Digital Camera Information

I’m looking at purchasing a digital camera and wouuld like advice in selecting the right one. I’m looking at Olympus cameras due to a dicount available through a freind and would loke advice on models and features as they apply to taking outdoor pictures during the day and night .
Thanks, Ron

Zim,

I have had 3 olympus’ in the last 3 years. 1st one 2 megapix, 2nd 2 mega pix with a 10x zoom, and my current one is the 3 megapix with an 8x zoom. The move from 2 mp to 3 mp I thought was an improvement. The ? I have for you is what will you use it the most for? I like the added zoom for taking several outdoor shots, but this bigger lens makes the overall camera bulkier and heavier. If you are only going to use it for fish pics I would go for the 2mp version for its compactness and ease of use. As a side note, if you plan on doing an number of 8×10 pics the 3mp is the one to get, the 2mp is good for up to 5×7 max for good quality.

Models C-720 8x zoom , 3megapixels
C-700 10x zoom, 2 megapixels
510??? 2 megapixel(? zoom )

Any further ?’s feel free to drop me a PM!

~~~~~~~~~alkfish

I own a Olympus D-490 Zoom

Very user friendly, easy to use software..check out some of my pix on this site….

There is a feature I’ve seen on a digi camera that I wish I had and that is a red beam of light that shines on your subject at night, this allows you to use your LCD screen ond not your view finder.

just my 2 cents worth

Olympus makes great digital cameras… a couple of our EFN pro media staff use olympus and love them… the best thing I can tell you is to check out some reviews on the internet.. heres a couple of great links to get you started that I found very helpful when I bought my camera (a fujifilm fine pix S602)… Ive been VERY happy with it…..
if you have some specific questions about digitals drop me a PM or ask here on this line Im sure we can help…..
http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-1429209.html
http://www.shortcourses.com/mustsee/mustsee.htm
the first link is a great place to obtain both professional and customer reviews of cameras your intereseted in…
the 2n link has a BUNCH of digital photography links… it would keep you BUSY checkin it all out….

digital camera are great… I try and take pix with mine every day… I bet I have taken WAY over a 1000 since I got it….
I had it out in the boat today.. heres a pic I took just before I left for the day….. there is actually someone “famous” from our board here in this pic…

RiverEyes & ec, have either of you printed directly from your camera to a printer using an interface cable? I have a Canon S30 that I can connect to a photo printer and I was wondering how hard it would be.

I have NOT done it… but Ive read about it quite a bit… it did not sound difficult at all… they are offering solutions like this for ease of use… BUT I will say that I bet it takes a bit of experience for you to use all the features available.. they talk about PIM (some sort of true color tool that gives you a what you see is what you get, instead of the printer not matching what you see on your cameras screen)…. and then there is cropping, and page fitting….. maybe even multi pics per page… but I think the basics are pretty easy!!

Nope … never done it either…..
I no info on this one…
Sounds neat tho

Well, I’m going to take the plunge and try it. I have a regular printer that can print out pictures stored in the computer I’m going to buy the Canon CP-100 PhotoPrinter which prints 4×6 and credit size photos. I figure the regular printer can handle the 8×12 size. The Camera Users Guide explains it all . You use the camera’s Print Settings to program through the LCD window. The settings are basically the same as the Imaging software settings you use on your computer. You can even crop the pictures. Sounds simple
I hope . Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained .

Thanks for the information.
alkfish, Thanks for your advice on the pixels and I will go with 3 megapixels or better. ecnook, I will be using the camera at night and the beam of red light sounds like a must. As to the size, the smaller the better as far as I’m concerned. RiverEyes, thanks for the web sites … I’ll check them out.
Thanks…

Zim, also check out the ProVantage website I’ve listed below. They’re cheaper then ebay. On the left side, click on “Home Page” listed under Browse Our Store. On the Home Page, navigate down the right hand column to Electronics and click on Cameras > Digital Cameras. 6 pages of prices you can check against. Here’s the URL, I hope I copied it correctly.

http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/-s/fp_61494

Ron,
I also have the Olympus D-490 Zoom, just like ec says (Very user friendly) Takes very nice clear pics, I really like mine, if I can use it anyone can. Here is one of my pics.

http://www.fishtheriver.com/ubbthreads/files/23053-RainyRick.jpg

Leo Kam,
Thanks for the web site. I have selected an Olympus C-50 so we’ll see how it performs. I’ll give an update once I get it and use it for a while.
Zim

I wish I had found this site before buying off of ebay. Would have saved an additional $22.

Just take your time to learn it correctly. I’m still learning mine after 6 months. I wonder if e.c. and the other camera pros here would take PM’s on technique. etc. How about it Dave?

Shoot’m at me . I’ll help with what ever I can.

Thanks Dave, will do.

Zim. forgot to mention this. If you try to order online and get a error message about incompatible browser, because that link I posted is a third party link from another website. It happened to me. Use the regular URL for their website, http://www.provantage.com, and navigate to the Buy page to order it. No problem.

as far as Im concerned we could/should discuss technique right here for everyone… that way we get all the insight available from our entire pool of talent!!… so whats on your mind? we all have problems.. mine was taking pix of sunsets… they can be tough…. I posted some pix on the pool 4 line.. SuperDood…. and heres another sunset.. I think I have it figured out….

You’re right Ken. This site is so informative That a question wont go unanswered for long, and probably with more than one solution being offered. So, here’s my first one for you. How do you attach pictures to your posts? I know how to do it with e-mail, but how do you do it in replying to a post? I cant find any link to click on like the paperclip in e-mail.

TIA

Leo

Leo….
when you write your post you click continue.. but on the second page down below the text there is a box that will allow you to attach your pix.. they have to be smaller than 100000 bytes.. so what I do is use one of my photo editing packages to take the 6Meg files my camera takes and convert it to 640 x 480 Jpeg format.. which usually brings it down to between 50,000 and 90,000 bytes.. and still leaves it big enough to see, but not TOO big for the resolution that some people view in……
anway use the browse “button” to find and attach the picture you want to attach.. then click continue…
your post will then have an attached picture!

Here you go …

Click on Reply,
Type in your reply,
Leave the box checked”I want to preview my post and/or attach a file”
Click Continue,
Click on Browse.
Then select the attachment you want by dbl. clicking on it,
click continue and your done

Like this

RiverEyes, Nice sunset capture… what was your trick for taking this photo?
ecnook, What a great Pig ! Was this a recent fish?
I’m really glad to see all the great pics being shared on this web site.

Sunsets CAN be tricky to get good results with… and trickier yet when there is also water…… Ive spent quite a bit of time practicing shots at my house which overlooks a lake with a sunset view….. so Ive taken literally hundreds of sunset shots…. the problem is that when you use your AUTO setting the camera often has a hard time with the intense light of a sunset…. unless you have a speacial filter your going to have a tough time getting a decent pic when the sun is above the horizon….. you would think that if the camera is pointed at the sun it would speed the shutter speed way up and automatically choose a slow film… like asa 100… but this is often NOT the case… so your pics get way over exsposed…. I was looking for some examples in my archives… but apparently I tossed all of my many many failures……
soooooo what I do in those cases is I take my camera off the auto setting and instead go to an alternate such at SP and I will use an outdoor setting, then I will do an “autofocus” on an area that has normal but bright lighting… usually a small branch with the sky as a background….. for some reason this allows a decent setting that will provide good color saturation when you return you camera viewer to the sunset…. as you look into your viewer you will be able to see if your colors are getting “burnt” or underexsposed… if its NOT right try autofocusin on some other areas with different lighting in the background, another thing you can do is force your flash to fire off…. this may also help (in fact if you look closely at ECNOOKS pic of his giant fish you will see HE used forced flash mode, you can see the light reflecting off that big girls EYES, and not to steal his thunder… but YES he caught that fish just last week!! on pool 4, and he took a REALLY nice photo of her dont you think?)…
anyway… Im sure you will have to experiement before you will get results you really like with sunsets…. at least I did…..
but now I seem to get mostly really nice shots…..

Thanks RiverEyes, for the info on the sun set shot…very good work. Its alot of fun taking pix and trying out different ways and angles to get shots. But just remember, don’t experiment with a must have shot …like big fish, family,ext. get out and practice like RiverEyes and you’ll be proud of all your shots..

By the way, that walleye i showed, I caught her while hidding from RiverEyes on pool 4 a couple of weeks ago

Thanks guys. Just like everything else, its easy once you know how. Next question. How do you get the fish to jump into the boat and pose?

Wow, Looks like bigfoot. I would call the Star or one of those other magazines if I were you. I’m suprised it got that close to camp. Hey Ec. is it legal to bait them in for a photo!

Thanks for the information. I’m sure it’ll take me a while to get pictures like the one you posted but hopefully with trial and error ande your information the learning curve is a little shorter. And yes, ECNOOK’s pic was really nice…
Ron (Zim) Zimmermann