Digital Cameras ?

[woodyracing]

A few questions about digital cameras.

1)Are digital cameras any good?
2)as good as a photo and a good scanner ?
3)any recommendations ?
4)what features to get and avoid ?
5)whats your thoughts about them?

Thanks!

[elephino]

Ah..a question after my own heart. I have been debating the digital question for a while now. It depends on whether you want to be able to print the photos or not. Because if you want to print lots, in photo quality on proper photo paper and all that, then it is probably still cheaper by the normal way with film assuming you don't waste too much trying to get the perfect shot.

Digital cameras can be very good, nice high-ish to high res images for a computer (I'll ignore printing from now on). They are similar to photo and good scanner, though a good negative scanner may be slightly better.

Recommendations...well...full on would be something like a Nikon D1, only about AU$12,000 plus lenses. A Canon D30 is only AU$2,500, not sure if that includes a lens or not though. The Canon is a nice camera and does all you'll need to do really...the D1 is just that much, well, more expensive.

[D428 CHO]

1) Yes
2) Debateable, but if it is it'll probably cost you
3) Can't answer that easily, I've only tried the one
4) I find the preview screen on the back handy

5) Digital cameras are getting very good it has to be said. I recently bought a gigital compact Kodak, only a cheap £150 job but for the convenience of being able to get the result back instantly it's worth it. The image quality isn't anything like that of a 35mm, but it's still very good for most purposes. If it's motorsport photography you need it for though, you really need an SLR. A digital SLR such as the Canon EOS D30 is around £2500 if I remember correctly - it'd take a lot of photos to recover the processing costs using that! The results I've seen from one of tese are excellent though.

Personally I'm sticking to my 35mm EOS 300 with the digital compact in my pocket for things like paddock photos.

[WoodyTJ]

I've been thinking about purchasing one for around £200/£300 .. but decided to go on Holiday instead

[bella]

i'm debating - a few new lenses for my beloved nikon, or a digital camera for convenience.
for £400, it's an expensive toy, but a fun one

[JP]

I've been messing around recently with an Olympus C2100 - it's not quite up to the job yet compared with an SLR (when panning an action shot the digital viewfinder doesn't quite keep up and the autofocus is fairly slow), but it's already saved me its £600 price in processing costs. I can get nearly 750 shots on a 64mb card, and they only take a couple of minutes to download.

Best thing about it for circuit racing use is a 400mm equivalent lens (or three times that with the digital zoom, although you lose a bit of definition) - an equivalent focal length for an SLR would be pretty expensive, I imagine. At Rockingham I was getting good close-up shots on the infield hairpin and the exit of turn 4, taken from fairly high in the turn 1 stand (so the debris fences weren't in the way).

I suspect the next generation of this camera (I know mine will be obsolete within months) will be getting pretty close to a digital SLR for general motorsport use. Don't know yet how it will stand up to the mud and dust of Autograss (its main use) yet.

[Crash Test]

Bang for buck, my $1000 Nikon SLR is just as good as a $20,000 digital camera. But then, in the past I have used a digital camera at the track, and it is fantastic for pictures in the pits...especially when the pics are only to be used on the net.

[Ray Bell]

I haven't looked at the market for a year or more, which in a field like this might be fatal, but I was convinced then that the Sony range was the only one to go with, as you needed no adaptors of any kind to put the pic on the computer.

All pics are stored on regular 3.25 floppies, and you can carry as many as you like, while others have special fittings etc that are needed. No software needed, either.

But to get the features that you might one day need on the Sony, it was pointless looking at anything less than the top of the range Mavica, which was about $2000 here at the time.

It's a good thing if they've come down and are useful, but I see no point in buying anything unless it will do all that you're ever likely to want it to do.

[elephino]

Personally, anything outside the paddock area (and faster than a daewoo) needs a SLR. But that could just be I'm a perfectionist

[Craig]

I recently had to decide this myself. Digital is brilliant for convenience if you're planning on putting photos on-line but, if what you're taking shots of are not static and within a few feet - ie anything on track, then you'll need an SLR. I still steal my old man's digital though for paddock shots...

And this is a good oportunity to thank Carrie for all her help in choosing my camera

[kev]

Ok, I'm no hot shot photog but... At work we have a Fuji Mx2900 which cost $NZ1800. I picked it and had to write a proposal to get the expense approved.
It is as good as any regular camera I've used. It takes genuine photo quality, and fits standard zoom lenses (unfortunately I don't have one). All the pics on my home page were taken with it http://communities.msn.com/kevsracetrack I've knocked the resolution right down to save uploading time. I've found It's fine for moving targets. Only the 'toy' ones will fall over there.

Some things to look for when choosing one.

Digital zoom is a myth. It is not 'zoom' at all, just picture enlargement, at the expense of resolution.You may as well enlarge the pic at home on your pc as in the camera. So ignore it.

Optical zoom is good if you don't have a zoom lens or the camera doesn't take one.

Some say that for photo quality you need 1 megapixel or better resolution. I would say at least 1.5. Our Fuji has 2.3.

The Sony straight to floppy disk cameras are bottom end of the market. A flopppy only holds 2Mb of data. Ours holds 16Mb, upgradeable to 48Mb by simply buying a higher capacity (and dearer) memory card.

There are two common types of memory. Smart Media, and SIM cards. I would be skeptical of anything else. SIM cards can be plugged directly into some laptops.

Other than above, USB is the preferred download method followed by serial cable. Floppy drive adapters tend to be fiddly, unreliable, & the battery is always flat when you want to use it, so says an associate who uses one.

I get fantastic prints using Hewlitt Packards' 'Brochure and Flyer Paper' on our HP2000c colour printer. They are as good as a proffesionally printed glossy brochure to the extent that we no longer use an outside printer for our brochures. The paper costs about $1 per page & will fit 3 standard size photos.
It you want them to last & look even better. Get them laminated.
However that sort of defeats the purpose of using a digicam, it would be better to cut them to CD.

After hasving our digicam for nearly a year I swear by it. I even took a photo of a photo recently in order to email it. Because it was easier than using our clonky old scanner.

As far as brands go. The mainstream camera makers have dropped the ball. I think Kodak and Fuji make the best ones. I wouldn't touch a Cannon.

Some cameras have gimmiks like the ability to record sound, or a 30 sec movie, but thats only good if you want it and the resolution sucks.



Man! this is getting long. Like I said I'm no expert, but I kmow what works for me.

One last thing, don't buy from a shop. You'll get a much better price on line. If you are a company they should send you a demo model to trial. They did for us.

[woodyracing]

I would want a digital camera to take excellent quality pictures of 1024x768 for computer/web use, but they have to be very sharp images (no jaggies). And I dont need to printing them.

I would mainly use it for paddock pics, but it would be nice to be able to take some track pics.

i was looking around £200 to £400.

Also I might be able to buy a Minolta Dimage EX 1500 Zoom - from a mate with extras for within that price range.

Any recommendations ?
thanks