Calling all computer/photo geeks...

[Pammi 0]

Okay, I know, not skydiving related, but maybe a little as that will probably be a lot of the pictures I take. Anyway...I need some good advice on what type of digital camera to get. I know ZILCH about them, so am trying to read reviews and such, but would love some personal recommendations. Here's what I really want on it:
1.Zoom of course...so I can zoom in on landings, flying canopies and such and not have them look like specks.
2. LCD screen on the back.
3. Holds a decent number of pictures, and can hold more with another memory card or something. I don't quite understand all of that, but I just want to make sure if I'm away from home I'm not stuck only getting to take a handful of pictures until I can get to the computer to upload them.
4. Reasonably priced (of course!)
5. OH! Also needs to be able to focus in pretty clearly on things that are close. Like the hemp necklaces I'm making...you can't take any pics less then three feet away with my normal camera, so it's really blurry when you try to get close.
5. And decent quality pics that family will be able to order printed up if they want to.
Thanks for the help guys!!
Pam
A new page! Bi-Plane pics!

[DZBone 0]

This is probably a good one to post in the Video/Photog forum. Those folks would know.
The one that has been recommended to me is the Olympus CAMEDIA C-3000 (or whatever). You definitely want at least 3 megapixels, and the 4 and 5 megapixel cameras are probably more that you need/want to spend.
I also like the Elphs, for their size, if you wanted to mount them on a helmet or something.
I don't own a digital cameral at all (yet), so these recommendations come second hand, or from my own research.
Good luck, and let us know what you decide on!

[parduhn 0]

I have a Kodak DC280 with a 64MB card and love it. Check out www.dcresource.com for more good info.
Sam

[fred 0]

The zoom is going to be your biggest hurdle. Most reasonably priced digital camera's don't have more than a 3x-6x zoom (and when you go shopping, remember you're worried about the analog zoom. Digital zoom just cuts the picture size down, which you can do in photoshop anyway.).
I'm very fond of my Olympus D-360. It's not the easiest digital camera to use, but the photo quality is astounding. I've got an 8MB card and can hold about 32 high res (1280x1024) pictures. The memory cards come as high as 64MB, and are easy to swap in and out.
The bigger concern would be batteries. Make sure you get lots of rechargables if you're going to be away for awhile. Digital cameras eat them up.
And I'm amazed at how well the macro setting works. I can easily take a picture of a quarter and have it fill up the entire frame without getting blurry.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a digital camera without an LCD screen.
Hope that helps...

[DZBone 0]

Pammi, we have an Olympus for the office that I'm going to take home and play with this weekend. If I make any jumps, I'll have Doreen take some snaps around the dz and post them next week.

[Pammi 0]

Fred...is Analog zoom same as optical zoom? That's one of the options I seem to keep finding references being made to. Thanks for the help guys!!!
A new page! Bi-Plane pics!

[mattb 0]

Pammi -
A few tips.
Digital Zoom and Optical Zoom are not the same. Digital zoom will decrease the clarity/resolution of the picture. Few digital cameras have more than a 2x or 3x Optical Zoom. If you really want a good zoom buy a camera that supports additional lenses and buy a telephoto lens.
Get a Kodak. I'm biased - having owned 2 and liked them both a lot. The DC-4800 is great. I havea DC-240 too, but I don't think they sell them any more.
Don't worry about how many megapixels it supports as long as it supports at least 1 mexapixel. I've found that I usually take pictures at less than full resolution to fit more onto a memory card. I think it works out so a 1 megapixel image is about 5x7 inches without any loss of clarity. 2 megapixels is 8x10 - any larger than that and you won't be able to print it on a standard printer.
My few cents,
Matt

[Viking 0]

If you want that list of qualities it willnot be cheap!! I can personally recomend the Nikon 990 i use it all the time when i take pictures for the student paper. the only thing i don't like is the small 8mb card they give you. But that can be fixed with a 64mb card for like $100 maybe less if you look in the right places.
Remember when Sex was safe and skydiving was Dangerous?

[fred 0]

Yes... optical and analog zoom are the same. I probably used the wrong term.
Ideally, you'd get a camera that will take standard lenses. in my experience, however, this runs about $500 more than getting a good digital camera with its own zoom. It really depends how far you want to take it.
I'm certainly not a photographer, and I know little about it.
I agree... You don't need more than 1 megapixel (well, you want 1.3 Megapixels), but it's hard to find cameras under that. You want something that takes some sort of memory card, not floppies... And those cameras that take digital and regular pictures? You want to avoid those like the plague.

[MarkF 0]

Ahh Something I know a bit about....At last...:-)
First up forget wreck.photo.digital. It's the wreck dot of the digital camera world. Give http://www.dpreview.com a try, it's a great site run by Phil Askey as HH, sort of the dropzone.com of the digital photography world. For your own peace of mind don't buy "grey market" stuff, guarentees etc. won't be honoured and, if it comes from Europe , the video out standard will be PAL rather than NTSC which may or may not cause hassels.
IMO the best thing to do is to visit a local camera shop, or three, and explain _exactly_ what use you intend putting the camera to. Have a play with a few different cameras and make good and sure that you can see what sort of results the camera is capable of. If the store wont let you have a bit of a play just go somehwhere else. Remember that the store will be trying to push the product that they make the most out of so very often you'll not get to see what they have in the way of second hand gear unless you ask.
About the only advice I can give concerning which camera is to steer well clear of Sony. Yes they make damn fine cameras BUT they use very proprietry batteries and storage (except those which use either floppy or CD-ROM for storage). Cameras that use _only_ smart media can also be a bit of a pain. The media is somewhat more fragile than CF (compact flash) cards. Speaking of which you'll NEED more than 1 card as big as you can afford.
For printing you can either take the card to _most_ photo-finishing places for a traditional (wet process) print or you can get a decent Epson photo printer. HP and Canon also make photo printers but they tend to be much more expensive to run ( at least in Australia).
Anyway have a look at http://members.optushome.com.au/forsythm/ they were all taken with an Olympus E-10 except for the landscapes page which were taken with an Olympus C2020. (Which could well be a pretty good choice for what you want.) If you need any more info give me a hoy at forsythm@optushome.com.au and I'll do my best to help out.
Ooroo
Mark F...

[DZBone 0]

OK, so Doreen and I went to the Mystic Aquarium on Saturday and took a bunch of pictures, she with the 3.1 MegaPixel Olympus, and I with the 640x480 (0.3 MegaPixel?) Creative WebCam Go. Needless to say, mine were awful! In fact, they were so bad as to be unusable. I suspect that there is a problem with it, but some pix did come out OK. I'll try to upload these someplace later, but for the issues at hand, here is an example of one of the pictures taken with the Creative: Rupert Helping Navigate.
On Sunday, we went to Jumptown, but because of the wind, I only made two jumps, and Doreen was not there to take pictures, so I only got a few "around the DZ" shots. Here is one taken with the Olympus: Rupert Finished Packing. This is a full resolution (2048x1536), 24-bit JPEG with some compression. There is a mode to store files with less compression (== better image quality, same number of pixels), but I didn't try it.
Here is the same picture at different resolutions (created in PaintShop Pro):
1707x1280 (83%)
1280x960 (62%)
1024x768 (50%)
512x384 (25%)
This should give you a good idea what the various camera sizes will get you. The 1280x960 is about what a 1.2 MegaPixel camera will do, the 1707x1280 is 2.1, and of course the 2048x1536 is the 3.1 MegaPixels.
So in order to decide what is best, print some of these out on a decent-quality ink jet printer at photo quality on good, photo quality paper. You will see what the difference is. The deal with the printers is that they will print at resolutions much higher than these photos, but can do more with more pixels. For example, an 8"x10" photo on a 1200x1200 dots-per-inch (dpi) printer prints a total of 115 MegaPixels! It fills these in using its own algorithms, which are pretty good, but for a 3.1 Mpix image, it will obviously have to do less "filling in" than it would with a 1 Mpix image. I think there is a difference, but you print them and judge for yourself.
Another thing to take into consideration is how much editing you want to do. With more information, the software for smoothing, etc. has more to work with. Even if you don't do all this fancy stuff, you will probably want to do the occasional cut and paste, or at least some cropping. Starting with a larger image will allow you to still have plenty of resolution in the smaller image: Just Rupert.
Anyway, after considering all of this, I am planning on going with a 3.1 Mpix camera. I think I could get good pictures from a 1 Mpix, but I want the flexibility to be able to print blow-ups of cropped images. Besides, with the 4 and even 5 Mpix cameras coming out now, the 3s should start dropping in price.
Hope this helps!
Carl

[Pammi 0]

Wow guys! So much helpful information! Thank you so much for taking the time to type all this out and help me understand the differences. Thank you especially Carl and Doreen for doing those pics so I could actually see some examples.
I really, really appreciate it guys. It's like buying your first computer...hard to know when they are just trying to sell you something or they are telling you the truth about a products abilities.
Thanks!!
P
A new page! Bi-Plane pics!

[sangiro 26]

Pammi - all the pictures here (except the Vegas ones) were taken with the Canon PowerShot S110 You've received some good advice so far. These guys are a bit expensive but I love the small size, the long battery life and the quality of the images.....
Safe swoops
Sangiro

[fred 0]

Quote

Another thing to take into consideration is how much editing you want to do. With more information, the software for smoothing, etc. has more to work with. Even if you don't do all this fancy stuff, you will probably want to do the occasional cut and paste, or at least some cropping. Starting with a larger image will allow you to still have plenty of resolution in the smaller image: Just Rupert.

This is a wonderful example, DBone. Having a higher resolution will let you crop out the 'good parts' without sacrificing image quality. (This is, in fact, what the "digital zoom" I tried to warn you about does, it just does it while you take the picture, instead of requiring photoshop afterward). So, even if your optical zoom is lacking, more megapixels means a better picture.
Pammi, I'll try to remember to take my camera to the DZ tomorrow (woo-hoo! 15 seconds!), and I can give you some examples of my measly 1.3 megapixel 3X Optical so you get some examples of that. If there's anything in particular you want me to try, post it here or mail me at fred@monkeybox.org
I'm pushing my camera (Olympus D-360) because it was low-cost ($299 when I bought it), and good quality. I really feel I got the best bang for my buck. Mine's about 9 months old now, so you'll get a lot more for the same money now.