Digital camera advice?

[BearAssNaked]

I am looking for a good quality digital camera to take pictures of glass. I would like to be able to make slides from the digital images. Someone mentioned to me that I would need at least an 8 megapixel camera in order to make slides. Does anyone know if this is true? I am not real concerned about speed, camera noise, weight, or any of that. I just want a camera that takes clean, crisp pictures. How large of zoom do you think is good for taking pictures of 2 foot vases to glass earrings while using a tripod? I really trying to do some research before I buy something. I would like to stay in the $300-$500 range, but could go a little higher. Do you think the SLR type digital cameras are worth the extra price? Do they really take better quality photos?

Thanks everybody,

Jacob

[Greymatter Glass]

If I had the money and need for a new camera i'd go with the Nikon D50, it's hands down the most amazing bit of technology crammed into a package for under $1000 I've ever seen (of course by the time you buy a spare battery, 1-2 lenses, accessories, etc, you're talking closer to $1500 or more)

If you have a need for near professional results the D50 is worth a look, it's what's sometimes called Prosumer (professional/consumer). I've seen them at Circuit City and Bestbuy on sale for $800.


In the $300-500 range look at the Canons and Nikons in that range, I think the canons offer more features for the price and the nikons take a slightly better picture over all. just my opinion.

You'll want something with a good macro mode and maybe a 3-4 optical zoom. Digital zoom sucks, but they all offer it. Look for manual focus as well, since in macro mode the built in focus logic gets a bit messed up. Another thing to look for is a camera that has a hot shoe or some kind of flash attachment, I've never taken a decent picture of glass wihtout a good, off camera, flash.

Anyways.... the top brands, Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Minolta, Olympus, Sony - all offer decent cameras for what you'll pay. Go to an electronics store and look at what they have, and find the none with the features you think will work best for you.

The Nikon D50 is a nice bit of camera tho.

-Doug

[Emmett's Glass]

Getting slides made from digatal images is a real pain in the ass. There dosen;t seem to be an easy way to do it. I called around to every photo place in my area and some of them had no clue as to what slides were, damn kids. Lots of places no longer carry slide film. I ended up having to get prints of my digatal images and getting slides made from them. They told me 2 weeks 3 weeks ago. They are supposed to be at the place on monday. Only 2 shows I'm applying for need slides this yr.
Good luck you might need to get a real film camera and find some old timer who can do the slides.
E

[Mr. Smiley]

There is a place online that will do slides from digital... pretty cheap too. Google instead of looking local. ;)

[Greymatter Glass]

I can go to any of 3 or 4 local digital shops and get it done in 24 hours.... cheaply as well. A 4mp image will make a decent slide, 6-8mp would be better.

-Doug

[Satori]

I'm really happy with my Cannon powershot A 620. It's a 7 megapixel camera and takes very nice pictures, has an awesome macro mode, and some 20 different picture modes (plus it takes pretty decent video...not something I needed, but I'm finding out I really enjoy having it)

Just my thought...I got it recently for my birthday and have been extremely happy with it since

Forgot to mention - It cost under $400...somewhere around $370 or so I think

[BearAssNaked]

Thanks for the replies. Thats funny Greymatter, the Nikon D50 is one of the cameras I've really been looking at. I actually found it with the 28mm-55mm lens for $499. I know I'll need a few accessories, but that is still a good deal. Looks like I might have to save my pennies and get that one....We'll see.

Jacob

[harpentuan]

I was just waching a program that said you'd need like an 8 megapixel camera to compete with a standard 35mm. but they also said that 2 megapixels was fine for printing 4x6 pictures, and 4 megapixels was suitible for prints up to 11x14 (i think that was).

hth

[Greymatter Glass]

If you found a D50 for $500 that's a good sign they're comming down in price, I may upgrade sooner...no need to swipe my dads new toy :)


Anyways, Harp.... 35mm film can't really be measured relative to pixels, but in a practical sense, you can compare print sizes..... an 8mp camera will give you an 8x10 inch image you'd have to be really good to tell apart from actual film. At 24x16" tho 35mm will still be acceptably sharp with minimal bluring on fine detail... the same 8mp digitall will appear distorted and pixelated (never mind the price to print 24x16 digital) Personally, I shoot a camera that uses 6x7 cm negatives (4200 sqmm of film vs 840sq mm for 35mm filmstock) so to go digital for that would require around 50mp, which runs around $65,000 last I looked (Leaf systems)

For $3,000 I can buy a 8x10 inch camera.....


Now....when you get to slides things get even weirder...slides dont really have a "resolution" as such but a density.... density is the amount of image you can store in an area of film and is set by the amount of photosensitve dyes you can sandiwch into a sheet of acetate film stock..... a 35mm slide, for comparison reasons, if you were to scan it in at a resolution where you'd actually have a better digityal resolution than the slide cvan provide you scanner...you end up with an image say maybe 10 giga pixels.....

BUT... going the other way you can do some neat tricks with soft focus and overwrite and make a slide from a digital image that will look as good if not better than that image would look like if projected with a digital LCD projector. You can get decent slides from sub mega pixel images if all you're doing is a presentation, and if you need art slides to enter schools, contests, or jobs, then 4mp will look as good as if you used a decent film camera to take the slide... maybe better, because you can edit the image and tweak it in photoshop before printing to a slide....

Anyways.... check it out, they're cheap, usually $0.50 a pop or something with some kind of minimum.....

-Doug

[gotglass?]

a photographer friend of mine who has used Nikons since the early 80's ..... switched to Canon in the last 5 or so years because they were at the forefront of the cutting edge technologies in the digital photography market..... i personally still own a nikon 35mm slr archaic film using machine , but film sucks the processing and all so it hasn't seen much use since i got a digi cam.

[Robert Mickelsen]

I was just waching a program that said you'd need like an 8 megapixel camera to compete with a standard 35mm. but they also said that 2 megapixels was fine for printing 4x6 pictures, and 4 megapixels was suitible for prints up to 11x14 (i think that was).

hth
The reasoning goes like this. 35mm resolution approximates to an 8 x 10 printed image at 350 dpi. If you do the math that works out to an image that is 3500 pixels across by 2800 pixels high. My 8 megapixel Sony DSC828 gives me images that are 3264 x 2448... a little shy of full 35mm resolution, but close enough. 8.5 megapixels will get you all the way there. This is only important if you plan on making slides from your digital shots or printing in a magazine at more than half a page. For those uses, you need every bit of 8 megapixels. For smaller prints just do the math. You need to print at a minimum of 300 dpi (or pixels per inch - ppi) so just multiply the size by that and you get the required photo resolution. The above statements that 2 megapixels was fine for 4x6 prints and 4 megapixels for 11x14 is misleading. The resulting lower quality may be "just fine" for the camera salesman, but it may not be good enough for you.

I love my SONY but if I had it to do again I would get the Nikon.

- RAM