In my opinion the three most important parts of a camera in order is the lens, the CCD and the software to convert the electrical signals from the CCD into a recognizable image. The other features would be a personal preference but how you use your camera would dictate those features. I would only buy a camera from a company that their major product is imaging equipment like cameras, display equipment like used in medical and science applications. The way I chose my cameras was to buy a used one on eBay with the features I thought I wanted. I would try it for awhile then list it back on eBay. Sometimes I would loose some money and other times would make some money. Over two years I learned which camera I wanted and bought it new on eBay The experience cost me almost nothing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device
Ha! It was delivered yesterday Cheryl! So there! Neener neener neener!! I had so much fun last night unpacking it and learning about all the parts. A client who does a lot of photography and has an enormous amount of equipment gave me one of her old camera bags (a big, padded thing which is perfect!) and a couple of her lenses to play with so I can see what I'd like to add in the future. Even for an entry level DSLR, it's pretty intimidating! But at least having owned a couple of previous Canons, many of the controls and the onboard menus etc. are familiar, which helps. I have family coming over today, so I won't get a bunch of time to play with it, but I can at least get started and I'll be taking lots of pics anyway, just to start getting familiar with its operation. I don't know about you all, but I always learn as much from my mistakes as I do my successes, so screwing up the various photo ops with this camera will teach me as much as taking perfect shots will.
Cheryl, great minds…………. I have to share this, having nothing to do with cameras but everything to do with subject matter. Paige posted this image on Facebook, to welcome the New Year. My little granddaughter's face is just adorable, and I can't WAIT to get that camera in up close so I can capture every bit of that precious sweetness! Lucy ( photo / image / picture from Ronni's Garden )
It was a little short notice but I got a few Stewbies to pose for one of Ronni's first pictures with her new camera….Everyone say cheese Jerry
Hahahahahaha! OMG Jerry, that is just priceless!! And you're the green guy, all the way over on the left, correct? Trying to figure out who the camera hog is all the way up front, and also the folks lined up on the benches, one on each side, in the way back.
Paige and the kids didn't stay long today. River is sick, Lucy had a cough, and Paige felt like she was coming down with something, so I fed them when they got here, and packed up some food for their dinner and dessert tonight, and encouraged them to get back home where they could put the babies down for naps or snuggles or whatever. So my picture taking test subjects weren't around long enough for me to practice on. But I have a huge backyard, and it was a sunny, thought cold, day, so I just shot a few pics outside. I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of my old camera vs my new….same shooting conditions, just different cameras, to see what kind of difference a better camera made. I'm pretty impressed! The composition and color of these images aren't great…I wasn't going for anything more than capturing some things with some zoom, to see how the camera behaved and if the images had the sharpness I was hoping for. I couldn't be more pleased!!!! Old: New: Old: New: Old: New: Old: New: Old: New: Old: New:
I'd glad you did the side by side tests Ronni. Definitely sharper. I'm curious though about the color. Particularly in the shots with trees, grass, leaves. Your old camera seemed to have more color. Which depicts the "real life" colors better to you?
Do you know the settings for each picture? ISO, aperture and shutter speed. All would effect the exposure and the pictures could reflect a difference. I suspect the ISO is different. Jerry
Honestly Cheryl, I have no clue. My biggest issue with my old camera was the lack of clarity in the photos. The images looked kinda fuzzy, and I was really wanting to solve that and get the crisp, sharp look that William gets with his high-end Rebel. I just wasn't paying attention to the IRL colors versus the camera colors as I was taking the shots. All I was trying to do was replicate the same shooting conditions with both cameras in order to give the most accurate side-by-side comparison possible. Over the weekend, when I have lots of free time, I plan to do a lot of experimenting, a lot of learning, and a lot of shooting, and I'll have a much better idea of the range of the camera and how true to life the images are after that. Jerry, I have no clue about that, either. I set both cameras on Auto Mode, because I don't know enough about the Rebel yet to do much else. The next step is to learn about "Creative Auto" mode, which allows for some selection….." Creative Auto mode enables you to easily change the depth of field, drive mode, and flash firing. You can also change the ambiance you want to convey in your images." So, whatever allows me to to all that is what I'll be learning next. After that comes Shooting Portraits which "blurs the background to make the human subject stand out. It also makes the skin tones and the hair look softer than with the Full Auto mode." After that comes Shooting Landscapes, Shooting Closeups, Shooting Moving Subjects, Shooting Portraits at Night and Quick Control. All of those are settings on the camera, and I think you don't manually adjust the ISO, aperture and shutter speeds. You just set your camera to whatever you're shooting, and it adjusts automatically. Oh! I just read this, which may answer, at least in part, the question about color, Cheryl. "In Landscape Mode, the greens and the blues will become more vivid and the images sharper than with Full Auto." Huh. I was shooting everything in Full Auto mode in those photos above.
Just in case anyone wondered, the vast majority of photos I post here are taken with my iPhone, because it's always within arms reach (usually tucked into my back pocket) and because with a couple of clicks, I can upload images to Flickr, the photo hosting site that I use, making them immediately available to post on this, and a couple of other forums I visit or own. Really, in about 30 seconds I can go from taking the picture to posting it here. The Flickr app is very efficient, and for the most part, the photos i take with my iPhone are the on-the-go things that are completely random and unplanned, and my phone really does do a good job of capturing those quick slices of life with decent image quality….and the turnaround time from taking to posting just can't be beat!
Hey Ronni, have fun with your new toy! Or tool, I should say! I know nothing about cameras. My daughter gave me a Canon Power Shot A2500 for Christmas. I guess it is OK. I have been using a Nikon Cool Pix L4. I am not a very sophisticated photographer at all,but I like your old camera/new camera shots, and I think I'll do that too.
Ronni I suspect that your old camera is set to average focus and the new camera is set to spot focus.
