[[Shizo]]

Anybody has experiences with digi cams? I really like the Fuji FinePix (6800).
Why i ask is because i'd like to buy one eheh.

So yeah.. i generally lean towards the Fuji division but i need some more courage to spend 2 month's checks on it.

[Dr. Bang]

if you bought it already, ask Lunatique for tips on how to make chix take off their clothes.

[[Shizo]]

oh yeah! big nipples - i remember
but i didnt buy yet as you noticed i need help on picking a good one for a good price.

[Dr. Bang]

if i were you, i would go for the brand which is Canon.

[Red Leader]

My Nikon's good for color, but like many Digicams, it flares out in high contrast situations, including bright skies.

Try to buy one with a big CCD / aperture or you're going to run into image blurring problems, no matter what brand you buy.

[[Shizo]]

Dr.Bang, i like how you just drop in - say a few words and drop out. And you're usually right.
I looked at Canon Powershot S30 (same price as Fuji 6800) And uhh.. i like it! You were right just like with Heino.

It has better features like it supports microdrive and has more zoom which i like. But image quality is like "blehh" so i have a dilemma. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/canon_s30.html

[Dr. Bang]

thanks hehe, i learned that from my dad, just go for the best brand. I remmebered always bragged about the one cheap Cannon camera he bought, which lasted around 4 years. You won't believe the amount of photos he took from that cam, he has two BOXES full of photos taken by that cam.

Oh, it was broken because he dropped it a couple of times. Btw, in case you didn't know, digital camera pictures are really bad if you takes pictures at dark places, the result is a very grainy picture.

I'm not sure if that applies to all the camera though, but all the one i've tried so far are like that.

[Immy]

I have a Sony CyberShot S75 one (3.3 megapixels). Its a bloody good camera if you ask me, but make sure you also buy a large memory stick to go with it (64mb or more).

[Lunatique]

Shizo- Ok, here's my advice:

1)What are you using it for? If you are not going to do any serious prints, don't worry about the resolution too much. Most digital cameras are at least 3.3 mega pixels these days, and that's more than plenty.

2)The zoom is not as important as I thought it would be when I was researching for my purchase earlier this year. BUT, as most of you know, I do mostly figure/portrait, so I don't need to stand too far away from my subject... You can always get a telephoto lense attachment.

3)The micro drive could be overkill. Unless you are going to shoot in RAW mode(which is absolutely unnecessary unless you are doing very high-quality professional photography), you won't need a whole gig. I get around 80 high quality jpg's at 2048 x 1536 on a 64 mb smartmedia card. You can get SM cards in 128 mb, or maybe even higher if I remember correctly.

4)I would strongly suggest you stay away consumer grade cameras if you are the least bit serious about photography. While the picture quality of high-end consumer grade digitals are great, and they all have manual modes, they all suffer from the "infinite depth of field" problem. That means, it would be pretty fucking hard to take those great "blurred out background with sharply focused foreground" pictures. If I were you, I wouldn't be fooled by the specs of having the apeture as wide as f2.8 or wider--that means jack shit. You MUST have the camera in your hands and test out the widest apeture and see for yourself if you can blur out the backgrounds at all when taking a fairly normal portrait shot(about head to chest, with the person sitting no closer than 10 ft from the background). I say torture the sales person at your local consumer electronics store or camera store with endless tests. These suckers are not cheap, so shop wise.

I suggest the lower-end pro digital cameras such as the Canon D30, Olympus E-10 or E-20. If that's too steep, then you're stuck with the high-end consumer stuff. If that's the case, here are some of the better consumer grade cameras:

Nikon coolpix 995
Olympus C4040Z
Sony DSC-F707
FujiFilm FinePix 6900Z(Do NOT go for the 6800, because it does NOT have shutter or apeture priority. It also does not have burst mode. For the same price, the 6900 is a much better buy.)

Anyways, I hope this helps.

Red Leader- what Nikon do you use? I saw your photos on Enayla's forum. REALLY cool stuff. Blows mine out of the water.

[Red Leader]

Lunatique~

I have the 950. For a consumer priced camera, you can do some pretty amazing things with the 9xx line from Nikon. There is a micro-mode for closeups down to something like 1 inch (!!) and "fair" manual adjustment for aperture and color.

Here are a few samples to show what I'm talking about:


Micro photography. Note how the background is blurred only a couple of inches away from the subject.


For color comparison. I like Nikon's color. The camera's CCD software likes blue a lot though.


Flare out. This is why, if you can afford it, you should buy a camera with a larger CCD. NOT higher resolution, larger physical CCD, so that more light is able to hit it. Otherwise night shots and action shots look really crappy, even with a tripod. And, like in this picture, you can get flared out skies.


Also. Shizo~ That was me for Heino!

[ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Red Leader ]

[balistic]

I just ordered a Nikon CoolPix 995, based on advice from Jeremy Birn and Jeremy Engleman. It should arrive sometime next week (yea!).

[[Shizo]]

Thank you Lunatique, and yeah im going for higher end consumer camera. What i'd like to have is nice pic quality (of course) an OK zoom (cause large zoom is $) and preferably long vid capture at least 320x240 res (i wanna try making movies with it).

And thank you Red Leader (and thanx for Heino, you really opened up my eyes into higher level of music).

I wrote down names of those digi cams y'all said and gonna research them all now. My price is $500 max btw

[[Shizo]]

Ok i'm in terrible state now.. First of all i checked out all these cameras and still came down to Fuji 6800 and 6900. At first i didnt wanna look at 6900 because it looked like a bulky 'pro' camera, but then i saw it in hand and it's actually as portable as 6800.

But!! It costs a lot (for me). So here is what i like/dislike about it:

Like:
It's a good quality camera. Top end of it's class. High res, long video clips. Nice zoom. CCD thing is good.

Dont like:
It's more expensive. It doesnt record audio in video clips (arr!). And if i break it, i'm gonna jump from my balcony (but fortunately i live on a second floor).

So i went on pricewatch.com and lowest price is like $580, but buydigi.com has it for $700. So i'm afraid to buy it for low cause maybe they dont include SM card or battery charger, which would suck ass.

And ebay.com made me cry - cause price is the same as i can buy at regular store.

[Lunatique]

Hey, what about the Olympus C3030Z? It's what I use for all of my photography. It's about 2 generations before the C4040Z, but it's within your price range.

It's got 3X zoom, records movies with sound and will record for as much memory as you hav3e available(The Coolpix series only record up to a certain time, despite how much memory you have).

[eyewoo]

Shizo... as the 5 megapixel plate consumer cameras are hitting the market, I'm sure you can find some really good deals for the earlier 3 megapixel cameras on eBay.
Check it out...

[[Shizo]]

friggen choices!
Dont wanna get poop, want nice features, but no money lol

Gonna start reading reviews and forums again tomorrow after work until i find IT!!!

BASTARDS!~!!!!!!! (people who make cameras)

[[Shizo]]

OK i'm gonna buy a fuji 6900 and i dont care what you all say

[Lunatique]

Good choice. Post some pictures soon.

[Dr. Bang]

Good choice. Post some chix pictures soon.

[c]

i did some heavy duty digcam researching a few months back. my recommendation would be the canon powershot g2. you can find some good prices if you look online. though you have to worry about grey market crap. www.digitaldealz.com has pretty good prices.

i finally settled on the g2 because of its nice image quality/resolution, swiveling ccd, raw support, smartmedia2 support, and good manual controls.

here's a good review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong2/

here's a pic that i took with the g2 that i really like. but i'm just a newb



[ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: c ]

[strata]

What about the Sony DSC-F707 5 megapixel thingy? Tis the one I had my eye on... looks nice and sturdy...

[[Shizo]]

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: [Shizo] ]

[[Shizo]]

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: [Shizo] ]

[[Shizo]]

Sorry for bringing up again
I need help picking from these two! I wish they were fused together because one doesnt have what the other does, but DAMN!! I dont have the money for two

Canon G2
+ it has longer battery life (x2/x3 i hear)
+ records audio
+ uses CompactFlash I, II, and Microdrive
+ 32Mb card included
- colors seem washed out
- x3.6 analog zoom (or is it x3)

Fuji 6900
+ great color and resolution
+ x6 analog zoom!
- short battery life
- only uses SmartMedia
- no audio
- 16Mb card included

Damn.. i really dont know which one i like better and it looks like there are more better points for G2, but colors and picture quality is really important for me too, as well as large ZOOM!

Also i decided to hold off buying camera until my b-day in February (or at least until after the holidays). Very deep inside i'm hoping to find some camera that has bboth cams features above

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: [Shizo] ]

[Lunatique]

Tough call.

Here's some info that might help:

Sample galleries:
http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/fuji6900z_samples/
http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/canong2_samples1/

Features side-by-side comparison:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sidebyside.asp

Pros and cons:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fuji6900z/page15.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong2/page20.asp

Hope that helps.

[[Shizo]]

ack ack ack
All the links appeared visited to me (heh i did an extensive research) but.. maybe i shouldn't buy any of these two cameras and wait?
Maybe i pay a bit more and buy G2 because a bunch of smaller good things about it, but 6900 has nice zoom and pic.. ahh CRY!!!!

[c]

hehe!

shiz the g2's quality is quite good.

or you can wait for the nikkon coolpix 5000. 5 mega pixels and g2-like lcd swivel screen. schweet! but expensive .

the swivel screen is the deal breaker in my opinion.

[Awetopsy]

Red Leader: that third picture you posted sure looks like okanagan lake in kelowna!

possibly summerhill? altho I could be completely mistaken.

[[Shizo]]

O.. Nikon 5000 seems like a good camera overall, but costs too much
I also looked at Canon S40 becausse it's so small, and balanced features overall. I dunno, i wait.

[Red Leader]

Awetopsy: Good eye!!! :0

That's from Mission Hill Vinyard in the Okanagan.

Schizo: (Re: Previous request for Cuba pics) Maybe I'll post some cuba pics on the board next week when I have time to go through them...