Santa Blabbed

I happened to stumble onto my Xmas gift from the wife and it's a Sony
DSC-P93A. Since I saw it she wants me to decide if it's what I really want
and if not, to swap it tomorrow. I've had a Canon PowerShot A20 for years
and had decent luck with it, but the close-ups aren't so hot and the pics
can't be blown up very much.

I've been looking at the Canon PowerShot A95, the Sony DSC-T3 along with a
few others, but the choices are daunting. I like to print out 8x10's and I
enjoy screwing around with close-up stuff and I saw the Canon had manual
focus which can come in handy.

I'd be willing to throw in another $100 or so if there's a good reason.

Anyone care to give some advice as to what is good in the 5Mpix (or so)
range digitals these days?

dvus

"dvus" wrote in message ...
I happened to stumble onto my Xmas gift from the wife and it's a Sony
DSC-P93A. Since I saw it she wants me to decide if it's what I really want
and if not, to swap it tomorrow. I've had a Canon PowerShot A20 for years
and had decent luck with it, but the close-ups aren't so hot and the pics
can't be blown up very much.

I've been looking at the Canon PowerShot A95, the Sony DSC-T3 along with a
few others, but the choices are daunting. I like to print out 8x10's and I
enjoy screwing around with close-up stuff and I saw the Canon had manual
focus which can come in handy.

I'd be willing to throw in another $100 or so if there's a good reason.

Anyone care to give some advice as to what is good in the 5Mpix (or so)
range digitals these days?

I had a Sony P31 (2mp), gave it to my Dad and replaced it with a Sony P10 (5mp).
I have not been happy with the picture sharpness and image noise from either camera.
Color rendition is pretty faithful if you stick to programming mode and make sure
you optimize the shot for the lighting conditions your are shooting in. The point and
shoot mode works but you will lose a lot of good shots if you rely on it too heavily.
My father recently purchased the Sony P93A to replace the P31 I gave him and the
images I have seen from it are little different than the images I have seen from the P31
and the P10. A co-worker bought a Sony T3 last month and is very unhappy with it.
You won't find a glowing recommendation from me with regards to Sony digital
cameras. They may be feature rich and offer a nice compact design but it's the results
that count and for me those results are lacking.

Ken wrote:
"dvus" wrote in message
...
I happened to stumble onto my Xmas gift from the wife and it's a Sony
DSC-P93A. Since I saw it she wants me to decide if it's what I
really want and if not, to swap it tomorrow. I've had a Canon
PowerShot A20 for years and had decent luck with it, but the
close-ups aren't so hot and the pics can't be blown up very much.

I've been looking at the Canon PowerShot A95, the Sony DSC-T3 along
with a few others, but the choices are daunting. I like to print out
8x10's and I enjoy screwing around with close-up stuff and I saw the
Canon had manual focus which can come in handy.

I'd be willing to throw in another $100 or so if there's a good
reason.

Anyone care to give some advice as to what is good in the 5Mpix (or
so) range digitals these days?

I had a Sony P31 (2mp), gave it to my Dad and replaced it with a Sony
P10 (5mp).
I have not been happy with the picture sharpness and image noise from
either camera. Color rendition is pretty faithful if you stick to
programming mode and make sure
you optimize the shot for the lighting conditions your are shooting
in. The point and shoot mode works but you will lose a lot of good
shots if you rely on it too heavily.
My father recently purchased the Sony P93A to replace the P31 I gave
him and the
images I have seen from it are little different than the images I
have seen from the P31 and the P10. A co-worker bought a Sony T3 last
month and is very unhappy with it.
You won't find a glowing recommendation from me with regards to Sony
digital
cameras. They may be feature rich and offer a nice compact design but
it's the results that count and for me those results are lacking.

Thanks to those that replied with advice. I went and got the Canon A95 and
so far I'm pretty happy with the output to the degree that I've been able to
examine it, there's quite a few features to learn.

One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate card
reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash memory card. It
works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been using in the old A20, but
when I put the new card in the green "read" light comes on but I get an
error message when I try to get the images.

Anyone shed any light on this situation?

--
dvus

dvus wrote:
[]
One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate card
reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash memory
card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been using in
the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green "read" light
comes on but I get an error message when I try to get the images.

Anyone shed any light on this situation?

That doesn't sound right.

Which model of reader exactly, and have you got the latest drivers for it?

Cheers,
David

Justín Käse wrote:
In posted on Sun, 12 Dec
2004 22:55:16 -0500, dvus wrote:

One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
using in the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green
"read" light comes on but I get an error message when I try to get
the images.

I have a SanDisk 8in1 ImageMate reader and have only used it on CF
cards as large as 256Mb, but since I plan to obtain a gig someday,
your comments caught my attention. Is yours the oval style that comes
with a docking stand and uses USB?
Model Number: SDDR-88
Part Number: 20-90-00114

No, mine's an SDDR-75 and only accepts Compact Flash or "SM", whatever that
is. I'm guessing mine isn't USB2 but I'd have thought it'd work albeit maybe
slower than a newer one.

dvus

David J Taylor wrote:
dvus wrote:
[]
One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
using in the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green
"read" light comes on but I get an error message when I try to get
the images. Anyone shed any light on this situation?

That doesn't sound right.

Which model of reader exactly, and have you got the latest drivers
for it?

It's a SanDisk SDDR-75 (USB) for reading Compact Flash and one other type
which I've never used. As for drivers, I have WinXP which installs the
reader automatically as a mass storage device. As an experiment I tried the
older 64 MByte card in the new camera and then used the reader to obtain the
files without problems. The new 512 MByte memory works fine in both my Canon
A20 and A95 but I have to use the USB cable to the cameras to get the pix
onto the PC.

dvus

dvus wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:
dvus wrote:
[]
One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
using in the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green
"read" light comes on but I get an error message when I try to get
the images. Anyone shed any light on this situation?

That doesn't sound right.

Which model of reader exactly, and have you got the latest drivers
for it?

It's a SanDisk SDDR-75 (USB) for reading Compact Flash and one other
type which I've never used. As for drivers, I have WinXP which
installs the reader automatically as a mass storage device. As an
experiment I tried the older 64 MByte card in the new camera and then
used the reader to obtain the files without problems. The new 512
MByte memory works fine in both my Canon A20 and A95 but I have to
use the USB cable to the cameras to get the pix onto the PC.

dvus

Well, it could be a a faulty reader - perhaps broken pin?
I agree that no drivers appear to be required for XP.

Cheers,
David

Justín Käse wrote:
In posted on Mon, 13 Dec
2004 17:04:32 -0500, dvus wrote:

Justín Käse wrote:
In posted on Sun, 12 Dec
2004 22:55:16 -0500, dvus wrote:

One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
using in the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green
"read" light comes on but I get an error message when I try to get
the images.

I have a SanDisk 8in1 ImageMate reader and have only used it on CF
cards as large as 256Mb, but since I plan to obtain a gig someday,
your comments caught my attention. Is yours the oval style that
comes with a docking stand and uses USB?
Model Number: SDDR-88
Part Number: 20-90-00114

No, mine's an SDDR-75 and only accepts Compact Flash or "SM",
whatever that is. I'm guessing mine isn't USB2 but I'd have thought
it'd work albeit maybe slower than a newer one.

Thanks for the clarification, I'm tentatively reassured. g
Got mine at WalMart a few months ago, no problems.
Read comments he http://www.abisque.com/_ciB0000AKVHF.htm

Yes, I see yours is backwards compatible with USB 1.1. I just wonder if mine
is forwards compatible with USB 2.0

--
dvus

David J Taylor wrote:
dvus wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:
dvus wrote:
[]
One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
using in the old A20, but when I put the new card in the green
"read" light comes on but I get an error message when I try to get
the images. Anyone shed any light on this situation?

That doesn't sound right.

Which model of reader exactly, and have you got the latest drivers
for it?

It's a SanDisk SDDR-75 (USB) for reading Compact Flash and one other
type which I've never used. As for drivers, I have WinXP which
installs the reader automatically as a mass storage device. As an
experiment I tried the older 64 MByte card in the new camera and then
used the reader to obtain the files without problems. The new 512
MByte memory works fine in both my Canon A20 and A95 but I have to
use the USB cable to the cameras to get the pix onto the PC.

Well, it could be a a faulty reader - perhaps broken pin?
I agree that no drivers appear to be required for XP.

Possibly, but then why is it ok with USB 1.1 cards?

--
dvus

dvus wrote:
David J Taylor wrote:
[]
One disappointing thing is the inability of my San Disk ImageMate
card reader to work with the new San Disk 512 MByte Compact Flash
memory card. It works just fine with the 64 MByte card I've been
[...]

Well, it could be a a faulty reader - perhaps broken pin?
I agree that no drivers appear to be required for XP.

Possibly, but then why is it ok with USB 1.1 cards?

CF Cards are USB-agnostic. Completely. There are no "USB 1.1 CF
Cards" cards, just as there are no "Windows CF Cards".

However, adressing 512 MB needs 29 address bits, whereas 64 MB
need only 26 bits. If something with the 3 extra bits needed was
broken --- or missing --- inside your card reader, you'd probably
see just such a behaviour.

-Wolfgang