On 6/30/04 7:35 AM, "Clark Guy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Digital cameras are much like computers. If you wait to buy the best one, > you'll never get one! > > What I did was get a couple of Nikon coolpixes (950 and 990) on eBay for my > wife and myself. They are old enough to be quite affordable, and they have > advantages over many other cameras for my purposes (the 950 for example, can > take IR pictures without internal modification with a good IR pass filter, > at reasonable shutter speeds (like 1/15th second in bright sunlight) The > twistable body has some advantages for shooting over people's heads. > There's many accessories available for them as well.
My ladyfriend has a Coolpix 4500, which is the current version of the same series. I've used it myself, and it's an impressive device. I especially like its macro/close focus ability - if I recall right, it will focus as close as an inch or two from a subject. But this digicam does not, in my opinion, compete with a good film SLR. We have quite a few vacation shots that were taken at the same spot using Cindy's 4500 and my F100. The differences are not huge, but the scans from my F100 shots look better. What is most noticeable to me, is that the highlights on the digicam shots tend to blow out more often. The tonal variations look natural as you go from shadow into brighter areas, but then suddenly there is a featureless blotch that looks like someone spilled whiteout on the image. I've read explanations that attribute this effect to the linear transfer function of the digital sensors. They saturate suddenly, whereas with film you have an s-shaped transfer function that saturates more gracefully. Perhaps the digicam sensor blowouts can be avoided by carefully setting exposure to avoid clipping. But this is not always possible. Perhaps the problem is less serious with DSLRs, since they have larger sensors, more dynamic range, etc. I'd like to make the jump to a DSLR, but I've been holding out for a quasi-affordable model with 8-12 Megapixels. Sometimes I like to make 13x19" prints, and I'm not yet convinced that the 6MP cameras can record enough data for that. -- Julian Vrieslander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body