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many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
howdy, i'm considering buying a new camera, i currently own a canon
sd450 and i like it a lot but would like to get a camera with more manual controls. i have no experience with manual controls besides the very limited ones on my canon but would love to learn and practice using them on a pocket sized compact. i carry my camera everywhere and have gotten a lot of neat shots because of that so i don't want anything even remotely bulky. i like to shoot panorama's so any increase in optical zoom or megapixels is welcome, the biggest panorama i've made so far is around 50 megapixels which is overkill for printing but i just like being able to zoom in on my panorama's while retaining as much detail as possible.. the rest of the time i just use my camera for taking pictures on trips or of friends/family, standard fare. i'd like to start using my camera to take pictures of action though, specifically skiing. my biggest problem with my camera is with low light shots. in low light, say indoors, its hard to take a picture without flash at a low iso without getting blur from camera movement because of the slow shutter speed (if thats what its called, the loooong delay between when you click and when the picture gets taken when at a low iso in low light). if i increase the iso the image becomes visibly grainy at 100 iso and at 200 iso its just ruins the picture for me, forget about 400... so i just end up taking 3-4 pictures and usually one of them is sharp enough. beats taking one grainy picture. i try to brace my elbows on something but thats usually not possible. the only other alternative is using flash and i hate flash, nothing ever looks remotely the same as it does with your own eyes and i often end up with a super bright foreground and a pitch black background which is useless to me. so what would be better at solving my problem, getting a camera with image stabilization (ie canon is700) or getting a camera with cleaner and higher iso's (ie fuji f30)? my next problem is subject movement, like i said before i want to start taking action shots.. its not something i've ever really tooled with but i figure it shouldn't be a problem outdoors but indoors in less than perfect light, if i take a picture of someone and they're even just moving their arm or something, it blurs, even at iso400.. the only way to get the picture without them blurring is with flash which again, i despise. it would be nice to get a picture of my mother rocking her grandson without me having to say 'stop rocking' so that nothing blurs. what can i do to solve this?? and i read a lot about people improving their pictures with photoshop, sharpening, fixing colours, reducing noise, etc.. are there any books or online guides for this? maybe something like a basic guide that explains the most useful and commonly used things you can do to in photoshop to improve your pictures..? and if i end up with a camera with full or near full manual controls, whats a good photography book that can help me to take better pictures and also help me learn to properly use the manual controls thats not too overwhelming? and finally what camera would you guys reccomend? the canon is700 looks good because of its image stabilization, 4x zoom and extra megapixel (good for panoramas).. but it doesn't have anymore manual controls (not good for learning anything new) than i currently have.. the fuji f30 seems to be well regarded, and has nearly full manual control (good for learning) and apparently has the best high iso performance (good for my low light blurriness problem).. i know it has no optical viewfinder but i -never- use mine (i've taken dozens of comparison shots looking through the viewfinder and looking through the lcd in my standard position with the camera 5 inches from my nose and have not found there to be -any- difference in blurriness, plus its far easier to look at an lcd and you actually see everything you're taking a picture unlike the viewfinder which cuts off about 10% of the border). however looking at the reviews on this site, the colour in the pictures taken with the f30 don't look that great compared to those taken with the canon who's colours are much more lush (scroll down to the bottle). http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fu...ew/index.shtml http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ca..._sd700-review/ compare with the sony dslr and its obvious the f30 is the odd man out.. http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/so...ew/index.shtml help! :) |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur,learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
wrote:
my biggest problem with my camera is with low light shots. in low light, say indoors, its hard to take a picture without flash at a low iso without getting blur from camera movement because of the slow shutter speed ... The problem you are facing is directly related to pixel size. You need a camera with larger pixels. See: Digital Cameras: Does Pixel Size Matter? Factors in Choosing a Digital Camera http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...el.size.matter my next problem is subject movement, like i said before i want to start taking action shots.. its not something i've ever really tooled with but i figure it shouldn't be a problem outdoors but indoors in less than perfect light, if i take a picture of someone and they're even just moving their arm or something, it blurs, even at iso400.. You need a camera that responds fast and has large pixels. That means DSLR. and finally what camera would you guys reccomend? Find a DSLR with at least 5 to 6 micron pixels. Roger Photos at: http://www.clarkvision.com |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
wrote in message ps.com... howdy, i'm considering buying a new camera, i currently own a canon sd450 and i like it a lot but would like to get a camera with more compare with the sony dslr and its obvious the f30 is the odd man out.. http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/so...ew/index.shtml help! :) Hi. If you really want to take a lot of Indoors Pictures, especially of moving people, then there is no sensible alternative to using Flash. The washed out faces against inky black background, is a direct result of a built in low power flash. A proper on-camera, (or even better a remote), and powerful Flash used sensibly will produce very acceptable results. Roy G |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote: wrote: my biggest problem with my camera is with low light shots. in low light, say indoors, its hard to take a picture without flash at a low iso without getting blur from camera movement because of the slow shutter speed ... The problem you are facing is directly related to pixel size. You need a camera with larger pixels. See: Digital Cameras: Does Pixel Size Matter? Factors in Choosing a Digital Camera http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...el.size.matter my next problem is subject movement, like i said before i want to start taking action shots.. its not something i've ever really tooled with but i figure it shouldn't be a problem outdoors but indoors in less than perfect light, if i take a picture of someone and they're even just moving their arm or something, it blurs, even at iso400.. You need a camera that responds fast and has large pixels. That means DSLR. and finally what camera would you guys reccomend? Find a DSLR with at least 5 to 6 micron pixels. Roger Photos at: http://www.clarkvision.com yeah i'm not ready for something bulky right now, if i was to jump into the world of dslr camera's though, what would be the two you most reccomend? thanks |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
Roy G wrote: wrote in message ps.com... howdy, i'm considering buying a new camera, i currently own a canon sd450 and i like it a lot but would like to get a camera with more compare with the sony dslr and its obvious the f30 is the odd man out.. http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/so...ew/index.shtml help! :) Hi. If you really want to take a lot of Indoors Pictures, especially of moving people, then there is no sensible alternative to using Flash. The washed out faces against inky black background, is a direct result of a built in low power flash. A proper on-camera, (or even better a remote), and powerful Flash used sensibly will produce very acceptable results. Roy G no compact camera can do the same? |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur, learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
ASAAR wrote: On 1 Sep 2006 20:07:56 -0700, wrote: my biggest problem with my camera is with low light shots. in low light, say indoors, its hard to take a picture without flash at a low iso without getting blur from camera movement because of the slow shutter speed (if thats what its called, the loooong delay between when you click and when the picture gets taken when at a low iso in low light). if i increase the iso the image becomes visibly grainy at 100 iso and at 200 iso its just ruins the picture for me, forget about 400... so i just end up taking 3-4 pictures and usually one of them is sharp enough. beats taking one grainy picture. . . . however looking at the reviews on this site, the colour in the pictures taken with the f30 don't look that great compared to those taken with the canon who's colours are much more lush (scroll down to the bottle). http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fu...ew/index.shtml http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ca..._sd700-review/ compare with the sony dslr and its obvious the f30 is the odd man out.. http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/so...ew/index.shtml help! :) If low light performance is as important as you say, the SD700 is the first to fall. But neither the SD700 nor the F30 will meet your expectations because they both lack manual exposure controls. Dpreview agrees that the because of the F30's tone curve, "images can look a bit flat", but adds that with a little aid from photo software the results change from flat to "amazing". Unfortunately, the only cameras that will do what you want are DSLRs, and if you get one I hope that you won't mind a little bit of photo processing on your computer. This is because they tend to produce even flatter images out of the camera than the F30, so they'll also need some computer processing to yield the superior results that they are capable of producing. I haven't checked the reviews, but I'd suspect that based on the Sony A100's sensor resolution alone, the entry level DSLRs from Canon and Nikon would be a little better for shooting in low light conditions. how do you spice up your images in photoshop? where do you learn this? :) i don't know exactly what you mean by exposure controls but on my currently canon i can choose an exposure range from -3 to +3 i believe, or when i'm lining up the picture in manual i have three options, a box, a box with a dot in it, or a box with a circle and a dot inside it. the circle/dot sets the exposure based on whats in the entire frame and is the unchangeable default in auto mode, the dot in a box changes the exposure based on whats in the direct center of the image.. so i can just move my camera around until i find the exposure i like by pointing it at different areas of darkness or brightness in the room, hold the button down half way, frame up my picture and take it. it works quite well because its quick and i see what its going to look like on lcd in real time.. |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur,learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
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many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur,learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
wrote:
how do you spice up your images in photoshop? where do you learn this? :) i don't know exactly what you mean by exposure controls but on my currently canon i can choose an exposure range from -3 to +3 i believe, or when i'm lining up the picture in manual i have three options, a box, a box with a dot in it, or a box with a circle and a dot inside it. the circle/dot sets the exposure based on whats in the entire frame and is the unchangeable default in auto mode, the dot in a box changes the exposure based on whats in the direct center of the image.. so i can just move my camera around until i find the exposure i like by pointing it at different areas of darkness or brightness in the room, hold the button down half way, frame up my picture and take it. it works quite well because its quick and i see what its going to look like on lcd in real time.. It is done with curves. See: http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/c...1/curves-1.htm and look at Figure 6. Digital doesn't have a "toe" to the characteristic curve like film does. Doing something like in Figure 6 adds that toe and gives a response more like film. Ron has a lot of other great articles too. Roger |
many questions: choosing new compact, fixing low light blur,learning manual controls, photoshop, etc..
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