Digital Cameras

[sidneylopsides]

Review your new digi cam for us, go on you know you want to!

[Minted]

Ok then, since you asked so nicely :)

Olympus E-20 Digital SLR

http://homepage.mac.com/grahamthomson/linkedimages/e20_shot.gif

This camera is several years old now (2001), but when new retailed at around £1300. By shopping around I picked one up for £500 with a whole bunch of accesories too (Case, Wide Angle Lens, Telephoto Lens, Charger etc).

The specifications and a full review (with comparisons) can be found HERE (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse20/).

Personally I knew very little about this camera when I bought it, I had decided I wanted to go digital and had asked the advice of a friend who was very into photography at the time.

I still owe that person several beers. This camera is brilliant, it has some faults - but at the price I paid it was more than a bargain.

The biggest criticism of the camera is the fact that the lens seen in the shot is non-removable. The reason for this decision was simply to protect the CCD from water/dust - and has also allowed the camera to be hermetically sealed. The attachment lenses allow great flexibility despite the fixed lens. Even with the full telephoto lens attached, only 1/2 a stop of light is lost.

As for using the camera, I found it incredibly easy to get to grips with. The shot linked to at the bottom of this review was only the 20th (approx) shot I took (and no, I hadn't read the manual at this point - I'm a bloke :p ).

It takes both CompactFlash (including microdrives) and SmartMedia (which is really slow - I only use it for low res work), I personally use a 256MB fast compactflash card with it. That can hold 25 shots in RAW mode.

Overall I cannot fault this camera, It has a full metal body and is really solidly constructed. It is very easy to use but is also fully featured enough to keep any photographer happy. I would recommend it to anyone wanting a Digital SLR but working on a budget (i.e. Someone who doesn't have a spare £1500 lying around ;) ).

Example Shot (converted to PNG format ~2.4MB) (http://homepage.mac.com/grahamthomson/dundeebynight.png)

[Snay]

Well, I just went out and spent £249.99 for my shiny shiny Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P100 with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar Lens, but Ive found it on comets website for £229.99 over here (http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/179_199052.html)
So, for immage quality it has got 5.1 megapixles, but it can also take pics at 3:2 (sort of panoramic images) 3 megapixels, 1 megapixel, and VGA quality (but whats the point in paying £230 for a 5 megapixel camera if your not going to use it?).

The quality is just great. It prints off A4 borderless images beautifully. These are really sweet immages. I was quite amazed (allthough upgrading from a Fujifilm DX-10 that cost me more than this one, and had 0.8 megapixels, it wouldnt have taken much).
It also can record mpegs at VGA standard, but the sound quality is poop. You really need your speakers turned up full to hear what anyone farther than 3-4 meters away from the camera is saying.

As for features, it is jammy packed. It has everything we have all come to expect from a digital camera, autofocus, auto white balance, digital zoom, a cool red light that blinds people before you take the photo, that has something to do with the autofocus, and the such.

The Carl Zeiss Lens it great. It is high quality, if a little underpowered (3x), and it is as I have stated, a Carl Zeiss, the German Rolls Royce of magnification equiptment.

The digital zoom is great as far as digital zooms go. It goes up to about 6x without pixelating the image too badly, but if you go much over that, it just looks crap. The idea of using it fully is laughable. It does go up to 12x.

The camera is powered by an infoLITHIUM battery. The box says it lasts 180mins, and I would be inclined to agree with them.

The autofocus tool is useful, but it is just too damn slow, but I am yet to find an autofocus on a digital camera that pleases me. It is one of the faster autofocuses on a camera that I have used. It does have two manual controll sets. One that gives you a half arsed watered down version of controll, good for novices who want a bit more controll, or a fully manual mode, that lets you controll everything you would with a normal camera.

The only thing I can fault the camera on is the fact that it absoloutly eats the memory sticks. It comes with a 32MB memory stick, which can hold a grand total of 12 decent quality piccys. I went out and bought a 64MB stick, but that holds 24 pics, but I think I am going to have to go out and fork a fortune over for a 1GB card. Also, I think the flash is poorly positioned. I keep end up taking dark photos, because my hand was over the flash. But thats just me, none of my family (camera pinching so-and-so's that they are) have that problem when they "borrow" the camera without asking, and just randomly decide to format the memory stick, with all my photos on.

Overall, I would heartily recomend it to anybody. It is a great piece of kit, especially for a less experienced camera user. It is one of the cheaper 5 megapixel cameras, and worth every penny.

[sidneylopsides]

Fuji S7000

http://premium.uploadit.org/sidneylopsides/frontview-001.jpg
http://premium.uploadit.org/sidneylopsides/specsview.jpg

What's in the box


Fuji S7000
16MB XD card (pointless!)
USB cable
AV cable
Software CD
Neck Strap with attachment bits
Lens Cap

Look
At first look it is obvious this is more than your average point and shoot digicam, looking like an SLR. The body is very solid feeling, a high impact plastic with metal lens barrel. Build quality feels as good as a Canon EOS10D which is the only Digital SLR I have played with yet. It is very comfortable to hold, little indents guide your fingers to the controls perfectly. There are three flaps on the body, on for the memory card slots (XD and compactflash), battery door and connections for USB and AV. These are all very solid and have no tendency to open unless you want them too, a problem on a few other cameras.
The large lens has a control ring mounted on it, this controls zoom or focus, depending if you have manual focus(MF) on or not. It is not a direct link like an SLR, but a fly-by-wire type. Above the lens is the built in popup flash, and flash hotshoe above that. When you press the lens popup button, it charges it ready to go. On top of the camera are the shutter release, mode dial, power switch, jog dial, flash mode and exposure compensation buttons. The back has the 5 way navigation button, back button, EVF/LCD switch, display button, photography button and zoom controls. There is a 1.8" LCD and electronic viewfinder with diopter adjustment. On the side of the lens barrel you have the info, shift and macro buttons, and a mode switch for focus mode, Single-AF, Continuous-AF and MF. There is a button inside this switch for quick autofocus even in MF mode.
Now this sounds like a lot of buttons, but they all make sense and are sensibly laid out. The advantage of this layout is that you have direct access to most of the main funtions, so it is quicker to adjust. Other cameras that look simpler need lots of fiddly menu navigation.
When powered up the lens extends, this takes about 2seconds and you can shoot after about 3.
The lens is a 35-105 equivilent, and is quite bright too, with maximum aperture at wideangle of 2.8 and wideangle of 3.1. The camera has macro down to 1cm, it is in two stages with macro and super macro.

Use

When you are shooting you have the choice of using the screen for framing your shot like a normal digicam, or using the EVF like an SLR. Both give 100% coverage of the image to be shot, so you can use either no problems, the EVF is nearly twice the resolution of the rear LCD so gives a better idea of what you are getting, I tend to use this mostly. Which ever you are using last is the default one when you turn it back on, this works for reviewing pictures too which is nice. Mine uses the EVF for shooting and LCD for viewing automatically now.
When setting pu the shot you have all the information you need on screen, it will tell you shutter speed and aperture, resolution and how many pictures you can take. It will also show you flash mode, if macro is on, focus mode, storage media type and warns about camera shake.
Once you setup your shot it is very quick to focus and shutter lag is minimal, virtually unnoticable. well I can't notice it! There are so many shooting options it's hard to know what to put, and where to start. I suppose if there are any specific areas that you want me to cover send me a PM. :)

I'll post links to some example shots soon, but it's late now :p


TECHNICAL SPECS
Body Material- Plastic (metal lens barrel)

Sensor- 1/1.7" Fujifilm SuperCCD IV HR (High Resolution)

Effective pixels- 6.3 megapixels

Image sizes- • 4048 x 3040 (12 MP)• 2848 x 2136 (6 MP)• 2016 x 1512 (3 MP)• 1600 x 1200 (2 MP)• 1280 x 960 (1 MP)

Image formats- • JPEG (EXIF 2.2)• CCD-RAW

Quality Levels- • 12 MP: JPEG Fine, JPEG Normal• 6 MP: JPEG Normal• 3 MP: JPEG Normal• 2 MP: JPEG Normal• 1 MP: JPEG Normal

Sensitivity equiv.- Auto (ISO 160 - 800)• ISO 200• ISO 400• ISO 800 (at 3, 2 or 1 MP only)

Lens- Fujinon Super EBC 6x zoom

Lens Thread- 55 mm (with optional adapter)

Zoom wide (W)- 35 mm

Zoom tele (T)- 210 mm (6 x)

Lens Aperture- F2.8 - F3.1

Auto Focus- "Twin AF": Passive External AF sensor & CCD AF (TTL) No AF Lamp

Auto Focus types- • Normal AF • Area AF (49 selectable AF points - 7x7 grid) • Single AF • Continuous AF

Manual Focus- Via focus-by-wire ring on lens barrel

Normal focus range- • 50 cm - Infinity (35 - 135 mm zoom)• 90 cm - Infinity (135 - 210 mm zoom)
Macro focus range • Normal macro: 10 cm - 80 cm (3.9 - 31.5 in) (zoom range limited)• Super macro: 1 cm - 20 cm (0.4 - 7.9 in) (zoom locked at wide angle)

Min shutter- • Auto: 1/4 sec• A/S priority: 3 sec• Manual: 15 sec

Max shutter- • Auto: 1/2000 sec• A/S priority: 1/1000 sec• Manual: 1/10000 sec

Metering- • Multi 64-division• Center-Weighted Average• Spot

Exposure adjustment- -2EV to +2EV in 1/3EV steps

Auto bracketing- • 3 images• 0.3, 0.7 or 1.0 EV steps

Aperture priority- F2.8, 3.2, 3.6, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 5.6, 6.3, 7.0, 8.0

Shutter priority- 3, 2.5, 2, 1.6, 1.3, 1, 1/1.3, 1/1.6, 1/2, 1/2.5, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, 1/10, 1/13, 1/15, 1/20, 1/25, 1/30, 1/40, 1/50, 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, 1/125, 1/160, 1/200, 1/250, 1/320, 1/400, 1/500, 1/650, 1/800, 1/1000 sec

Full manual- Yes, any combination of aperture and shutter speed above plus the following shutter speeds: • Slow: 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4 sec• Fast: 1/1300, 1/1600, 1/2000, 1/2500, 1/3000, 1/4000, 1/5000, 1/6000, 1/8000, 1/10000 sec

White Balance- • Auto• Manual preset 1• Manual preset 2• Fine• Shade• Fluorescent: Daylight bulb• Fluorescent: Warm White bulb• Fluorescent: Cool White bulb• Incandescent

Color modes- • Normal• Chrome• B&W

Continuous - • 3.3 fps, 5 frames • 2 fps, last 5 frames (up to 25 frames) • 1 fps, 40 frames (1280 x 960)

Built-in Flash- Yes, pop-up

Flash Range- • Wide: 0.3 - 8.5 m (11.8 in - 27.9 ft)• Tele: 0.9 - 7.9 m (3.0 ft - 32.2 ft)

Flash modes- • Auto• Red-eye reduction• Forced Flash• Suppressed Flash• Slow Sync• Slow Sync + Red-eye reduction

External flash- Yes, hot-shoe

Tripod mount- Yes, metal

Self-timer- Yes, 2 or 10 sec delay

Remote control - No

Time-lapse recording- No

Video out- Yes, selectable NTSC / PAL

Storage media- • Slot 1: xD-Picture Card• Slot 2: Compact Flash Type I or Type II (IBM Microdrive compatible)
Storage included 16 MB xD-Picture Card

Viewfinder- TTL EVF, LCD 0.44" (235,000 pixels)

LCD- 1.8" TFT (118,000 pixels)

Playback zoom- Yes, up to 18x, scrollable

Operating system- Proprietary

Connectivity- USB 2.0

Battery- • 4 x AA type batteries (NiMH recommended) • AC power adapter AC-5VHS (option)

Battery charger- No

Weight (no battery)- 500 g

Weight (inc. battery)- 597 g

Dimensions- 121 x 82 x 97 mm (4.8 x 3.2 x 3.8 in)

[Mittwoch]

Canon EOS 300D
http://www.dcviews.com/reviews/Canon-300D/cn_300db.jpg
http://www.dcviews.com/reviews/Canon-300D/cn_300df.jpeg

Comes With:
Camera (duh) + manual
18-55mm lens
Lens cap
Composite lead
Battery
Battery recharger
Photoshop Elements 2.0 + manual

Looks:
Mmm. Nice. Silver, lots of buttons. With the lens fitted, the camera looks very professional. As one person said to me:
'Omfg you just pop out of nowhere with this huge mofo camera!'
Looks just right; it fits in any hand.
Most people accustomed to compact digitals find it slightly alarming having this pointed at them, and it certainly attracts admiring comments.
It also comes with a rather fetching strap advertising the make and model.

Use:
The first thing an unseasoned photographer will notice when handling the camera is the weight. It seems heavy at first but you soon get used to it. The camera itself is fairly light - any lens you add to it will form the bulk of the weight. However while it is a reasonable weight, the camera has a tendency to be too light to keep still during long exposure, something that can be remedied with a grip that can be added to the bottom.
The camera has 12 modes; 8 automatic, 2 semi-automatic and one fully manual. Of the automatic there are no flash, night background (adjusts ISO for portraits with a dark background), sports (fast shutter speed for capturing quick movements), Outdoors, Mountain (presumably adjusts ISO so light reflected from snow or sand does not produce glare), Portrait, Automatic and finally the mysterious P which I can't remember the function of. There is also A-DEP, standing presumably for Aperture-Dependant which allows for group photos to be taken without the people on the edge being out of focus. The semi-automatic modes allow for independant control of shutter speed (30 secs to 4000/1) and aperture. Overall the modes do their job well, making fine adjustments for each purpose producing good results.
Next, the flash. It's range is about 3 metres, and can scare away small animals when it pops up out the top. It's a bit bright, but does the job for when you need to use it. It does have the tendency to pop up at bad moments, though, making for awkward candid photography unless you use no flash.
The lens is rather good, and allows auto focus (generally accurate and speedy) and manual focus. Unfortunately it is not excellent for close ups, due to the range of the focus. It works well for landscapes though, and other occasions where you're not going to be too close to objects.

Overall it is an excellent camera that is great for someone beginning, like me. Unfortunately it does not come with any built-in memory or a card, but with a camera this quality you're going to need a big card - photos on large size at high quality can take upwards of 6 megs in some cases! It accepts CompactFlash cards.



Sorry if this is a bit brief, I'm a bit preoccupied and don't know that much about it anyway! I hope it helps in any case and thoroughly recommend it to anyone buying their first 'proper' digital.