Camera suggestion

JB
Posted By
Jon Bergstrom
Aug 4, 2004
Views
808
Replies
20
Status
Closed
Hi!
We are moving, and I have been charged with taking pictures of goodies we are selling. I get to do this because I did industrial photography many years ago. We have an older sony digital camera that uses diskettes, but this is very low quality. Being clever I priced a digital back for my 4×5, Ha Ha Ha! The local big box has lots of cameras, but they seem to be for vacation snaps and are loaded with doodads. Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay. Thanks!
Jon

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R
RSD99
Aug 4, 2004
"Jon Bergstrom" posted
"…
The local big box has lots of
cameras, but they seem to be for vacation snaps and are loaded with doodads.
…."

That’s the state-of-the-art at places like Costco and Sam’s Club. I’m afraid you will need to go to a *real* camera store to find anything better … even then, you will probably need to go to one of the larger ones that services professional photographers, such as B&H, Samys, Bel Air Camera, Calumet, and etcetera before you get into the kind of equipment you will need.

and then "Jon Bergstrom" posted
"…
Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay.
…."

Possibly a Canon 10D, Canon Digital Rebel, or Nikon D100 … but those are all still high$$$ to mid$,$$$.

and then "Jon Bergstrom" posted

"…
Being clever I priced a
digital back for my 4×5, Ha Ha Ha!
…."

If you already have a 4" x 5" view camera … lenses … tripod(s) … lights … stands …. etcetera, that’s probably your best bet … but RENT IT.

"Jon Bergstrom" wrote in message
Hi!
We are moving, and I have been charged with taking pictures of goodies we are selling. I get to do this because I did industrial photography many years ago. We have an older sony digital camera that uses diskettes, but this is very low quality. Being clever I priced a digital back for my 4×5, Ha Ha Ha! The local big box has lots of cameras, but they seem to be for vacation snaps and are loaded with doodads. Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay. Thanks!
Jon

—————————————————-
Anything being cooked a second time needs a hot oven.
EG
Eric Gill
Aug 5, 2004
Jon Bergstrom wrote in
news::

Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use?

Canon 300D, Nikon d70. Both will yield sizeable shots; combined with good shooting, lighting, and Photoshop CS, you can get stuff adequate for letter-sized prints with bleeds.
S
saswss
Aug 5, 2004
In article ,
Jon Bergstrom writes:
We are moving, and I have been charged with taking pictures of goodies we are selling. …
Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay. Thanks!

The Sony DSC-F717 provides full manual control, an adequate supply of useful features, and relatively few useless features. You can get good 8.5×11 inch prints from it. Since it is no longer Sony’s top of the line, the price is reasonable.

You might also consider some of the high-end Olympus prosumer models if you plan to use studio flashes, because some of those have an option to turn off the pre-flash, which makes it easy to sync with slaved studio flashes.

The bottom of the line digital SLRs are considerably more expensive, but might be worth considering if you already have appropriate lenses.



Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.
J
jjs
Aug 5, 2004
In article ,
Jon Bergstrom writes:
[…]
Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay. Thanks!

How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.
JB
Jon Bergstrom
Aug 6, 2004
Uh Oh..I guess I need to do some homework…most of my knowledge is now about 25 years old…
Jon

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 17:11:28 -0500, "jjs"
wrote:

How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

—————————————————-
Anything being cooked a second time needs a hot oven.
DF
Derek Fountain
Aug 6, 2004
jjs wrote:

How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

I recently asked a DLSR owning friend about the learning curve involved in moving from the digital compact camera to a DSLR. The replied that the main issue is that changing the aperture with a DLSR actually does something!
EG
Eric Gill
Aug 6, 2004
"jjs" wrote in
news::

In article ,
Jon Bergstrom writes:
[…]
Is there a decent digital that has basic controls like depth of field and sensible exposure adjustment that an old fart could use? The pics have to be better than just for eBay. Thanks!

How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

Anything with an SLR system has shallow DOF.

I’ve been considering getting a Powershot Pro body to supplement my 10D because, among other reasons, a lot of editorial-style photos benefit from full-field focus. The 10D has great trouble doing so without being stopped down to something needing very bright light, which I’m not always graced with.
J
jjs
Aug 6, 2004
"Eric Gill" wrote in message
"jjs"
How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

Anything with an SLR system has shallow DOF.

The construction of the camera (SLR, View, Box, Rangefinder, etc.) has nothing to do with the DOF.

I’ve been considering getting a Powershot Pro body to supplement my 10D because, among other reasons, a lot of editorial-style photos benefit from full-field focus. The 10D has great trouble doing so without being stopped down to something needing very bright light, which I’m not always graced with.

What is Full-Field focus? You mean great depth-of-field, which is related only to focal length and aperture.
EG
Eric Gill
Aug 6, 2004
"jjs" wrote in
news::

"Eric Gill" wrote in message
"jjs"
How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

Anything with an SLR system has shallow DOF.

The construction of the camera (SLR, View, Box, Rangefinder, etc.) has nothing to do with the DOF.

That’s an intersting fantasy. Let me know how you do with it.

Well, no, nevermind. Go find someone who will buy it.

I’ve been considering getting a Powershot Pro body to supplement my 10D because, among other reasons, a lot of editorial-style photos benefit from full-field focus. The 10D has great trouble doing so without being stopped down to something needing very bright light, which I’m not always graced with.

What is Full-Field focus?

A term I used to include people not quite so saavy on technical buzzwords, thus promoting an interesting concept called "communication."

<snip>
J
jjs
Aug 6, 2004
"Eric Gill" wrote in message

The construction of the camera (SLR, View, Box, Rangefinder, etc.) has nothing to do with the DOF.

That’s an intersting fantasy. Let me know how you do with it.

You are showing that are truly out of your element, as well as foolishly rude.

The design of the box (slr, tlr, view, etc..) has absolutely nothing to do with depth-of-field. The hardware issue is all about focal length and aperture of the lens and COC. When you imagine that a non-SLR camera has greater DOF, it’s because the later probably has a smaller sensor, thus it uses shorter lenses which are nominal/normal to the format. Shorter lenses have greater DOF. If I were to take your simpleminded "SLRs have less DOF", then a Leica M4 would have more DOF than, say, a Canon Rebel 35mm camera and that’s just plain stupid. I suppose a Linhof 4×5 would have more DOF because it’s not an SLR. Hah! Now don’t embarrass yourself with further rebuttal.
W
WharfRat
Aug 6, 2004
in article , jjs at
wrote on 8/5/04 8:19 PM:

"Eric Gill" wrote in message
"jjs"
How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

Anything with an SLR system has shallow DOF.

The construction of the camera (SLR, View, Box, Rangefinder, etc.) has nothing to do with the DOF.

I’ve been considering getting a Powershot Pro body to supplement my 10D because, among other reasons, a lot of editorial-style photos benefit from full-field focus. The 10D has great trouble doing so without being stopped down to something needing very bright light, which I’m not always graced with.

What is Full-Field focus? You mean great depth-of-field, which is related only to focal length and aperture.

I was wondering that, as well.
How does a digital camera create depth of field
if the lens is not capturing it on its way through?

MSD
J
jjs
Aug 6, 2004
"WharfRat" wrote

I was wondering that, as well.
How does a digital camera create depth of field
if the lens is not capturing it on its way through?

Capturing what? 🙂 In simple languge, DOF is a zone of acceptable sharpness measured from the lens to subject. Typically roughly 1/3rd of the zone is in front of the focused subject, 2/3rd behind. The degree of DOF depends upon the focal length of the lens, the lens’ aperture, and a thing called circle-of-confusion COC (airey disk) which is pretty much accepted as 1/1440 the diagonal of the sensor/film format. Small formats use short focal lengths, and have greater DOF. There is a fair amount of contention regarding COC, degree of enlargement and viewing distance, but now this has nothing to do with Photoshop.
W
WharfRat
Aug 7, 2004
in article , jjs at
wrote on 8/6/04 6:50 AM:

"WharfRat" wrote

I was wondering that, as well.
How does a digital camera create depth of field
if the lens is not capturing it on its way through?

Capturing what? 🙂 In simple languge, DOF is a zone of acceptable sharpness measured from the lens to subject. Typically roughly 1/3rd of the zone is in front of the focused subject, 2/3rd behind. The degree of DOF depends upon the focal length of the lens, the lens’ aperture, and a thing called circle-of-confusion COC (airey disk) which is pretty much accepted as 1/1440 the diagonal of the sensor/film format. Small formats use short focal lengths, and have greater DOF. There is a fair amount of contention regarding COC, degree of enlargement and viewing distance, but now this has nothing to do with Photoshop.
Thanks for the lesson.

The other post said that the Depth of field had to do with the construction of the camera body.
Circles of confusion are not really one of the factors that depth of field "depends on" – the diameter of the circles of confusion deminish depth of field –
and are created by the relationship between
the diameter of the aperture opening to the focal length of the lens – which are the factors for depth of field.

I don’t think a digital camera creates more depth of field that a lens will capture.

MSD
J
jjs
Aug 7, 2004
"WharfRat" wrote in message

[… snip …]
I don’t think a digital camera creates more depth of field that a lens will capture.

That’s pretty much true. I can sense the greater DOF, however, the very small-sensor digitals (say, 4mb and less) just don’t capture enough information to exploit it very well. Poor lens quality, small sensors, and especially diffraction issues at small F-stops does a lot of damage to the little camera images. (Then to top it off, the large digital sensors lose the little sensor DOF advantage because they are large!) I’m waiting for the 6x9cm sensor before I get any more digital cameras outside of the day job. I’ll wait forever. 🙁
T
Toru
Aug 7, 2004
The better digital cams have multi-focal points that you can set, nearly eliminating depth of field problems.

"jjs" wrote in message
"WharfRat" wrote in message

[… snip …]
I don’t think a digital camera creates more depth of field that a lens will capture.

That’s pretty much true. I can sense the greater DOF, however, the very small-sensor digitals (say, 4mb and less) just don’t capture enough information to exploit it very well. Poor lens quality, small sensors, and especially diffraction issues at small F-stops does a lot of damage to the little camera images. (Then to top it off, the large digital sensors lose the little sensor DOF advantage because they are large!) I’m waiting for
the
6x9cm sensor before I get any more digital cameras outside of the day job. I’ll wait forever. 🙁

J
JJS
Aug 9, 2004
"Toru" <TheBuckStop@{delete}nuvox.net> wrote in message
The better digital cams have multi-focal points that you can set, nearly eliminating depth of field problems.

Bullshit. A lens is a lens.
M
Mike
Aug 9, 2004
in article
wrote on 08/09/2004 10:25 AM:

"Toru" <TheBuckStop@{delete}nuvox.net> wrote in message
The better digital cams have multi-focal points that you can set, nearly eliminating depth of field problems.

Bullshit. A lens is a lens.

You know that is not true. Some lenses are much better than some others.
CN
Chuck Norris
Aug 9, 2004
Sorry this got so off topic, it happens all the time 🙂 For what your needs are, or at least what it sounds to me like you need is a digital camera that takes good quality pictures, and is easy to use. The one I have been extremely impressed with, especially for the money, is the 4.0MP Canon Powershot A80. It has several preset manual modes which do a decent job, but the main thing is that it has full manual controls as well: manual focus, f/stop, and shutter speed, as well as manual ISO selection. While not having as good of performance as a digital SLR type camera, it is about 1/4 the money, or much less depending on the model. Also, I am suprised anyone mentioned digital SLR’s to you, givin your prestated requirement for it to be easy to operate.

The Powershot A80 I have seen for as low as $170, but that was a closeout, and have not seen anything that low since, so I would look to about $230 – $250. It does not come with a memory card of any worthy capacity (32MB) nor does it come with a carrying case or rechargable batteries, so you might want to factor those into your cost. Better yet, try to get a "kit" that includes all of these things to save you some money. If you look around the internet for reviews on this camera, you’ll have a hard time finding a bad one, and most say the same thing I do: hard to find a better digital camera with more features for the money. If this is your first digital camera, you can’t go wrong. It takes very good pictures which are large enough, should you wish it, to print 11×14’s with, and also it’s nice that it has manual settings so when your ready to move on from point and shoot, you have that capability. The macro mode on the camera is simply SICK… I don’t work for Canon. Enough of my fawning, do some research, read some reviews, but I don’t think you’ll find a camera that more hits the bill that the A80. Similar style, the Powershot G5, which is 5MP, and is about $500. Hope that helps.

On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 22:19:56 -0400, Jon Bergstrom
wrote:

Uh Oh..I guess I need to do some homework…most of my knowledge is now about 25 years old…
Jon

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 17:11:28 -0500, "jjs"
wrote:

How much have you to spend? Keep in mind that affordable (small sensor) digital cameras have a lot more depth-of-field (DOF) than our olde pharte 35mm film cameras; so much DOF in fact, that it’s almost impossible to throw the background out of focus, if that’s what you want to do.

—————————————————-
Anything being cooked a second time needs a hot oven.
J
JJS
Aug 9, 2004
"Mike" wrote in message
in article
wrote on 08/09/2004 10:25 AM:

"Toru" <TheBuckStop@{delete}nuvox.net> wrote in message
The better digital cams have multi-focal points that you can set,
nearly
eliminating depth of field problems.

Bullshit. A lens is a lens.

You know that is not true. Some lenses are much better than some others.

Oops. Of course. I was speaking to the _alleged_ "special DOF settings" of some digital camera lenses. I think what the poster was referring to were actually hyperfocal settings. In that regard, a lens is a lens. 🙂 Taking up digital does not change the laws of optics.

jjs who uses Schneiders (‘blad, Linhof, Sinar)
JB
Jon Bergstrom
Aug 13, 2004
Belated thanks to all for the help!…
Jon

On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 15:54:14 -0500, "jjs" wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
in article
wrote on 08/09/2004 10:25 AM:

"Toru" <TheBuckStop@{delete}nuvox.net> wrote in message
The better digital cams have multi-focal points that you can set,
nearly
eliminating depth of field problems.

Bullshit. A lens is a lens.

You know that is not true. Some lenses are much better than some others.

Oops. Of course. I was speaking to the _alleged_ "special DOF settings" of some digital camera lenses. I think what the poster was referring to were actually hyperfocal settings. In that regard, a lens is a lens. 🙂 Taking up digital does not change the laws of optics.

—————————————————-
Anything being cooked a second time needs a hot oven.

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