After all these years I’m finally ready to buy a digital camera. I plan to do a lot of indoors layout photography, so I’ll want something that can be setup to allow good depth-of-field (with a little help from a pair of 3000-watt photo floods of course!).
Regular digicam buying guides suggest that a 3.2 megapixel camera will give me pretty decent-looking 8"x12" shots. But I think I’ll need more features than that.
Will I need aperture-priority and shutter-priority capability? More than 3x optical zoom?
I intend to hold out for 5.o megapixel and the equivalent of an SLR. My logic is I also want to use it for prototype photos and may want to blow up an area fairly large to examine details. Having had a videocamera that someone stole with a 20x telephoto lens and digital telephoto to 400x my current 10x telephoto isn’t as good in that regard. I think the telephoto capabilities are equally important as the megapixel and the ability to override the auto features.
Hey Ken,
My wife finally convinced me a couple of years ago to buy a digital camera. Per “Consumer Reports” back then, Olympus made the best cameras so that’s what we bought. It is 3.2 megapixels and I have taken many photos of local buildings, blown them up to 8" by 10" using the Kiosk at Wal-Mart, and used them for backdrops on my layout (our local Wal-Mart fortunately uses matte paper for the local printing rather than glossy). The clarity is great. Of course, prices have come way down since we bought ours for $600.00. You can get a 5 megapixel for less than that now. You may want to check “Consumer Reports” to see if they’ve done an update on digital cameras.
You may also want to determine whether it’s worth spending the extra bucks for more than 3.2 megapixels.
It really depends what you want to do with your pictures. I have bought a 1.3 megapixels a few years back and it gives out great pictures both on screen and printed. So 3.2 megapixels would be enough, you don’t need much more, don’t listen to the salesman, he only wants to make more money.
If you want to eventually publish any of your digital pictures, you’ll need at least 5MP. At least, that’s what magazine editors have been telling me recently.
I finally bought a digital camera so I could snap cheap and dirty. What I’ve got is a Canon A300, 3.2megapixel 5.1 zoom pocket camera. I have taken several pictures so far but sad to say it’s not my Nikon FM-2. It will do in a pinch but I am a die hard, no whistle, no bells kind of guy. That or I might have to read the manual. I started sending photos but one shot alone took up 1.7 megabites. Now that I’m tinkering with a web sight for photo storage I may have to rethink how many pixels I’ll be shooting at.
My wife just purchased a Pentax Optio camera with 5 Mega Pixel and 5x zoom. It also has a fantastic macro close up feature. She purchased it for about $400 for photographing close up detail for her needlework projects. She did a lot of consumer reports type research before selecting this camera. I have used it to take pictures at the GATS show a couple of weekends ago and it is really very good. I would reccomend this camera to anyone.
What is the Best F setting for a digital camera? I have one that came with my computer, and it’s and 2 point something and it doesn’t take very good close up pictures. I have heard F22 or so is about right, is this true?
The higher the number (f stop) the greater the depth of field, You will sacrifice shutter speed however, but a tripod will take care of this unless your talking moving shots.
I bought a Canon EOS 10D body last year, and since I already had Canon EOS film camera, I was all set. The body was pricey, but it does 6.3 megapixel, and now that I’ve used it for a few months, the film camera is obsolete.
But I want it for publishing photos in print. If all you want it for is home use (8x10s) or web photos, 2-3 megapixel should be adequate, with 4 megapixel being ideal.
However, to get full control of the camera, higher end digital cameras are necessary. After the Canon EOS 10D came out, Canon released the EOS Digital for half the price, I’ve seen it for a low as about $700 for just the body. Of course if you don’t have lenses, then it will be more.
An SLR style body gives you dream-come-true control over the image. You can set the ISO film speed, white balance, depth of field and everything else you can imagine. Back in my early days as a staff photographer for a college, I never would have imagined digital imaging would come this far!
I was thinking I could probably buy a 5.0MP point-n-shoot camera with 3x optical zoom to fit my needs, but now I’m getting a bit concerned - the online specs for the digicams I’ve looked at don’t say anything about apertures that can be set as high as f22. Does this mean that, even with powerful photo floodlights, I still need a SLR camera to take decent (read: high depth-of-field) pictures of my layout?
-ken
I sold my fim camera several months ago, and purchased a Canon 10D 6.3mega
pixel SLR. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread ! It has a more economically
priced “cousin” (the Canon Digital Rebel) and it has almost all of the features the
10D has. Digital technology is moving so rapidly that just about as soon as you buy
something… it’s obsolete, so by purchasing a more “top end” camera, you will be
more likely to have a camera that will meet your needs well into the future. If you
can handle the SLR price tag, you will have very few limitations on any future photo
project you might want to undertake… the ability to interchange lenses, and larger
digital file size is the key. 'Hope this has helped… Iron Goat
When buying a digital camera, if affordable, I would buy as high a megapixel as you can.
I have a HP 2.1 megapixel camera & to be effective, I have to have good light or the picture needs a lot of touch up on the computer.
In other words, unless the shot is planned, the pictures will come out dark.
For now, I’m going to stick to my Minolta 35mm or use my JVC digital camcorder.
The video I get with that far exceeds my digital camera even in poor light.
Well it looks like I’ll not be buying a digital camera anytime soon after all. I spend about $200 a year for film developing, so I figured a $400 camera would pay for itself in a few years; not so with a $1500 SLR.
Prices for “film” for digital cameras keep coming down. Sandisk is coming out with a line of digital film. They also make a neat photo viewer that plugs into your VCR or TV set, so you can see your shots on the road (back in the room) & make a kool slide show.
I like the Compact flash kind so that you can have extra spare chips in your shirt pocket & not worry about losing it. Don’t forget to also check out the office supply stores for them.
Since you are a pro, you will probably wait until your mfr comes out with it’s digital SLR so that you can use most of the same lenses. That will help keep some of the cost down. Please be aware that the CCD chip is smaller than a 35mm frame, so the same lens will give a different image.
A great deal depends on precisely what sort of layout photography you want to do. Even so, aperture-priority control is a must, as is the ability close down the system to f/22.
That said, most mid-range digital cameras will perform quite well for general layout photography i.e. images shot from 18" or more from the subject. If you desire to do ultra-close-up work, down to say 6" from the subject to obtain prototype scale image size, I’ve yet to see any digital camera at any price, Marco settings or not, do nearly as good a job as an old fashion film camera with the appropriate lens. The digitals simply do not seem to provide the desired great depth-of-field like the 6"-36"+ DOF I get with my standard film SLR employing lenses used especially for model photographs I’ve had published in MR over the years. Enormous depth-of-field is what creates the reality factor in most truly good model photographs.
Photo paper is one thing I don’t have to worry about. My Canon printer’s ink cartridges come in a three pack & in the three pack comes 5 pieces of 4X6 photo paper.
It’s kind of cool cause I can write the cartridges off as a business expense.
Since most of the photos I shoot are documentation of scratchbuilding projects, I could probably get by with a 5MP point-n-shoot for 99%. My main complaint with the Nikon is that I have to get the film developed outside the home. With a digital, I can take 2 or 3 shots and immediately upload them to my web site - I wouldn’t have to wait to use up all the exposures (minimum 12) on a roll of film. I’ll haul out my Nikon for those occassional head-on [model] train photos.
As has been stated, the higher the megapixel (MP), the better the quality of the images. And also noted is the ability to get great depth of field, something that most point and shoot digital cameras cannot do. A friend who has a 2.2MP Kodak digital is looking at the new one with 4.0 MP, with many great features. But in checking it out I see that the lens will only close down to f:8, which will not give much of a depth of field.
I had two point and shoot digital cameras, both by HP, the first one was 1.3MP, the second 3.3MP, but neither would allow the lens to close down for depth of field. Two weeks ago I broke down (and now am broke!) and bought a Canon Digital Rebel SLR camera. This 6.3MP camera will allow the lens to stop down to f:22 for almost limitless depth of field. I’ve been using Canon cameras for decades, and my other five autofocus lenses will work with this new one. Love it!
My only “problem” was that my older Canon 430EZ fla***hat works fine with my EOS film cameras (Elan IIe & Elan 7e) will not work at all with the Digital Rebel. So I had to buy a 420EX flash for the camera.
Love the digitals, and haven’t made much use of my film cameras for a while.
A related question - is it possible to use the pinhole camera technique with a digital - either point-and-shoot or digital back? (Interesting also from the point of view of combining one of the oldest ways of capturing an image with one of the newest ways… [;)].)
