My first digital camera was a Polaroid, 4.1 Megapixels. I found it so difficult I let it lay. Lately I have found a much better entry-level model, the Samsung S730, with 7.1 Megapixels, some internal memory (16 Megs flash), macro capability, telephoto/wide-angle zoom, and my favorite goodie: anti-shaking.
It is on sale this week at Target at $119.99, ten dollars less than I paid two months ago.
I don’t pretend it is anything other than a snapshot camera, but certainly a good one. It’s all I need right now. Fairly fast picture-taker for action (i.e. moving trains) stills, and I leave the fill-flash on almost all the time, a real battery-eater in such mode but it’s an OK trade-off for me.
Jacon12 that was best way for Me to figure out some of the setting on my cameraand how to use them Thanks.
You guys take some good pictures I just need to learn some techniques to take better pics with my camera just like you guys have learned to do with your own camera. Keep up the good work everyone
Please let me add my voice to those who advocate the macro lens. IMHO for super close-ups, a still camera should have a digital macro lens or a macro setting (the icon for mine also looks like a tulip and it’s on the multifunction button). Owners of digital SLR’s can almost always buy a macro lens separately, just like they did for their film SLR’s Film and digital lenses are rarely compatible so you’re lucky if your camera-maker thought away from planned obsolescence and made the film lenses compatible to the digital camera, or perhaps better said, designed the new digitals to mount the old lenses. I know some people maintain that it’s just as good to crop, enlarge and crop again, but I have not found that approch to be suitable; and there are too many compromises in using a regular lens set way small, especially around depth-of-field topics. [:D]
Most owners of DSLRs DO NOT buy very expensive macro lenses for their model railroad photography. Where did you get this information? Macros are specially designed for close ups yes, but normal wide angle lenses work just fine. Took this one with the kit 18-55mm lens on my Digital Rebel XT, set at f:22 and at its closest focusing distance of about 6":
(click on image to enlarge)
My Rebel will accept all my Canon lenses I had with my Canon film cameras, use some of them semi regularly. Those with Nikon DSLRs can use their film autofocus lenses too. A friend just bought a Pentax DSLR and his film camera lenses work too.
Way too much is spoken on the extreme closeup capability of digital cameras; how many photos do you want to take of the cab of an HO scale engine? Most photos are taken farther back, showing a scene. Most times the camera’s close focusing capability, and not its macro setting is all that is needed. If you can set the aperture to its smallest opening, usually around f/8 for point and shoot models, then that will give you the best overall capability.
I took this photo with my Canon Powershot S5, set at f/8:
I have an older canon power shot A510. One thing I would like for my next camera will be a large lcd screen so I can see more detail when I,m macro zooming. I have to kind of guess when it’s in focus now. So I got lucky with this picture with the spokes on the wagon and horses in focus. I painted them myself. This is N scale. now way will I attempt Z scale. JK posted a good photo tutoral awhile back that helped me. waiting to see his new camera.
Unless you are going to use it to shoot your own backdrops you don’t need more than 3.6 megapixels. Your eye can resolve about 210 DPI. In an 8x10 that is 3.6 MP. Any more is just overkill. In an 8x10 inch print you will not be able to see any difference between 3 megapixels and 20 megapixels. One advantage to higher resolution is the ability to crop severly and still retain image quality. Minimum focusing distance, lens quality, and low light capability are more important. If you ARE going to shoot backgrounds then as many megapixels as you can afford is the order of the day. (Most available at any price is about 30 MP.) Price of that much resolution is about $50,000.
Many 4 MP point and shoot cameras are perfectly adequate for most amature photographers.
Optical zoom is a good feature. Digital zoom is not. Digital zoom is just cropped and then interpolated up. Image quality suffers.
Don’t use the flash if you can help it, but higher ISO settings induce more digital noise into the image.
I have a Canon Powershot A710is. The way I image is to get as much bright light on the subject area as I can and to set the imaging mode at what Canon terms “AV” for auto shutter timing. If I have some brightness issues, Microsoft Photo Editor allows me to fiddle with contrast, hue, saturation, brightness, etc .
I find that with the AV setting, as light intensity on the CCD falls off, the colour index tends towards yellow, and the layout images look yellowed and generally less bright.
Also, as a general rule, I set my camera as far back from the item to be imaged as I can so that the camera must set the focus for a longer focal length. This has the effect of extending the depth of focus. Then, for the closer stuff, if it makes sense and won’t compromise the visual interest of the image, I crop the out-of-focus greenery and objects in Microsoft’s processing.
I do appreciate the tips that others more advanced and knowledgeable offer from time to time since I am in learning mode. Your service enriches our hobby experience online and at the coalface!
(Following Bob Boudreau): The first pic is excellent, no point in denying that. I wonder if a zoom lens set way, way short would give such a fine rendition if you had chosen to shoot the picture on ground level or level of the store’s footplanks, with “Sullivan’s” sign centered head-on?
Nobody should feel rushed or intimidated into buying macro, but I have found my macro setting quite useful, as well as the separate macro lens on my old film Yashica.
I thank you showing how some different brands are interchangeable. Always try, would be my position.
The second pic (trucks) is a little more problematic, with evident horizontal distortion. Perhaps it isn’t what the lens took; perhaps the distortion comes from re-sizing the orig. digital image or something like that? - a. s.
For a (human) head-shot, a digital zoom lens (that often comes with the camera) will work fine. The regular zoom finder would not get you frame a tight head-shot, more like a body shot, but the trick is to set the mode in camera to “Portrait” and then use zoom levels to get what you want. (The digital equivalent of not extending the zoom at all, up to three or four X digital zoom, would translate to roughly a film-camera 38-105 mm lens.)
For anything smaller than that, especially when you want to get really close to your subject, I would advocate for using a macro lens or the macro setting some digital cameras have.
Obviously, there are people from both parties. Are there more macro-users, especially in MR, who do feel any extra expenditure for a dedicated macro lens is warranted? - a. s.
Depth of field is depth of field, no matter what is centered or from a different viewpoint. BTW the name on the sign is “Woodrows”.
The distortion is caused by the use of a wide angle lens, items closer to the lens appear to be larger. Both trucks are the same size. Using lenses at their widest angle provides the greatest depth of focus. As you zoom out, the range of focus decreases.
I didn’t choose these photos for any particular reason, they were already in my Photobucket account and all I wanted to illustrate was the depth of focus.
This is only true for those camera lenses that were designed before manufacturers went to autofocus lenses, and in Nikon’s case not true at all. If you have an autofocus lens for one brand of camera then most likely it will be compatable with that manufacturers digital SLRs as well. Because of the difference in where the DSLR’s sensor is compaired to the actual film the lens’ ratings may be slightly off but the lens will still be usable. Now in the case with Nikon any Nikon SLR lens will work with any Nikon SLR or DSLR even if it is not an autofocus lens. Nikon did this to help keep their customers happy by offering new updated equipment without making the photographer go out and buy a whole new set of lenses.
As for Macro and Digital Macro I would recommend staying away from Digital Macro. All that does is crop and magnify the image to give the illusion of a close up shot. It is actually just rearanging the pixles to give the illustion. Optical macro will give you the closes
Your track is “smiling”. This is usually caused by too wide of an angle shot being too close to the subject. It can be fixed by backing off from the subject and then zooming in a bit more to get the subject to fill the frame again.
