As I mentioned in another thread, I am in the market for a new camera. My old Olympus is really not up to the task, and that is putting it politely!
I would like to ask for your suggestions for a medium priced camera that has good closeup capabilities and has decent speed - i.e. when you push the button you should be able to take a picture before the next phase of the moon sets in, unlike my current camera[swg].
One other criteria that I want is an easy to use computer program.
I am thinking in the $300 - $400 range but if I can do it cheaper I’m all game.
EDIT: After posting and doing some research online for cameras I realized that there are so many different cameras available that my question should perhaps be stated a second way. i.e. what are the features I should be looking for in a mid priced camera? Since I am a technological dinosaur I would ask for a brief explanation of the terms and what they actually mean to me as a camera user.
I have had for several nows a Canon Rebel Digital SLR and it takes great picture and the pixel count is twice what I have so I suspect the new ones will even be better. You can pick up the basic set for about $450 at several of the big box stores. I like it the DSLR because I can see what I am shooting, play around with exposure settings with a decent size memory card can shoot over 1000 photos [Y]
I have one of the original Canon Digital Rebels and more recently a Canon T1i. Both have features needed for good model railroad photography,
All pictuers are a matter of getting the correct amount of light into the digital film (sensor). Light is controlled by three things. The sensitivity of the sensor (ASA or ISO rating), the shutter speed (how quickly the photo is taken), and the F-stop. The F-stop is how big the hole through the lense is for the light to get in.
Special features you should look for.
High F stops. The higher the F stop the greater the depth of field. This means that more of the picture will be in focus. The drawback is that the higher the F stop the less light gets into the digital film. So #2.
The ability to hold the shutter open in order to allow those higher F stops to do their magic. In the old days this was a shutter speed of “B”. The longer the shutter is open the MORE light gets into the digital film. I truthfully don’t know what they call it today in the digital world. I had to “read” the manual for the original digital rebel to figure out how to do that.
A mount point to put the camera on a tripod and a good tripod.
A method to trip the shutter with out touching the camera. My Canons have a wireless remote (I think it is IR) That way I don’t shake the camera just pressing the buttion.
Hot shoe or at least a plug for external flash equipment.
A lense that has a close focus capability. I won’t go as far as saying Macro but one sometimes wants to get in close to those tiny trains.
On the other hand if one wants to freeze motion (like that D&RGW Zephyr speeding by) you will want a camera with a high ISO rating (800 or better), and a fast shutter speed. Generally 1/500th of a second will stop motion.
If you do want a compact camera over a DSLR, check out the Canon S100. it has full manual control, shoots in RAW format, and at it’s widest angle opens up to f2.0.
What will be your main/preferred use for the new camera? If general use plus the odd hobby photo of middle quality, then any lower range Canon Powershot series at a bargain price would be a good bet. If you want more zoom, or really powerful lens/super zoom, then you will want what is called a bridge camera or simply a super-zoom compact. They run from $250-ish and on up to $500.
The super-zooms are highly versatile, but they suffer from physics/engineering limitations that DSLR’s and the non-zoom cameras don’t. For example, they tend to bottom out at about 2.8 F-ratio, and they tend to have small detectors in them that make quality images a problem. DSLR’s and the compacts without the super-zoom use their detectors better for more pleasing and higher resolution images. IOW, you can’t have it all; you want inexpensive…get a compact with about 4-8 times zoom. You want a really great system with a wonderful lens? Get a DSLR, but you’ll pay dearly for quality lenses that allow you to do what the zoom can do. Count on at least the cost of the camera for a good zoom lens giving you in-lens stabilization and good glass affording you about 10-15 X zoom. The lenses affording you what the super-zooms can do, but for your new DSLR, if they are decent, will be $2000 and on up to $6900. If you want some nifty zoom, do a lot of nature, air-show, over-water, across the valley, or down your longest mainline stretch on your layout, you may want to get a super-zoom bridge camera, but it will cost more than the compact, and the imagery won’t come near what the DSLR will produce.
I would recommend, if you are not a photography enthusiast, that you look for any Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Fuji compact with about 12-16 megapixels, video in HD, about 4-12 times zoom if they have it, and in the $250-$350 range. Once you invest in it, you should take a course, or watch youtube manufacturer or enthusiast how-to’s, get i
I bought a Nikon coolpix P500 and the only thing I don’t like is that I can’t screw a filter on the lens. It has 12.1 mega pixel and a 36X zoom with a lot of manual features.
IMHO most of the cameras in the $300 to $400 dollar range would be quite good.
Thanks everyone for your answers. I’m sure there will be more but I think you have given me something to go on when I am looking at cameras.
Obviously my preferred price range of $300 - 400 will only buy cameras that have some limitations. I will have to rethink that. I do want to be able to do close up shots and I want to be able to shoot in natural light.
Can’t really go wrong with a Canon or Nikon. Canon has some nice point and shoots in that price range, with very excellent image quality. They have macro mode for real close ups, and many manual settings as well as presets for outdoors, portraits, indoor lighting, night shots, action shots, etc. Sure an SLR is more versatile, but unless you are really up on all those settings, you’ll be leaving it in auto mode most of the time anyway.
Smaller digital cameras whose lenses only stop down to f/8 aren’t really a problem. Smaller sensors in these cameras will do quite a job at f/8, see here:
Taken with a Canon SX10 IS at f/8. I’ve since upgraded to the SX30, the SX40 is the current model, and an even newer SX50 is coming soon. They have wide angle zoom lenses that are great for close up shots of models, have all the controls of a DSLR, take a shoe mounted flash, take HD videos, etc. They do not support remotes, but using the self timer works almost as well. Lots more info in my photo website in my signature.
So many options. My wife and daughters use a typical Canon such as the older 1100 that typically cost $150 or less (and take amazing photos). One of the first things for me, besides brand, is the optical zoom range. I want more than 3:1. DIgital zoom to me is meaningless as one can crop after the photo is taken and achieve the same thing (with attendant loss in photo resolution…if you can see it).
In my case, I bought a Minolta 5MP digital with a very nice fixed lens for $700 in 2001. Other than needing to process images thru their software (dumb) and being big, it was a nice camera (but they went bankrupt or got bought out). About 18 months ago, I had to decide on a new toy. Model RR was not even in the picture then, rather travel and people photos, including flash. I had to decide on a better small camera or jumping to an SLR. Lots of tradeoffs there, do I want multiple lenses, zoom ratio, auxiliary (more powerful) flash, etc. I decided on a Canon G12 (now $379) which for me had the right tradeoffs/compromises. Bought the aux flash also but have issues there (dropped it on the floor).
There are lots of new compact/high quality cameras (the lens quality and f/stop matter) such as the 4:3 ratio cameras, so a key consideration (again) is whether you need/want multiple lenses (zoom ratios). Having been a photo hobbyist years ago, I came to grips with the fact that I didn’t want to fool with multiple lenses anymore, so I went with a nice quaility single lens Canon G12. Another detail, on afterthought, is how the flash settings work. On my wife’s cheaper Canon, I think I can set the flas to auto or off, but not a forced “on” like with the G12. Sometimes the lighting is such that I want the flash to fire but on auto it won’t do so…I want to be able to make it do so, that&n
I have been getting decent photos with merely a Kodak, all plastic, Z1485 point-n-shoot, now four years old. Anything by Canon or Nikon will be better.
T he Kodak came with wretched software. I soon found Picassa, a free program offered by the friendly folks at Google. I would not worry about the quality of the included software, just down load Picassa. It will be better than anything that comes with any camera.
My Kodak lacks a battery charge indicator. When the battery runs down the camera just goes dead with no warning. Look for a battery charge indicator, or plan to carry a spare battery. Rechargable batteries and chargers are optional at extra cost with Kodak. perhaps with other makes too. You should inquire, and figure the price of two batteries and a charger in your price figuring. It’s also nice if the camera will work on the kind of batteries you can buy in a supermarket. AA and AAA Alkaline are available worldwide. Lithium less so.
I use the built in self timer (most camera’s have one) to trip the shutter hands off when doing model railroad shots. It works as well as a cable release ever did at preventing camera shake. I use a tripod pretty much every time to keep the camera steady. The electronic view finder is good for indoor shots. Outdoors it is difficult-to-impossible to see it against direct sunlight. I’d pay extra money to get a real single lens reflex thru the lens view finder.
About ten years ago I bought a Nikon Coolpix 5400 and over the years I’ve used it for modeling article pictures. At that time the camera cost $800. but now see them on eBay for $75.00. So I bought another as a backup camera and a third one for $25.00 for spair parts when needed. These cameras have many small screws so they are made to be repaired. It like 14 MB I think, plenty big enough for magazine articles.
Guess you cant tell that I like that camera a lot. Bruce
i am no expert. but i’ve been very pleased with a sony dsc-h10 which only has 8.1 megapixels and 10x optical zoom. My wife really liked how light it was compared to her old Canon slr.
But the feature i think you should consider is the ISO mode that allows photos without flash. I feel the exposure are much more natural than with flash. While slow, this should not be a problem for stills and the delayed exposure avoid motion problems (mentioned earlier).
perhaps someone else with more expertise can better explain this mode. i’m curious to learn more about this as well.
It’s really a matter of where the light comes from. FOr really good flash photos you need additional fill lights so you don;t end up with harsh shadows. If there is a general diffused light on the subject and you use flash, there will be an extra bright harsh light directly in the front of the subject. Especially if using a built-in flash - it’s almost all reflected rigth back at the lens, washing out any detail. Two ways to fix this, lots of extra light, multiple flashes, diffused flag - most external flashes allow you to tilt the flash so it’s not pointed right at the subject - or good all around lighting and a long exposure time with no flash. With the shutter open a relatively long time, you need to make sure the camera doesn’t move, so a tripod or other sort of mount, plus a way to trigger the shutter without pressing on the camera - on an SLR a cable release is common, most p&s cameras don;t have that, but they almost all have self timers, so you cna set that, press the shutter button, and step back.
One neat thing about Canon, there are some third party firmwares for many models that add features not normally on a given model. Sometimes this adds things like a way to remotely trigger the camera via the USB port. And gives access to modes the standard menus don’t have.
Thanks again everyone for your insight and experiences.
I am leaning towards a Canon Rebel T3 DSLR. It comes standard with an 18-55 EF-S IS ll lense. Can anyone explain the meaning of the lense nomenclature? The 18-55 I think I understand (but please feel free to elaborate on that too). The rest of the letters and numbers/numerals mean nothing to me and I have not yet had the time to search out that information on-line. I notice that the minimum focus distance is around 3 ’ for this lense. Does that mean I can do close up shots with it or should I be considering a different lense. There is a package available with the 18-55 IS lense plus a 55-250 telephoto IS for an additional $120.00.
There are also two different T3 models - the T3 and the T3i. Anyone have any idea what the ‘i’ adds besides $200.00 to the cost?
I do plan on going to the dealer in the near future (Henry’s, which is a fairly large phototography specialist in Canada with multiple outlets) to ask the same questions but by asking them here I hope to be able to go in with some idea of what I am talking about (or alternately just enough information to make me dangerous to my bank account[(-D]).
yes the two numbers with the dash between them is the umm, well, let’s say “size” of the lens. Generally a 50mm would be equivalent to a normal persons vision. You know the old hold your arms straight out in front and point the thumbs toward each other and index fingers up thing. The imaginary box formed by your fingers would be a 50mm picture frame. Numbers smaller than 50 are considered wide angle and numbers larger are telephoto, The dash represents a zoom from the first number to the second number. The Rebels have a smaller sensor than the old 35mm film cameras so there is a multiplication factor of 1.6. That is an 18mm on a Rebel camera would be the equivalent of a 28mm on a normal 35 SLR. This is a great lens as it goes from wide angle to telephoto 88mm equivalence. I own much higher quality lenses but this 18-55 is the one that stays on the camera most of the time.
The EF is a Canon designation for their electronic focus lens line. The -S means “sensor”. It is a special lens designed for Canon cameras with a digital sensor instead of real film. This means it cannot be used on a film camera. All standard EF lenses can.
IS is image stablization. So if one moves slightly the picture is supposedly still solid. Personally I have turned off all the IS functions on mine. In my opinion all they do is consume batteries.
What is missing from that lens designation is the f stop range. Normally a zoom lens will have two other numbers. Mine is a 1:3.6-5.6. This means the smallest F stop available at 18mm setting is 3.6 and the smallest at 55mm is 5.6. Remember the smaller the F stop the more light is allowed through to the sensor.
Thank you very much for the detailed answers to my questions.I am beginning to get a ‘picture’ of what I want (please pardon the terrible pun - I couldn’t resist).
The f stop range is close to what your lense has. it is 1:3.5-5.6.
You raise an interesting issue with the add-on lenses. My assumption is that the telephoto is also a Canon product based on the way it is listed but I could be wrong. I will ask. If the lense is a Canon product is it a reasonably safe bet? (I too have had disappointments with after market lenses in the past).
I can’t thank you enough for your time and information.
