Digital camera

[N D Hill]

Hey everyone.

I was wondering if anyone here could recommend a good digital camera. My semester's nearly over and I've realized I have a ton of new work include a huge crapload of life sketches that I'm pretty proud of (a first for me) and my Nikon n65 35mm doesn't seem to be appropriate. The paper I've been working on for my life drawing class is that 35 inch penny bond paper. I've borrowed a friends camera as of now but I will eventually want to invest in getting my own. I'm not looking for anything fancy or expensive as I really enjoy my Nikon for my primary camera. I'm just looking for a decent way to get nice even photographs of my portfolio sketches...Plus I'm on a college student's budget if you know what I mean. Moths have started to build nests in my wallet.

This has really been a great and eye-opening class for me, though. It's really forced me to do what I should've been doing all along; Sketching real life nonstop. My professor's done an incredible amount of pushing and it hasn't been easy. I like the direction I'm on now because of it.

[AnarchyAo2]

Well, any digital camera will be good, as long has it has good megapixels. The higher the number, the better. But, Olympus makes good ones. You might wanna check those out.

[Cpagan]

just get a good 2-3 megapixel camera. The higher up you go it is a bit clearer but to the human eye the higher ones dont change too dramaticly. I don't think brand really matters unless your going to be doing photography for more then just yourself.

[Rockhead]

Hey Exo, I was in the same boat as you a couple months ago. My wife and I are both artists and we take a lot of pictures for work and for fun so we wanted a good camera. After much research we settled on the Canon Powershot G5. We bought it last July and it has been great. I don't really have any complaints at all about it. You have to keep it pretty still so that shots don't get blurred, but I've found that to be true with most digital cameras. There is a great website for comparing digital cameras at www.dpreview.com These guys go way into depth on every camera.

[N D Hill]

Thanks. i appreciate the help!

[cucaracha]

Originally posted by AnarchyAo2
Well, any digital camera will be good, as long has it has good megapixels.

That sounds very wrong to me.
I looked a while for cameras before I bought one -

Here are the most important features:
- Does the camera have a manual focus?
- Does it have sufficient optical zoom? (digital zoom is only resampling the image)
- What about white balance, ISO-options, shutter times?
- What about focal length, f-stop and flash?
- and finally, almost most important: Do the pictures really look good?

I myself found all necessary features in the Nikon Coolpix 4300.
It doesn't only look better than other digi-cams -
38 - 114 mm 4x Zoom Nikkor lens
12 scene modes
white balance automatic and manual
five-area multi autofocus, also manually adjustable
4 flash modes
manually adjustable contrast
manual picture-sharpener
features really good macro-shots
manual shutter time, from 1/1000 sec. up to 60 seconds
f-stop from 2.8 (for nice DOF) to 13.4 (real sharp)
a lithium-ion akku
is able to shoot QT *.mov movies
4.0 effective megapixels (3 image qualities, resolutions up to 2272xsomething)
tv-cable and transmission via usb

Now, if that isn't a cool cam???
Not convinced yet? I add a few pictures I've taken with it:

http://www.epm-clan.org/cv/temp/ultrapano2.jpg

http://www.epm-clan.org/cv/temp/makro2.jpg

http://www.epm-clan.org/cv/temp/makro.jpg

http://www.epm-clan.org/cv/temp/flower.jpg

It really takes nice pictures and colors... as you see, I love the macro-feature :D

cu

[N D Hill]

Wow! Those are some tight shots! Thanks for sharing! I'm beginning to reconsider the idea of just getting something cheap to photograph my portfolio. The more I really think about, a great digital cameras makes more sense as an investment and has many more useful applications. Living in Maine, I've always enjoyed going out with my Nikon 35mm and taking shots of lighthouses and the rocky cliffsides. I must say, I've always secretly wished that I could simply load the best shots into my computer, apply whatever minor tweaks that a shot may need, and then send it off to the photo lab to be printed as an 8X10. In the long run, I even bet that it's cheaper.