what kind of digital camera should I get so I can start posting pics. Is the more pixels the way to go?Want something simple. thanks in advance.mike

 

For posting here, more pixels will make it harder to upload and harder for every one to see. You want more pixels if you are going to do some printing of your pictures. I have an old Sony that is 3.1 MP at max resolution. I usually use the camera at its smallest setting to make the pictures that I post on here. Click on the picture in my sig and see. It is taken at 480X640. This is a good size for posting, not very good for printing at much bigger than 3X5 though. If I am going to do some printing I make a picture as big as my camera will allow. This way there is no graininess showing in the pics. This is an example of a pic taken on max resolution, 1600X1200, by my camera. Click on the link. BTW, I am partial to the Sony. Never had anything else though.
http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c4/eddie_96//dsc00096.jpg

 

I bought a Canon A70 (3.2 Mmega pixels) last June and I realy like it. easy to use.. I haven't taken any pictures with max res yet though
This one was at 640x480

Steve :steering:

 

I just upgraded from a Kodak DC260 (P&S 1.6MPX) to a Nikon D70 (SLR, 6.1MPX)

To be honest, this SLR kicks the living crap out of any other digital camera I've ever used.



Obviously, though, it's a little pricey and a little unnecessary for just "posting pictures". If all you want is to take some pics for projects, or to upload a sig pic or whatever, I don't even see why you'd want to go over 2.0 mpx.

-Steve


[Modified by Pacin'California, 3:04 PM 4/10/2004]

 

Get something cheap 2MP's....you won't notice a big difference and you won't spend a poopieload :thumbs:

 

Thanks guys,one more question if I go with more pixels is there a control on the camera to tone it down or are all pics at that pixel rating?

 

I have a 2meg Sony I bought two years ago. I really like it. I use it to document all my repairs. As pointed out, when you take photos for posting, keep it small.

You can dial back the resolution, or pump it up. The cameras let you adjust just about everything.


[Modified by joeveto, 7:15 PM 4/10/2004]

 

My Canon has 3 setting low, med, & high resolution.

Steve :steering:

 

Get the best camera you can. Take the pictures in high resolution and save them in the computer or on CD for future printing or whatever. Then use
a program like Photoshop Elements to resize for e-mail or posting. With the
higher resolution you can crop out parts of the picture and
blow it up with out losing too much quality.
Bob

 

:iagree:
I have the SONY Cybershot 5.0 and love it.

 

I have a kodak 290, 3.1 pixels, now obsolete, took my sig pic with that camera. Shoot the pics at the camera's highest resolution. The forum's software will automaticaly downsize the pic. If you want to downsize the pic yourself, XP has that function.


[Modified by GDaina, 3:19 AM 4/11/2004]

 

You sure about the forum automatically downsizing it? I thought it just squeezed it... you still have to download the whole file, it just doesn't expand the screen like it used to...

 

Yep, you have to upload the image, but I'd rather shoot the pic at the highest resolution in case I want to have a permanet file or maybe make it into an 8x10 or 11x14 print. Compare the pic to the pic in my sig...same pic, but the one you see now is downsized.

 

Downsizing yourself is a good option if you want to email the pics, particularly if your recipient is on dial-up.

If you don't have XP (though, of course, everyone should have XP!), there's an excellent free program on the net called Irfanview that I used on the pre-XP era for downsizing pics, doing slideshows, etc. It can also do batch conversions, downsizing many pics in one operation, rather than one-at-a-time.

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

I recently purchased a Sony Cyber-shot 5.0 megapixel. Wonderful camera but the software is pitiful. For years I used a Kodak DC280 2.1 megapixel and it worked very well. For your purposes I would suggest that a quality camera with 2.1 megapixels is just fine. I like the Sony's capabilities but I can foresee that most shots will be taken at 2.1. What has not been mentioned is that the 5.0 megapixel files will fill up a hard drive very quickly! Right now I am shooting at 1.2 megapixels for that reason.

I re-size the pics for Forum purposes using JASC Paint Shop Pro software but as mentioned by George most Windows packages have built-in editing functions.

 

I use either our old Olympus 2.0MP or the camera that I just bought for my wife for Christmas last year FujiFilm S3000 3.2Mp 6x optical zoom. Good camera. I agree that the SLR Digitals are the way to go.
I use Photoshop to reduce the size and resolution before I post them for our dial-up friends. I take all my pictures at max resolution.

 

[QUOTE] If you want to downsize the pic yourself, XP has that function.
QUOTE]

What part of XP has this function? MS Paint?

Ive got pics that are 1MB and Id want to reduce down to say 10-100KB for a sig pic.

Brent...


[Modified by MN-Brent, 1:58 PM 4/11/2004]

 

Download XP power toys from here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h.../powertoys.asp


Then when ever you are on a picture you can right click and resize a picture. IIt is quick and easy. Saves alot of time over any other package.


Pete




[Modified by Pete79L82, 3:29 PM 4/11/2004]

 

5.0mp wont really fill a hard drive fast.

One note about megapixels is the lens is more important, and the camera
eample, theres a sony cybershot 8.0 megapixel, but the Canon 300D DSLR and Nikon D70, although 6MP, produce a better image with better true resolution.

at 5.0 megapixel, it would take roughly 80-100,000 photographs at 100% JPeG quality to fill a modern hard drive.

One thing to note about forum downsizing.

The forum ONLY has a maximum value in the HTML image tags.
it will *not* change your photograph in any way.

it ONLY changes how large it appears in your browser window.

it works like this:

Johnny Bigpicture posts a 1024x768 picture of his new C5. It is 150k in size.

The Forum software says "Oh damn, thats much much too many pixels"

When you view it, the forum software says "My maximum is 600 pixels wide."
"Show this photograph AS IF it was 600 pixels wide.)

The photo is still 150k in size. The photo is *still* 1024x768. What is happening here, is the software is just displaying it with a maximum pixel width.

So it doesnt actually change the size of the image.

It just looks like it did because it "squeezes" (without modifying) the image into the maximum forum dimensions.

hope this is clear.

The moral of the story is, the forum software doesn't truly resize your image.

So... don't count on forum software to make that 300k 1600x1200 JPEG image small enough for dialup users to download. It may LOOK smaller, but it will take the same time to download because... its the same image.

Do your resizing before posting.




[Modified by Kale, 2:49 PM 4/11/2004]

 

:thumbs: