Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

According to the label, it's a Technika SH-A366
I think it's Tesco's own special - it has a zoom lens, which I can cope with, but it has some controls on a dial by the shutter button - and they confuse me.
the confusing bits?

P
Scene
Tv
Av
M
something that looks like a spanner
something that could be a lorry with a loudspeaker on front, or an attempt at an old movie camera

It seems Technika is a Tesco own-brand, strangely the dial markings are Canon and I don't see what some are doing on such a camera.
P is Program, usually the auto mode where some settings can be changed but basically the camera is still in control.
Scene should show various types of shot you might want to take (portrait, scenic, night shot, sport etc) where the relevant settings are preset in the camera, select the shot you are going for and the camera sets itself up.
Tv is exposure priority, a throwback to film where the films had different sensitivity to light on an ISO scale, low number=slow / high number=fast. For moving objects a higher speed is usually selected to freeze the object, but to get artistic use a slower speed to blur the motion - think of those pictures of water where the motion is smooth, white water looking creamy, this is how it's done. You set the exposure, the camera selects the correct aperture:
Av is aperture priority, the size of the opening light goes through to get to the film or sensor. Normally the smaller the aperture (high f-number), measured on the f-stop scale, less light gets in so a longer exposure is needed but the depth of focus is increased - more of the image is in focus; the wider the aperture (low f-number)
more light gets in for a short exposure but less DoF, meaning you focus on a point you want sharp and the rest in front and behind will be out of focus.
M is manual, you selct the exposure and the aperture. Now we're talking creative!
Spanner is settings for the camera.
Movie camera is video mode, could be fun but I don't think the quality is going to be worth bothering with.

This is very basic, some possibly wrong as I don't use this system, but have a play and see what you come up with.
A good site, including "how to" videos, is here:
http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/

 

[GarryH]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

I use a canon 350d Digital SLR, it is a few years old now and it is my first introduction to SLR cameras. I have learned a lot but I do take an awful load of bad pics, which of course I blame on the camera! In auto which is the easy option the Depth of Field is tight and at exhibitions (as per the photo) it can be a bit of a pain because I am not clever enough, or confident enough to muck about with the settings.
It's other down side is the size and weight, with the quality of the pics now available from the little silver box digitals I have been toying with buying a decent one simply because the auto functions and the movie functions are so good.
I realy enjoy taking pics in the digital format though as there is no "cost" reason not to take loads of pics and throw away the ones I don't want.

As can be seen , depth of field not brilliant and the flash washes the front of the photo and fails at the back.........nice subject though!!

 

[Rhinochugger]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

According to the label, it's a Technika SH-A366
I think it's Tesco's own special - it has a zoom lens, which I can cope with, but it has some controls on a dial by the shutter button - and they confuse me.
the confusing bits?

P
Scene
Tv
Av
M
something that looks like a spanner
something that could be a lorry with a loudspeaker on front, or an attempt at an old movie camera

It seems Technika is a Tesco own-brand, strangely the dial markings are Canon and I don't see what some are doing on such a camera.
P is Program, usually the auto mode where some settings can be changed but basically the camera is still in control.
Scene should show various types of shot you might want to take (portrait, scenic, night shot, sport etc) where the relevant settings are preset in the camera, select the shot you are going for and the camera sets itself up.
Tv is exposure priority, a throwback to film where the films had different sensitivity to light on an ISO scale, low number=slow / high number=fast. For moving objects a higher speed is usually selected to freeze the object, but to get artistic use a slower speed to blur the motion - think of those pictures of water where the motion is smooth, white water looking creamy, this is how it's done. You set the exposure, the camera selects the correct aperture:
Av is aperture priority, the size of the opening light goes through to get to the film or sensor. Normally the smaller the aperture (high f-number), measured on the f-stop scale, less light gets in so a longer exposure is needed but the depth of focus is increased - more of the image is in focus; the wider the aperture (low f-number)
more light gets in for a short exposure but less DoF, meaning you focus on a point you want sharp and the rest in front and behind will be out of focus.
M is manual, you selct the exposure and the aperture. Now we're talking creative!
Spanner is settings for the camera.
Movie camera is video mode, could be fun but I don't think the quality is going to be worth bothering with.

This is very basic, some possibly wrong as I don't use this system, but have a play and see what you come up with.
A good site, including "how to" videos, is here:
http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/

Tried the little movie thingy today - got a few second's worth - can I post it somehow without doing all the Youtube guff?

 

[Rhinochugger]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

As can be seen , depth of field not brilliant and the flash washes the front of the photo and fails at the back.........nice subject though!!

Forget the camera - love the railbus

 

[Doug]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

I use a canon 350d Digital SLR, it is a few years old now and it is my first introduction to SLR cameras. I have learned a lot but I do take an awful load of bad pics, which of course I blame on the camera! In auto which is the easy option the Depth of Field is tight and at exhibitions (as per the photo) it can be a bit of a pain because I am not clever enough, or confident enough to muck about with the settings.
It's other down side is the size and weight, with the quality of the pics now available from the little silver box digitals I have been toying with buying a decent one simply because the auto functions and the movie functions are so good.
I realy enjoy taking pics in the digital format though as there is no "cost" reason not to take loads of pics and throw away the ones I don't want.

As can be seen , depth of field not brilliant and the flash washes the front of the photo and fails at the back.........nice subject though!!

Taking photos at most exhibitions is a nightmare - people pushing in, trying to look through the view finder etc.

The main problem is the lack of light. That means the camera will open up the aperture and hence reduce the depth of field, making the back of the object out of focus. You can get round this to some extent by changing the ISO setting on the camera, so it is set to a higher number, ie faster 'film'. But, this will make the photo more grainy due to noise effects in the sensor chip. Use this with the aperture priority mode and make the aperture smaller (increasing the depth of field).

For every doubling of the ISO number you can halve the aperture value, or halve the exposure time (they are all linked together to give the correct exposure). If a picture is slightly under exposed you can correct this in something like photoshop.

Using flash can help but then you will get the nearer objects brighter than the ones further away. One way round this is to have a flash unit with a directional head - point it up at the ceiling to bounce the flash off the ceiling. Doesn't work to well in a large hall though! Alternately put a diffuser over the flash, even a bit of white paper taped over it will do. This will illiminate tha harsh shadows but not really alter the difference in lighting of near/far objects.

Also check the type of lighting used at the exhibition, you may need to change from auto white balence to indoor, or tungsten. Check the pictures to see if they look a funny colour and try different settings. Just don't forget to set it back to auto white balance when you finish!

Photo at St Albans exhibition taken on my EOS350D (note blur due to moving railcar, long exposure time due to low light conditions):

 

[GarryH]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

Taking photos at most exhibitions is a nightmare......................

Some great tips there Doug........thats exactly the problem, I don't understand the reasons that I am not getting the best from the camera, so these comments are great it helps me to understand.

PS Of course once in a while I get a great shot then ruin all the hard work by shrinking it to fit on the Forum!!:impatient:

 

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

In my expeience the flash of the compact causes more burn-out than that of a DSLR.
My Nikon D300 goes up to ISO 3200, this and a 10-20mm lens have let me take some great shots inside aquariums through the plate glass, surely much more poorly lit than an exhibition hall. The noise is absolutely neglible at sizes up to about A4, and as pointed out above images posted on the web don't show it.
As for the DSLR against compact argument, each to his own. I personally prefer the weight and feel of the D300 and get a real pleasure using it along with its' enormous capabilities - I still haven't finished reading the handbook!

 

[corgi]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

Since my last post I have now added a DSLR Pentax K200D with a pentax DA 18-55mm lense.

Now I have to learn to play with it.

I have bought a camera bag from Hong Kong Au$18 delivered v's Au$48 buying locally.

I cant get over the price of filters here. I am now looking at a set of Indian one's with macro's for leess than what one filter would cost here.

 

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

I cant get over the price of filters here. I am now looking at a set of Indian one's with macro's for leess than what one filter would cost here.

Do you mean close-up filters? They look like lenses that screw onto the front of the camera lens. I have a set of 4 made by 'Fox', ebay and from Poland if I remember rightly, cheap too. The great joy of these as opposed to a macro lens is that you still have the full zoom capacity and depth of field, the downside is the loss of image quality and they don't give true macro, but still worth having in the armoury.

 

[corgi]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

I cant get over the price of filters here. I am now looking at a set of Indian one's with macro's for less than what one filter would cost here.

Do you mean close-up filters? They look like lenses that screw onto the front of the camera lens. I have a set of 4 made by 'Fox', ebay and from Poland if I remember rightly, cheap too. The great joy of these as opposed to a macro lens is that you still have the full zoom capacity and depth of field, the downside is the loss of image quality and they don't give true macro, but still worth having in the armoury.

Yep, they are the ones, your comments are appreciated.

 

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

A set of 4 close-up filters is about £10, the macro lens I have is £380. I bought the filters to dabble with macro without the expense, trouble is it is so interesting and fun that I bought the macro lens soon after, although I still use the close-up filters outside sometimes.

 

[dunnyrail]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

My early pictures and Vids on UTube (listed in the Forum) were taken on a FUJIFILM A700, now a bit of old hat but perfectly adequate. I had decided that I was going to replace it because it literally ate batteries. In practice it was imposible to Review pictures, thus a Camera with an on board rechargeable Li-lon battery would be in order.

Thus late in December (just to beat the dreaded VAT increase) I purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ65 which I am very pleased with. There are a few problems though, as the Movie is such good quality (I think that my camcorder will be redundant now) they can take an age to upload to You Tube. I am also probably in danger of running out of space on my iMac PC due to the Pic size at around 5mb in best quality.

I am using "Simple Movie X" for Movie Editing, which I got as a free download from the net. I use a Mac and the iMovie video's have to be converted to another format (for my my Irish Video I did this and the quality was awfull), so Simple Movie X has proved to be the best and easiest option. However as it is a freebie there is reduced functionality. It costs around $39, not a problem but I am unsure about downloading Software from US Sites.

I do take the point about having to reduce the quality of Pictures to get them to load up to the Forum, however I feel that this matters not a lot with Screen Viewed shots. However it is a pain to have to do it, more work you see.
JonD

 

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

Agreed, a fondness for the subject increases interest, but ...
Damn it all, I love photography, I love capturing images of all sorts of things, even SWMBO likes the results and (reluctantly) agrees to buyng more kit, so it must be kind of okay.

 

[spike]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

With my Kodak I'm quite lazy.
Often I just set for closeups as I like doing that sort of thing.
but then along comes a distance shot and the scene is lost in a fuzzy pic

Back in 70s I had a nice Nikon SLR where you had to work the beast and know what you were doing.
Now I'm just lazy......

 

[PaulRhB]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

I've had a few fuji cameras from the finepix range and they are superb although reds can sometimes come out a bit pink.
Currently got a S8500, which looks like an SLR, you can independently control the shutter and aperture for model photography and night shots and the 18x zoom can be very useful out and about.
Bought myself a Panasonic TZ6 a couple of months back as a compact to keep in my work bag if anything interesting shows up. Quite often use this at shows too as it just fits in a pocket rather than the bigger camera. The auto settings are good and a 12x zoom with good stabilisation make it nearly as good as the Fuji in daylight.

 

[Rhinochugger]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

its a bit like looking for the Holy Grail - you'll never find it.

Is that why you've got 22 of 'em, Paul?

 

[Rhinochugger]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

Nikon Easypix L18:

Good for closeups

That second one's cheating Vic, the train is always gonna be in shot

 

[Granitechops]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

Part quote

I do take the point about having to reduce the quality of Pictures to get them to load up to the Forum, however I feel that this matters not a lot with Screen Viewed shots. However it is a pain to have to do it, more work you see.
JonD

so, how do you prepare your pics for the forum?

All I do is, choose the pic in my pic file, right click on it, choose pic resize from the drop down menu, & eh voila it resizes it ( several choices)
It automaticly renames the smaller file for example, same name plus (2) plus small, med, or large, depending on which option you choose, plus retains your original

there is also a custom option for Avatars

If I remember rightly was a free download from widows????

 

[pugwash]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

It is in the Powertoys for windows, oddly mine refuses to work anymore so I use the Irfanview.
Of course if you have a super image and want to show it in all its glory then put it on Flickr or similar and then put in a link here. Like zis
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianlomaslux/4001055856/sizes/l/ < Link To http://www.flickr.com/pho...ux/4001055856/sizes/l/

 

[Rhinochugger]

Re:Come on, everyone admit to what you use.

its a bit like looking for the Holy Grail - you'll never find it.

Is that why you've got 22 of 'em, Paul?

I've got 23 Chuggymate - and I sold one to Tommy Trouble today

You don't fool me, Paul - the last time you counted, you forgot one