Digital Camera discussion - lots of questions

[bearpaw]

I am a total shutterbug! I love taking pictures and the studio where I get them developed really likes me. :)

Anyway, I finally broke down and bought a digital camera yesterday. A Canon 520 PowerShot. I have only played with it a little, but love what I have seen so far.

For others with digital cameras, any tips or tricks? Do you find that if you want to have them developed they come out well? Do any of you have a printer that does well with digital pictures? Mine did not have a good color at all. Do you have a particular place on the web where you store your pictures? Do you burn them to CD when you get an album you like?

[Krista]

I have a hewlett packard digital camera. Its a 3.2 megapixel and takes good pictures. It has the regular zoom and also digital zoom and a wide variety of settings etc.

The printer I use is a hewlett packard printer that is supposed to work well with photos, and it does. The pictures come out very clear. I don't remember the exact model of it, but hewlett packards and epsons printers are very good. My dad has an epson printer that works great and he prints pictures out on it quite a bit.

As far as storing photos online, I use yahoo's photo album, but I know people who use photobucket(although it costs some if you want to have more than 1 mb or something like that, on their site. I like being able to give family in Indiana(im in NC) a link and they can look through my pictures without me being there :) . yahoo is free, so thats the best one IMO. You can set the pictures up into albums and also create captions for them.

I haven't burned any of mine to a cd yet, although I want to.

[Heather]

bearpaw-That's a very good camera, I've heard good things about it. :)

You can take your media card to most places that print regular pictures, and they'll print them out for you. Some of those places even allow you to upload the pictures from home, and then just go and pick them up later. You can also bring them to places like CVS, Target, Walmart, etc who have photo kiosks (usually Kodak or Fuji are the brands.) Using the kiosk is really easy, and you can crop the pictures exactly how you want. If you have a CVS in your area, they tend to have 5 free prints for a week about once a month, so you can test it out that way.

Those are the two ways I get my pictures printed (and you know me, I take a *lot* of pictures ;) ) I actually don't get my pictures printed as often as I should. I'm very behind in that. ;)

I also have a small photo printer, and the pictures come out very well that way too. But it's easier and cheaper to bring them somewhere, and get them printed.

There are several places online you can upload them, and then get them mailed to you (snapfish just lower their prices again, they are by far the cheapest of any of the options, but I have no idea how the pictures come out.) I've only tried one of these (shutterfly), and I was basically happy with it, but I found the ones I got printed at a store came out better. I've heard people complain about some of these services, that the pictures come out blurry.

I guess I recommend to just get a few pictures printed various ways, and then decide which one you like the best. A lot of the online places usually allow you to print 10-15 for free when you first sign up, though you have to pay for shipping.

If you are going to crop and resize your pictures, I like photobucket the best for online storage. It's free and easy. Yahoo always seems to give me fits, but that could be just me. I actually like smugmug.com the best (as a visitor of others' photo galleries), but I don't think it's free.

I mentioned I'm really behind in getting pictures printed. But I always burn them to CD. I try to burn them as soon as I put them on the computer, so in case anything happens, I still have the pictures.

Warning now that you have a digital camera...it's addictive. ;) For example, I bring one of my cameras to every game I attend, just in case. I'm already on CD #3 of my Phils 2005 pictures, and we're not even halfway through the season (while in 2003, I only needed one CD for the whole season.)

[bearpaw]

Thanks for the info.
I am having so much fun!!!!
It is so totally addicting.
My camera has a movie feature as well, so I was able to tape a little one minute message to e-mail to my sister. Very cool! :)

[savvysearch]

Don't take pictures with the light source behind your subject (unless that's what you are going for). When you take a picture of food, such as in a restaurant, turn off the flash. Food tends to look better with the natural lighting.

[scheherazade]

Can I ask another digital camera-related question? Is Secure Digital better than Compact Flash?? I'm just wondering why Canon has gone over to the other side with their new S2 IS.

[Heather]

Canon uses SD now? I didn't know that. Hmm, that's interesting. It seems like that's the main media card used now. Maybe that's why? My first Fuji used smart media, and now that card is practically extinct.

One of my cameras and my pda use SD, and I really like it. It's smaller than compact flash, for sure, but it's not small enough to feel fragile, like I feel about my xD cards. Plus it goes up to 1 Gig (like compact flash), so you won't have to worry about that.

[Grace]

Secure Digital really has no difference than Compact Flash to my knowledge. I do know that MMC is pretty slow in terms of how fast it writes to the card, but other than size, I am not aware of any difference.

[s0nginmyheart]

Hi! I just crawled out of the dark ages and bought myself a new digicam as well. I got a pretty good deal from Dell on the Canon SD300 and enjoying it so far.

The only thing I noticed is that there's a purple glow when taking outdoor photos with a massive amount of light. (See: photo (http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b3/71/af16024128a06dc70b8cff00.L.jpg)) I believe this is what savvy was talking about with light sources behind your subject.

I've ordered photos from both ImageStation and Shutterfly in the past, but I think I will start printing at WalMart because it's a little cheaper. I would recommend printing matte rather than glossy. The only problem I see with online printing is that they auto-crop at their pleasure, but it is very small difference. I normally don't burn to cd and just store them online, ImageStation has unlimited storage.

[scheherazade]

Thanks, Heather and Grace! I had some time yesterday before I caught my train so I went to B&H, where I bought my last camera and have bought all of my supplies, just to check out a few cameras and get their advice. Man, they were so much more a-holic than I remember -- actually, that's not true...they've always been schmucks. The dude at the counter was saying I would get crap shots with anything less than a digital SLR, and basically refused to give me any information or help on the cameras I was interested in. Well, you know what? Some people can't exactly afford to buy a digital SLR camera, no matter how much they'd like to :rolleyes Ugh, I was so angry I wanted to scream. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest! NEVER EVER GO TO B&H -- that's my advice and I'm stickin' to it ;)

[iloveskating]

One challenge I ahve with a digital camera is that there's a slight delay from when you press the shutter to when the photo is captured. I am so sued to a regular camera which exposes at the instant you press the shutter. In digital there's a sligh delay& I have to remind myself to hold still 1-2 seconds after I snap. Also when taking action photos like in FS, you actually need to anticipate a move and snap early in order to get the shot you want, due to the delay.

I also find that spotlights confuse the autofocus on the camera. Actually, even a fully lighted ice surface confuses the camera, due to all the reflections. I usually pre-set my focus and exposure manually, and this has gotten me quite good results. I LOVE not having to worry about how much film I'm using!

[Alessa1]

I was just looking on ebay at possibly getting one of the camera's that was mentioned. Canon S2 IS...

Does anybody have this camera already and if so is it a good one to get?

Alessa

[Heather]

sarah-There's only one reason to go to an actual store to get a digital camera, and that's so that you can test holding the camera and such yourself. See if it's the right size for you. See if you feel comfortable holding the camera. Once you do that, forget the rude clerks, and go buy it online. :b I forget which company Susan used, but she got a great price and her camera came SO fast.

iloveskating-The delay is one of the few complaints I have about digital vs regular cameras, but the pros far outweigh those few cons, IMO. For skating, if I can, I try to use the continuous feature, so that I have less of a chance of missing a move I want. It's also great for moves like spirals. If I'm just taking one picture, I might just get one picture of the spiral, but it's far away, or too close, or whatever. But with the continuous, I might get 5 pics of the same spiral, one being too far, one too close, but the rest perfect. ;)

[scheherazade]

Heather -- yup, that's exactly why I did go...but I also wanted advice as to which of the two cameras I should get, and the schmendrick behind the counter was of no help! I found some great deals online for both of them, but I just don't know which one I want.

And as for the delay, yeah, that's why photo junkies recommend the digital SLR. But like I told him, for skating, if you know what's coming and you have enough practice in getting the shots you want (although with moves like the SFL, it's difficult), you can anticipate. And the continuous shooting mode does make it 100 times easier. You just have to know your camera. Plus, for me, I don't want to be fooling around with the lens or shoving the viewfinder in my eye while I'm trying to enjoy a program. If it's a skater I don't like, it would definitely be fun -- but for those I do I like to have a balance...and a more advanced digital point and shoot is it.

[Grace]

I've bought all my digital cameras online. I don't quite remember where, but if you use www.pricegrabber.com (http://www.pricegrabber.com) you're sure to get an awesome price. You can always shop around at other similar sites like that. Also look at benbargains.net, slickdeals.net, techbargains.com, or my personal favorite, fatwallet.com for awesome deals on digital cameras.

That purple effect around objects when taking pictures facing bright light is called "purple fringing".

Alessa, check out www.dpreview.com, (http://www.dpreview.com,) steves-digicams.com, (http://steves-digicams.com,) www.dcresource.com. (http://www.dcresource.com.) Your camera is one of the most popular cameras of June 2005. I was thinking of purchasing the Canon S1 IS last year, but ended up with the Panasonic FZ10. (the FZ20 is currently the second most popular, according to dcresource)

If one is not looking to do much skating photos and looking for a point and shoot camera, my belief and opinion is that Canon's make the best. As for higher end, my money would be on Nikon. I think the mid/advanced point and shoot is fair game - there doesn't seem to be a clear winner.

[Grace]

Oh, bearpaw, I forgot to mention I stored my photos at photobucket, but got annoyed with all the ads. I would have stored them on my own personal web space, but was too lazy. Yahoo! hates me.

I really like smugmug as well, but that's not free. I currently use flickr.com (though it is a Yahoo! company) and I love it there, however, I have the pro version (which includes posting with cell phone, to a blog, using RSS feeds, etc) One can get a free account, but one can only organize into two sets and no more than 2.

Links:
photos.yahoo.com (http://photos.yahoo.com)
webphotos.com (http://webphotos.com)
www.photobucket.com (http://www.photobucket.com)
smugmug.com (http://smugmug.com)
www.flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com)
www.ofoto.com (http://www.ofoto.com)
www.pbase.com (http://www.pbase.com) (this is particularly an excellent site if you want to see pictures taken by a camera you're thinking of purchasing by various people)

heck, here is the whole list if that isn't enough :D
dir.yahoo.com/Business_an...to_Albums/ (http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Communication_and_Information_Management/Internet_and_World_Wide_Web/Personal_Information_Management/Photo_Albums/)
and a list off of Steve's site:
www.steves-digicams.com/d...ml#digicam (http://www.steves-digicams.com/digresources.html#digicam)

Hope that helps!