I\'m doing some camera buying research, and I know you guys can help me out. Most of you being better photographers than I.
I didn\'t know this could happen, but appearantly CCDs inside digital cameras can die. Explains a lot about why my recent photos with my camera have been so crappy despite putting a lot of work into lighting setup and formatting.
I\'ve had an Olympus Camedia C-4000 zoom for quite a while now. It\'s a refurb, and it\'s croaking in more ways that just the CCD going. I\'ve just come into about $300, and can spend as much as $400 on a new camera. I\'d like to avoid buying another refurb!
There are several things about the Oly that\'ve really annoyed me:
1 - The controls are obscene. Setting up for macro, color balancing, adjusting f-stop and shutter speed, and changing photo format are a pain. Now that the camera\'s internal battery has died it takes a good fifteen minutes to half-an-hour just to set up for a photoshoot. I\'d like my new camera to have better and easier controls.
2 - The write speed is obscenely slow. After snapping a high res TIFF I can go fix myself a coffee while I wait for it to write. It didn\'t used to be a big deal, but it sucks when I\'m trying to take pictures of my kids. Who are not old enough to understand phrases like, \"OK, hold that pose!\"
3 - I don\'t like the Auto-extending lens. When you turn the camera on or off you have to wait around for the lens to extend itself out from the body, and you can\'t screw filters onto the front of it without a special $40 sleeve that fits over the area that the lens extends into.
4 - Setting the camera up so I could manually adjust the f-stop and shutter speed was difficult. I had to download a supplemental manual and spend hours fracking around witht he settings to get it worked out.
There are quite a few things that I did like about it though:
1 - The super-macro mode took really good pics when the camera was working and didn\'t take every pic dark and with flat colors. Obviously I want a replacement that has a good macro mode, preferably as a quick select.
2 - I got a lot of camera for very little money. At the time (2002) you couldn\'t get a 4MP camera for so little. As a refurb it only cost me $200.
3 - It was relatively small, and it could take some serious abuse despite the stupid lens getting snagged up on things and making horrid grinding noises. I need another sturdy camera to replace it.
4 - It\'s battery efficient like you wouldn\'t believe. A set of four AA batteries last for weeks even when you make heavy use of the built in screen.
Has anyone got any recommendations for a replacement camera? Any experiences with your own cameras, good or bad? I\'m especially interested in what you guys with the really nice pics that consistently win the awards are using.
I didn\'t know this could happen, but appearantly CCDs inside digital cameras can die. Explains a lot about why my recent photos with my camera have been so crappy despite putting a lot of work into lighting setup and formatting.
I\'ve had an Olympus Camedia C-4000 zoom for quite a while now. It\'s a refurb, and it\'s croaking in more ways that just the CCD going. I\'ve just come into about $300, and can spend as much as $400 on a new camera. I\'d like to avoid buying another refurb!
There are several things about the Oly that\'ve really annoyed me:
1 - The controls are obscene. Setting up for macro, color balancing, adjusting f-stop and shutter speed, and changing photo format are a pain. Now that the camera\'s internal battery has died it takes a good fifteen minutes to half-an-hour just to set up for a photoshoot. I\'d like my new camera to have better and easier controls.
2 - The write speed is obscenely slow. After snapping a high res TIFF I can go fix myself a coffee while I wait for it to write. It didn\'t used to be a big deal, but it sucks when I\'m trying to take pictures of my kids. Who are not old enough to understand phrases like, \"OK, hold that pose!\"
3 - I don\'t like the Auto-extending lens. When you turn the camera on or off you have to wait around for the lens to extend itself out from the body, and you can\'t screw filters onto the front of it without a special $40 sleeve that fits over the area that the lens extends into.
4 - Setting the camera up so I could manually adjust the f-stop and shutter speed was difficult. I had to download a supplemental manual and spend hours fracking around witht he settings to get it worked out.
There are quite a few things that I did like about it though:
1 - The super-macro mode took really good pics when the camera was working and didn\'t take every pic dark and with flat colors. Obviously I want a replacement that has a good macro mode, preferably as a quick select.
2 - I got a lot of camera for very little money. At the time (2002) you couldn\'t get a 4MP camera for so little. As a refurb it only cost me $200.
3 - It was relatively small, and it could take some serious abuse despite the stupid lens getting snagged up on things and making horrid grinding noises. I need another sturdy camera to replace it.
4 - It\'s battery efficient like you wouldn\'t believe. A set of four AA batteries last for weeks even when you make heavy use of the built in screen.
Has anyone got any recommendations for a replacement camera? Any experiences with your own cameras, good or bad? I\'m especially interested in what you guys with the really nice pics that consistently win the awards are using.
