posted on November 9, 2000 02:18:51 PM new
I have a Polaroid PDC640.
First let me say it is a good little camera and I have really enjoyed it and it has more than paid for itself many times over. I takes great pictures for email and auction photos. I have no complaints with it that respect.
BUT...It will not do what I want it to do away for email and auctions. What I mean is, when I take pictures of my little boy playing baseball, for example, he is very small in the picture. I can enlarge it after I upload it to the computer, but it takes away from the clarity of the photo. It stretches it out and breaks it up. Do you know what I mean?? (It ruins it in other words.)
What I would like for someone to tell me is this... What is a good Digital camera that has zoom lens to bring far away objects (like my little boy on a ball field) up close and still have a reallyyyyyy good picture.
I would kinda like to have one that uses 3 1/2 floppies so I could just carry it on vacation, and instead of buying rolls of film, just shoot the pictures and pull the disk out and slip another one in and keep going.
Does anyone know which cameras take the best shots...No1. The ones that use memory cards or No2. The ones that use the floppy. OR does it matter? Do they take equally good photos?
Any suggestions--and details on specfics--would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 9, 2000 02:38:00 PM new
Olympus D460 Zoom
- Maximum resolution of 1,280 x 960 pixels produces high-quality photos
- 3x optical, 2x digital zoom brings you close to the action
- Automatic operation; built-in flash with red-eye reduction
- Compact, stylish design with Olympus's signature sliding lens cover
- Uses supercompact, removable SmartMedia memory storage; 8 MB card included (about 30 high-rez pictures)
I loaned mine to a new grandma here at the office (nobody in the family had a camera, apparently). She figured out the camera in a couple of seconds, and took wonderful pictures of the baby - went to Kinkos with the memory card to have printed copies made, and Kinkos said they were the best quality they'd seen.
posted on November 9, 2000 02:52:34 PM new
Glenda, those are very good pictures!
Can you tell me if you just go out and take a picture, then use your printer to print it out, how big is it. I mean does it automatically print out as a 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, that kinda thing. (kinda like its default size)
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 9, 2000 02:54:17 PM new
Two words: Sony Mavica!
I also had the Polaroid you have, and I finally upgraded to the Sony Mavica FD73, and believe me, it is WELL worth the money. No cords, it takes the 3.5" floppy disc. I bought mine at Wal-Mart for $498. Worth every penny!
posted on November 9, 2000 03:03:59 PM new
Never mind the camera..I want one of Glenda's kitties.... The black and white looks just like my departed Princess Marshmellow...
posted on November 9, 2000 03:16:23 PM new
ExecutiveGirl, is it true that the camera you speak of takes pictures in 8x10 mode, and holds 34 to 36 photos of this size on one floppy?
This may sound like a crazy question, but someone I know told me this and it is just hard to believe that you can cram that many on one little disk!
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 9, 2000 03:21:41 PM new
jwoodcrafts: I'm not sure about "8x10 size" - there are different modes you can take pictures in with this camera (panoramic, fine, etc). I take all my ebay photos in "fine" resolution mode and I can fit about 23-25 pictures on 1 disk. "normal" resolution I can fit about 40-50 on a disk. The pictures - especially closeups are AMAZING with this camera.
posted on November 9, 2000 03:30:49 PM new
So if I take a picture of my little boy when he is in, say, short position, and actually see his facial expressions? Say from 80 feet away?
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 9, 2000 03:40:48 PM new
Yes, the Sony Mavica has a 10x zoom also. I can sit in my desk chair and have a dress hanging on the wall about 20 feet away and I can EASILY zoom in and read the garment's manufacturer label!
posted on November 9, 2000 03:51:23 PM new
That's amazing! And you could take a picture of the label and see the words in the picture???
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 9, 2000 04:16:14 PM new
JWOODCRAFT -
"So if I take a picture of my little boy when he is in, say, short position, and actually see his facial expressions? Say from 80 feet away?"
For that you need to get a REALLY BIG ZOOM LENS and a 35mm camera the lens will fit on. None of the consumer-priced digitals have that good a zoom on them. And the ones with the kind of lens that can take a close-up of the face of a kid at shirtstop (from the bleachers) are extremely expensive.
posted on November 9, 2000 04:30:22 PM new
abacaxi, you may be right there. I do have a really good 35mm camera. It takes such great pictures that I have people wanting me to take pictures for them with it.
I can't imagine that there is a digital camera made that can top it. I have had it for years. It is one where you have to manually focus, you know, pull the split lines together, to get a focused picture. I don't believe I could ever replace it, nor would want to, I just want a camera that can give me "instant gratification" as well. The digital camera I have now, just won't do that in the way I want it to.
edited to add-- maybe I would not be able to see "facial expressions" all the way from the short stop position, but hopefully maybe I could just "see" his face enough to know who he is??
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
[ edited by jwoodcrafts on Nov 9, 2000 04:32 PM ]
posted on November 9, 2000 04:43:16 PM new
The 8-meg SmartMedia memory card that comes with the Olympus holds 36 photos in 1280x960 resolution. The memory card is about 1"x2". I just take the pictures at that default resolution, then crop them to 800x600 because that's the size of my monitor, and I use them for wallpaper.
I bought a floppy disk adapter (about $100); I can just stick the memory card into this little metal piece the size of a floppy disk, then put the metal piece into the floppy disk drive and copy the photos to my computer. No cables are needed with this method - which is good, because uploading with cables is veeeery slow. I also bought a battery charger.
I've never printed out any photos, but I'm sure they print out in the standard sizes. You can also buy a photo printer - just put the memory card into it, select the photos, and it prints them on regular photo paper. Or, you can create a Photo Album like I did on Webshots and they will print your photos for you and mail them to you (the first 25 are free).
For an idea of how far away you can get: most of the photos of my cats were taken from across the room.
posted on November 9, 2000 05:34:33 PM new
So, Glenda...with the 3X lens, can you take really good close up of Jewelry, or a break in a piece of pottery?
******************** Gosh Shosh!
posted on November 9, 2000 05:56:04 PM new
I'm sure you're familiar with the term TANSTAAFL. You dont get something for nothing. And since a high quality digital image takes up a meg of storage, you can't get several on to one floppy disk without a major sacrifice of quality. The mavica may be good for auctions but the quality doesnt even come close to a real digital camera. Having researched these for over a year, I went with the one that won the Digital Media Association's first prize - the Toshiba PDR-M5. This camera comes with everything you need, nothing extra to buy and then some. For more info, detailed reviews, the story on the award and sample photos, you can visit http://www.ygoodman.com/cameras.html.
posted on November 9, 2000 06:23:43 PM newyisgood is absolutely correct. That's why we purchased a Nikon 990 CoolPix. This is a close-up of a piece of Baltic Amber. You can easily see all of the fossils in it. You can't do that with a Sony Mav!
This was shot at Fine resolution, cropped down to 1600 x 1200, 40% jpeg compression.
posted on November 9, 2000 06:51:21 PM new
Here's the spec sheet and information from Olympus about the D-460 Zoom. There is a brochure you can view in your browser if you have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer - the brochure is good because there is an example of the zoom in it.
What you really might want to do is go to a local store and stare through the viewfinder of some of the digital cameras - that's better than people telling you about it. My husband says we were between 40 and 60 feet away from the ships, but he's really not sure.
In July, I paid Amazon.com $499.99 for the Olympus D-460 Zoom camera, $89.99 for a 32-meg SmartMedia card (holds several hundred pictures!), $89.99 for the floppy disk adaptor, and $39.88 for extra batteries and a charger.
posted on November 9, 2000 08:04:51 PM newjwoodcrafts, the Nikon like mine is probably not necessary for what you want to do. I was merely agreeing with yisgood. The Nikon CoolPix 990 goes for around $1,000 in retail stores. I paid $850 online at Sparco.com [url]http://www.sparco.com[/b]. The reason why I purchased this digital camera is that many gems need as good a picture as possible.
You probably need a good 2.2 megapixel digital camera at the least for great shots. My Nikon is a 3.3 megapixel and in the finest resolution mode, shots 9.5 megabyte image files so crisp that you can't believe it. But not everyone wants to the spend $850.
posted on November 10, 2000 07:12:26 AM new
Toshiba has 2 models which are 2.1 megapixel, the M4 and the M5. The M4 can be found for about $300 and the M5 for about $400. The basic differences are:
the M5 has a 3X zoom lens plus a 2X digital zoom for up to 6X effective zoom. The M4 has only the digital zoom. Digital zoom means firmware in the camera blows up the picture to simulate a zoom lens. It is not as good as a real zoom lens.
because it doesnt have a zoom lens, the M4 is much smaller and can fit it a pants pocket
other than the zoom, the picture quality is identical. Both have USB and serial downloading, 8 mb smartmedia, built-in 4 mode flash and 16 mb of built-in ram. The internal ram lets the camera take photos in 1/4 second intervals. It also means that unlike other cameras, the photo is stored in the camera in uncompressed mode before being written to the smartmedia. Cameras without built-in ram need a few second per shot and the photo is recorded in compressed format immediately to save space. There may not be an apparent difference to a novice, but a professional will notice.
My web site has links to detailed camera reviews and more specs and you can email if you have questions.
posted on November 10, 2000 11:08:32 AM new
I don't understand the Smartmedia Cards. The camera I have now has a card and I plug it into the computer and upload the pictures from my camera to my computer.
Do the Smartmedia Cards work the same way, or do I need something additional to get the pictures from the camera to the computer?
Thanks
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
posted on November 10, 2000 11:33:49 AM newjwoodcrafts: Typically, digital cameras require a cable to be connected to the back of your computer, and then you transfer the images directly from the camera to the computer. That is the way the Olympus works by default.
The Sony Mavica records to a floppy disk - you then take the floppy disk out of the camera, insert it into the computer's disk drive, and transfer the images.
For the Olympus to do the same thing as the Mavica, you need to get a floppy disk adapter. You then take the SmartMedia card out of the camera, insert it into the adapter, and then put the adapter into the computer's floppy drive. The floppy disk adapter is much faster than transferring images by cable. It is a one-time expense of about $80-$90. You need to get the one specifically made by Olympus.
posted on November 10, 2000 11:57:22 AM new
Glenda, you say the Olympus by default uses a cable to upload the pictures. Right? I mean it works like the one I have now. I can take pictures with it, then plug it into my computer and then upload the pictures to my computer...Right?
I think I would want the adapter you speak of if I had this camera, I just want to know if I HAVE to have it. I mean if I run out and buy the camera and take some pictures, I CAN get them on my computer without the adapter can't I?
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."---Mark Twain
The black and white looks just like my departed Princess Marshmellow...
