Thread: Digital Cameras

My youngest was able to reliably use a point-and-shoot digital from about age eight, and she's had her own camera since she was eleven, and the problems that she gets tend to be poor composition, camera shake and subject blur due to shutter speed. Lack of focus tends to happen when she is taking pics from too close up.

If you are taking pics from under about a half meter, you will need to set the camera for macro photography - typically this is the flower-like icon on the selector dial.

Posting some of your 'failures' here would help work out what is going wrong.

The last remaining anti-digital-photo-brigade can perhaps still take comfort in the current pro-paper-book-army but even they recently lost one of their strongest supporters. SWMBO (who reads about 5 books a week) has had an iPad for about 9 months and recently admitted that she now reads more books on her iPad than in hard copy and she prefers to read from the iPad mainly because she can magnify the text so she doesn't have to wear glasses. The major benefit for her (well me really) is when we're traveling - instead of 3-4 kg of books it's just the iPad. Mind you that just seems to make more room and time required for clothing purchases . . . . . At least the suitcases start out a little lighter.

Hi RV,
I'm not the best Photo taker, but by reading all your replies, to my way of thinking, & not trying to be funny, I think your problem is you.
By that I mean, with most D/Cameras, you have to hold the Button Halfway Down until it Focuses, then push all the way down.
If your doing this, then I pass. I get a little impatient every now & then, & Push the Button all the way down before its time, & stuff up a few Photos.

Hi Guys......I think it may be time to draw a line under this, anyone who thinks that buying camera's and computers by the box load and then want to blame the tools for all the failures is either winding us up or really has a major problem.

OK, focus is a puzzle with a solution. That is step #2.

I am more than royally annoyed at the rate that my cameras simply give up and DIE. Dead. Like don't do anything anymore or just clean off ever picture you ever took. Like I was only trying to take a picture, like everybody else does with a digital camera, and the sucker QUITS.

I confess that yesterday I slammed the Ricoh on the dining room table a few times, just to see if it was a mechanical thing. Not.

All I want is a reliable (big important word) digital camera which will capture images any time I want. I have no use for a Nikon F9000.

The whole computer thing is another issue..

the most common reason a digiital camera dies is that the battery is FLAT

can you prove to us that you know the difference between a charged and flat battery?

Buy a Canon or Nikon.

Out of about ten digital cameras that I use or used to use regularly, none of them have had any reliability problems. The one that the youngest owns has had a cracked screen, but that's due to misuse not camera reliability - and I got a replacement screen off ebay for $40 so it wasn't a problem. I also cracked a battery compartment door catch by dropping another camera from a bit over head height (fumbled it and ended up tossing it into the air) onto concrete.

If it has a rechargeable battery, keep it charged. Rechargables don't like to be left discharged for any length of time. Replace alkaline batteries regularly.

Like Mr Brush says if you load Google Picasa on your computer it will go and find every photo or image in the computer and load them into a folder in order and date it was taken. If I want to find a picture or image I just open Picasa and scroll through all the images as it opens them all in a large thumbnail format.

Originally Posted by Barry_White

Like Mr Brush says if you load Google Picasa on your computer it will go and find every photo or image in the computer and load them into a folder in order and date it was taken. If I want to find a picture or image I just open Picasa and scroll through all the images as it opens them all in a large thumbnail format.

pesonally, I find solutions like Google's Picasa too slow.
but then at last countI had ~38,000 images occupying more than 80 GB in disk space with the added complication that often there's 2 or 3 photographers using up to 7 different cameras at the same location and time, so my storage schema includes event, photographer, camera info, with date and time supplied in the image meta data

It is possible that there is a solution to my puzzle, at least with the Kodak camera. Programming issue with the different memories, according to Kodak. If all goes well in the next 48 hours, I will be able to post pictures of some carvings. If all goes well, I will have a camera which functions properly to take to Britain for my daughter's wedding.
I still might buy several cameras, duty-free, on that trip for back-up.
Nothing quite like having a spare propeller in the boat, huh?

ian, with all due respect, do you think that you could part with the needed information and tell me which brands and models of cameras you are so successfully using?

That is the issue of concern to me.

I shot 4x5 color, $11.23/shot in that day and time. I grossed (average) more that $700 per picture/image. Big hairy deal = not relevant.

let's see, the camers in semi regular use are
Nikon D70
Nikon D40, note it's the D40, not the D40s
Casio EX-P700
Casio EX-Z1080
Sony DSC-TX5
Sony DSC-H50
Kodak CX6200
iPhones
Panasonic NV-GS120

I gave the Olympus to my mother-in-law because I didn't like the 4:3 aspect ratio -- she's had no issues other than forgetting to charge the battery

my then 6 year old broke an early Kodak, but I didn't mind as I'd bought a cheaper version for him to use in the expectation it would get dropped at some stage


as mentioned earlier, reasons for a digital camera not working as expected include
flat battery
finger over the lens
finger over the auto focus sensors
finger over the flash
a jab and jerk shooting action

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

The computer is not the camera. Never was. Computers are dirt cheap. This IBM clone with a P4 (mouse, keyboard, monitor and box of tricks) cost me $50.00. So I bought 3 of them. That's as much as I ever pay. OS, software, printers scanner, burners, I had to buy. I paid a MS-certified tech to make it all hum right along, and it does.

My motivation this time around is two-fold: I want to photograph my wood carvings. I am going to Britain in August for my daughter's wedding, I thought it would be nice to take some pictures of the events. Maybe I can buy some digital cameras in a Duty Free shop.

The quantity issue is first. Without a quantity, I don't see how to learn to do the computer things. If I deleted all the fuzzy ones there might not be anything left to work with! I'm trying to determine the cost of reliability to get a quantity of images. I'm beginning to think that buying two or three cameras is the best way to go.

Much to my chagrin, "downloads" does not mean that the item has been saved in the Downloads list. Just the other day, I lost a very useful and unusual wood-carving document in just that way. I did print it so that was a relief.

No offence intended but needing a tech to setup such trivial things probably points to a bit of computer illiteracy.

In terms of cameras you'd be far better off just buying one of decent quality, I have found some very cheap cameras often don't take that good pictures regardless of the user. A point and shoot worth a few hundred should do okay.

Download means in a nutshell, to download something from a device to your computer.

Upload is the opposite, to load something from your computer to another device.

The thing is that Windows tends to tread the Downloads folder purely as in Internet download folder... to make things more complicated programs may often create or use their own folder for downloads as a default unless you tell them otherwise.

Typically the default is that your photos should go to the My Pictures folder... that may not always be the case.

Usually a wizard should auto run when you insert the card and you can choose the location and file names to use.

If not, you should be able to find the photos purely based on the date.

Search for photos and images that have been modified on the date that you have 'downloaded' them onto your computer. That should then find them and where they are going.

I have a Fuji Z series, a few generations old, nice and compact, takes nice photos and easy to use.

Other half has a Pentax K-x SLR that I picked out. Very easy to use for an SLR, I've had a pplay with it.

I suggest that you go to a dedicated camera store buy a digital and get the salesperson to show you how to use it. it seems to me if you are not taking the pi$$ out of us you have no idea of what you are doing.
Instead of a tech to do things learn how and the problems will disappear.
still think this thread is a have
Pete