000 to 4 seconds (and most do more). Of course, the image quality of the shots at those extremes may ALSO vary widely. Note, though, that you'll generally get more variation at SLOWER speeds than at faster ones; a huge problem with digicams is the introduction of noise into dark shots.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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ok which is it, shutter speed or shutter lag that gives the blur when trying to freeze frame say a dog in motion, like the older cameras do? I want to minimize the blur. The less time delay the better too, but the blur is the critical factor for me.
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And the G5 is out of my price range. How do you feel the A80 or A75 compare? I realize that they have 1 less megapixel and 5x less combined zoom, but for someone who isn't actually into high class photography and just wants pictures for memory documentation would it be good enough?
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Some of the Olympus cameras have fast lenses... My C-2040Z has an f1.8 lens, I believe, which is still one of the faster lenses for a non-SLR digital, I think.
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I can't figure out the difference between the A80 and the A75 other than 3.2 mp vs 4 mp and 10x zoom vs 11x zoom.
The G series honestly seems too sophisticated for my simple needs, though the reviews say that the G3 is argued by some to still be better than the G5. The problem is the G3 is becoming harder to find than the G5, and still a little too pricey. I don't care whether I hand adjust everything or not. The A series appears to be more dummy friendly.
Costco seems to have comparable prices to the online stores, when you realize that they are tossing in a case, battery charger and high quality batteries with it rather than just the raw camera package. I'll need to buy a better memory card though.
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Now you're asking about subjective judgements. *laugh* The G3 was a very popular camera, and you can get it relatively inexpensively nowadays. I wouldn't say that Canon is the "best" brand, because each major brand tends to have one or two things it does well to the exclusion of all else. (I went with my Kodak, back in the day, because it was the only camera I could find that did everything I needed; sadly, new Kodaks blow chunks.)
I tend to trust Steve's Digicams as a site that, while it doesn't always share my priorities, explains what its priorities are. Here's their list of the current best: http://www.steves-digicams.com/best_cameras.htmlPosts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Thanks for the review site. I think I've talked myself into the A80. I do like the extra megapixels, and one of the big things it has is an adjustable fold out screen so you could watch yourself while taking a self portrait. It also has a fully manual mode so if I do feel like tweaking I can. Now I have to decide whether I want to get it with this paycheck or the next. <grin>
I've procrastinated on getting a digital camera for a long time because prices keep falling as the technology improves. But things seem to have plateaued slightly for the moment. I suppose if I wait another couple months prices would fall more. *sigh* sometimes I wish I was more of a spendthrift and less of a cheapskate so I don't have this giant internal battle everytime I make a purchase like this.
As far as canons vs. olympus, I really don't like the olympus user interfaces that we have here at work, and that was a comment from the reviewer that TomD reccommended too.
quote: I understand it, to match the depth of 35mm film, a standard CCD would have to have around 12-14 megapixels.
At what ISO? Just curious. If you read revelations backwards, this is one of the signs of the second coming.
quote: What you need is a "fast" lens that can take in lots of light without giving up too much depth of field
What do you mean by "fast" lens? Do you mean a higher aperture that will seem to give sharpness to a slower exposure? Because this will not help in the case of motion.
Wow. Life is going to get hard in about ten years, then. Most film manufacturers are seriously cutting back.
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Anna, I think that camera cuts a few too many corners if you really want to be capturing "action shots," especially in burst mode. The lack of macro capability, fixed focus, and complete absence of optical zoom also seem crippling to me.
I'd honestly start looking for deals on used mid-range cameras on eBay before I considered spending money on a new low-end camera.
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yeah, I rethought after that post. I may not utlize all the toys on the A80 but I like knowing they are there. The geekish side of me is coming out I guess. I have a Trek 8500 mountain bike that is a low end racing bike that I underutilize but I like knowing that I could race if I wanted to, and I appreciate its little perks even if I don't use them as much as I should.
The A80 seems head and shoulders above everything else in its class, so that's probably what I will get. If I get it I probably won't need an upgrade for quite a while. The G series just seems like overkill for my needs and price range though.
quote:What do you mean by "fast" lens? Do you mean a higher aperture that will seem to give sharpness to a slower exposure? Because this will not help in the case of motion.
"Fast" is camera slang, but I thought it would be easier to understand than "small f-stop." It's a function of both focal length and aperture size. More light = faster shutter speeds holding exposure constant.
quote:I'd honestly start looking for deals on used mid-range cameras on eBay before I considered spending money on a new low-end camera.
This is exactly what I was implying, sorry if it wasn't clear. 100MP is not going to reduce blurriness, nor is a 1/100,000sec mode.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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Yes, somewhat better optics will go much further. Similarly for a tripod. If you want to do action, get a nice little mini-tripod you can brace on something nearby (such as your knee) in addition to a full sized (for when you have more time to set up/a better fixed location), and make sure your full sized one has a really quick release (most are pretty decent) in case action happens in an unexpected quarter.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I think a monopod might be useful as well. I haven't tried both, but for capturing dogshow action it seems it would lend itself to more mobility.
So digital cameras are being rated with some kind of virtual shutter speed that is a function of aperture and capture rate?
Before we proclaim the death of film, 12 megapixels/3 = what ISO again?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Uh, its not just digital cameras. In all cameras "speed" is a conjunction of shutter speed and aperture. You can have a really fast shutter speed, but on the wrong aperture you'll still get a blurry looking pic more likely.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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*nod* As I understand it, in digital cameras, an ISO number is really a bit of an abstraction. My G5 goes from ISO 50 to ISO 400, but I don't have the faintest clue how this is actually determined for a digicam. I do know that any given digicam's ISO 100 settings are generally used by default when running specs.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Fugu, in that sense speed would combine the ISO and the aperture and the exposure length. Sports shots tend to be very grainy because a low ISO is used so the shutter speed can be very fast. Flash is only useful up to a certain distance away.
Remember when the Princess Bride came out with the whole score done on synthesizer and folks thought the orchestra was going to die out forever?
I'm actually glad that the run of the mill Christmas memories and so forth will not be on film anymore because photo processing involves some pretty toxic chemicals.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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ISO is a factor, but its a relatively fixed factor for a given shot (though this is in fact changing a lot with digital cameras; however, most of the time the ISO will fall into a certain limited range for good shooting: ISO 100 to 400, meaning the ability to change ISO at will doesn't mean too much most of the time).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Sports shots tend to be very grainy because a low ISO is used so the shutter speed can be very fast.
You mean a high ISO.
Anyway, ISO on digital cameras is a completely synthetic number. It's just designed for wetware compatibility, i.e. something that results in about the same exposure if you use the same lens and same shutter speed as on a film camera. In reality, it's just a measurement of how high they turn up the op-amps. Amplifying a signal is obviously a lot noisier process than using a different composition of halide, which is why only dSLRs with big CMOS sensors can do ISO equivalents of 800-1600+.
quote:Remember when the Princess Bride came out with the whole score done on synthesizer and folks thought the orchestra was going to die out forever?
I hate to break it to you, but the orchestra is dead. (This coming from an orchestra player.) Gigasampler alone accounts for an order of magnitude more synchronized music than all the studios in LA.
That's a bad comparison, though, because getting synthesized orchestras to sound like the real thing takes a LOT of manual sequencing by artists who are just as expensive as full-time analog musicians, and will still never be quite as good. 10MP+ camera backs aren't exactly easy to use, but certainly easier than a K1000 and downright simple for a pro. Quality? The current generation of full-size sensors offers significantly more detail than equivalent-ISO film grain allows. National Geographic did its first all-digital issue in 2002, and technology has come a long way even since then.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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Well like the cheapskate that I am, I never bought the A80. And now they've come out with new stuff. I've been using a Canon G5 at work and am getting more comfy with it, though I need to read the instruction manuals.
So my boss comes into my office yesterday and says he needs to dispose of his G5 that he's had less than a year, because he's ordered an SLR but his wife will have a hissy fit with two cameras in the house. He's even taken the precaution of sending the SLR to his son's house!
Anyway he asked me if any of my friends would be interested. I said well how much are you asking. He's like oh $350. I said, in that case I'll take it. He was like I thought you already bought one! I said nope, couldn't bring myself to do it and the one I wanted was above my $400 cuttoff. I know the thing is in pristine condition cause I know my boss. And he's got a bunch of extra lenses and stuff that he's throwing in. I looked on ebay and the Steve's camera site that Tom mentioned and even though the G6 has come out, the cheapest price I've seen on the G5 is $425. So I think it's a pretty good deal all around. Plus he'll wait til I get my next paycheck to pay him too!
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