OT: Digital Camera advise

Mark wrote:

Hi

I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong Kong tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. As a ballet teacher she would like to buy a good digital camera which has at least the following two very important features to help here capture on film her students as they practice:

1) The shutter response time is very low. She assumes she will have the camera powered on all the time she is teaching ballet and she wants to be able to point and shoot at a moments notice and not have a delay between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture.

2) She needs the camera to be able to take multiple pictures in rapid succession so that she can choose the best picture of say a sequence of 12 pictures

Since motion is all in ballet, I would strongly consider a DV camcorder. Just leave it running, and the frames or sequence of frames, may be chosen after the fact.

Among still cameras, the Nikon D70 has remarkably low shutter delay times, and will take quite a number of shots in quick sequence. For further research, check out imaging-resource.com. They routinely include shutter latency times in their reviews.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:30:31 GMT, "Mark"
wrote:

Hi

I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong Kong tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. As a ballet teacher she would like to buy a good digital camera which has at least the following two very important features to help here capture on film her students as they practice:

1) The shutter response time is very low. She assumes she will have the camera powered on all the time she is teaching ballet and she wants to be able to point and shoot at a moments notice and not have a delay between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture.
2) She needs the camera to be able to take multiple pictures in rapid succession so that she can choose the best picture of say a sequence of 12 pictures

Which camera should she go for?

Thank you for you help

Hi Mark

Here is my my favourite. Fact is that the slowest shutter speed is only 2 sec, which I asume, should be more then perfect, and it can take multiple pictures is seconds.

She should seriously look at the Fuji FinePix S5000

Dave

Fujifilm FinePix S5000 Z
Format SLR-like
Max resolution 2816 x 2120 (interpolated)
Low resolution 2048 x 1536, 1600×1200, 1280×960
Image ratio w:h 4:3
Effective pixels 3.1 million
Sensor photo detectors 3.1 million
Sensor size 1/2.7 " (5.27 x 3.96 mm)
Sensor type CCD
Colour filter array RGB
Sensor manufacturer Fujifilm SuperCCD IV HR
ISO rating Auto (160-200), 200, 400, 800 (1MP only) Zoom wide (W) 37 mm
Zoom tele (T) 370 mm (10 x)
Digital zoom Yes
Auto Focus Yes
Manual Focus Yes
Auto focus type Unknown
Normal focus range 90 cm
Macro focus range 10 cm
White balance override Yes – 7 positions
Aperture range F2.8 – F8.0 / F3.2 – F9.0
Min shutter 2 sec
Max shutter 1/1000 sec
Built-in Flash Yes, pop-up
Flash guide no. 6 m (19.6 ft) m
External flash No
Flash modes Auto, On, Anti red-eye, Slow, Off
Focal length multiplier
Exposure compensation -2.0 EV to +2.0 EV in 0.3 EV steps Metering 64 segment, CW-average, Spot
Aperture priority Yes
Shutter priority Yes
Lens thread 55 mm with supplied hood
Continuous Drive Yes, 5 fps, 5 frames
Movie Clips Yes, 30 fps, unlimited, audio
Remote control No
Tripod mount Yes
Self-timer 10 sec
Time-lapse recording No
Storage types xD Picture Card
Microdrive compatible No
Uncompressed format RAW
Compressed format JPEG (EXIF 2.2)
Quality Levels Normal
Viewfinder EVF
LCD 1.5 "
LCD Pixels 114,000
Playback zoom Yes
Video out Yes
USB Yes
Firewire (IEEE 1394) No
Battery AA (4) batteries (NiMH recommended) + 2 x CR123A lithium Weight (inc. batteries) 430 g (15.2 oz)
Dimensions 113 x 81 x 79 mm (4.5 x 3.2 x 3.1 in)

"DD" wrote in message

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:30:31 GMT, "Mark"
wrote:

Hi

I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong Kong
tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. As a ballet teacher she would like to buy a good digital camera which has at least the following two very important features to help here capture on film her students as they practice:

1) The shutter response time is very low. She assumes she will have the camera powered on all the time she is teaching ballet and she wants to be able to point and shoot at a moments notice and not have a delay between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture.
2) She needs the camera to be able to take multiple pictures in rapid succession so that she can choose the best picture of say a sequence of 12 pictures

Which camera should she go for?

Thank you for you help

Hi Mark

Here is my my favourite. Fact is that the slowest shutter speed is only 2 sec, which I asume, should be more then perfect, and it can take multiple pictures is seconds.

She should seriously look at the Fuji FinePix S5000

Dave

I would agree with Mike Russell and have a look at the Nikon D70 or the Canon 300D ( I hate Canon but they are good cameras)
I really would not consider any thing that does not have an optical view finder (true SLR), I got a Nikon 5700 a while ago as a back up for my ageing D1 and to be honest it is totally useless, the time delay between pressing the shutter release and it taking the picture is probably a few 100 ms maybe even up to a second. but feels like a week. it might be great for taking landscapes but for people and sport it just does not work quick enough.I don’t know any thing about the Fujifilm FinePix S5000 Z but I suspect it is a LCD viewfinder, so would be totally the wrong camera, for this application the LCD would take too long to switch on and the delay between pressing the button and the camera working would be far too long.
If anyone wants to buy a Nikon 5700 they can have it really cheep it’s take around 100 shots. I eventually got a D70 instead that has taken around 10,000 shots in three months. great camera!!!

Thanks for your advice guys. I’ve passed the info on to my friend who has asked me to pass on her thanks to you. She is very appreciative.

Mark

"Mark" wrote in message

Hi

I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong

Kong

tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. As a ballet teacher she would like to buy a good digital camera which has at least the following two very important features to help here capture on film her students as they practice:

1) The shutter response time is very low. She assumes she will have the camera powered on all the time she is teaching ballet and she wants to be able to point and shoot at a moments notice and not have a delay between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture.
2) She needs the camera to be able to take multiple pictures in rapid succession so that she can choose the best picture of say a sequence of 12 pictures

Which camera should she go for?

Thank you for you help

<snip> I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong Kong

tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. </snip>

Bad idea. Warranty will be void. What is the price range. The application as described is pretty
silly. Take one good shot. You could purchase a good, used Nikon SLR D1X for $1000 in the UK.

"stupid_idiot" wrote in message

<snip> I’ve just taken a call from a friend here in the UK who is off to Hong Kong

tomorrow where the price of cameras is significantly lower. </snip>

Bad idea. Warranty will be void. What is the price range. The application as described is pretty silly.

I don’t think you can say the application is silly! dancing is a serious art and photographing it also very serious.

Take one good shot. You could purchase a good, used Nikon SLR D1X for $1000 in the UK.

I’m not sure that’s such a great idea either firstly $1000 is very cheep for a D1x in the UK that’s