Advise on a camera to post photos here

[Bill Walsh]

Looking for some advise on a digital camera that will work for posting photos here. Not looking to spend a lot but do want something that will work.

[James Combs]

I am partial to Cannons particularly the Power Shot S-Series. They range in size from small shirt pocket size to larger professional looking units. Make sure it has manual white balance if you want to use a light booth. Zoom is almost a necessity for photographing your work. Set the camera far away from the sugject and then use the zoom to fill the frame. That gets rid of the fish-eye effect, think about the fat noses you have seen in close up photos. These are only a few of the things that make a good camera, I am sure someone with a much wider field of photo knowledge will jump in here with more advice.

Edit: Forgot to mention what mine was. Mine is a Cannon Power Shot SX10 IS. 10 megapixel, 20x optical zoom.

[Mike Peace]

I was happy with my Canon Elph 4Meg camera with 3X digital zoom for making pictures of my work which was plenty for posting on the web. You can look at my photo album under my profile here at SMC and see the pictures I made with my Canon Elph. But, feeling flush with a paycheck from my recent article in Woodturning Design, I bought a Canon SX130 off Amazon for less than $200. 12 Meg. and 12X zoom. My Elph was on the low end of resolution for making pictures for turning articles. I did not feel I needed a DSLR but just an upgrade from what I had.

[Chris Barnett]

My most handy is a pocket Canon SX120IS, the preceding model to the SX130, which works well but quits very early if you use the rechargable batteries, i.e. it will not operate with battery voltage at 1.2 or below, which is the nominal voltage of a rechargable AA. Have had it back to Canon twice but they say it's working per spec. Had returned two Canon A590s for the same exact problem! So, take your chances or buy different brand. Quit using Nikon SLR when film was replaced by solid state memory...whoopee. Make sure that data transfer from your camera to your computer is simple and easy...either by cable or card/stick. Have not been that satisfied with Canon color....think Sony and Nikon and perhaps others have them beat.

[John Fabre]

I am partial to Cannons particularly the Power Shot S-Series. They range in size from small shirt pocket size to larger professional looking units. Make sure it has manual white balance if you want to use a light booth. Zoom is almost a necessity for photographing your work. Set the camera far away from the sugject and then use the zoom to fill the frame. That gets rid of the fish-eye effect, think about the fat noses you have seen in close up photos. These are only a few of the things that make a good camera, I am sure someone with a much wider field of photo knowledge will jump in here with more advice.

Edit: Forgot to mention what mine was. Mine is a Cannon Power Shot SX10 IS. 10 megapixel, 20x optical zoom.
I second the Canon Power Shot, buy used.

[Jamie Donaldson]

Bill- digital camera models change about every 6 wks. so I make no effort to keep up with the evolution unless I'm shopping. Check out dpreview.com for reviews for just about every camera available, and the specs will help you make an informed decision. I recommend as many manual overrides as possible, especially focus, exposure compensation, color balance presets which most cameras have now, 10X optical zoom is plenty, and 10MP is also plenty. Stick with the known camera brands like Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, maybe Samsung or Panasonic. You should be able to find all that in a camera for about $300 these days.

[Marty Eargle]

I would suggest finding a camera that will suit your needs both in and out of the workshop. As Jamie has stated, you'll want a camera that has a manual feature so you can tweak settings for the best photo booth photos. Pay no attention to "fancy" filters and settings and digital zoom...as they are sure fire ways to have bad photos.

I would suggest either the Sony Powershot series or the Nikon Coolpix series for a reasonably price line of cameras with all the functionality that you'll need.

[Bill Walsh]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to help out. Lots of great advise on here!!!! I'll check out some reviews and features now that I've got an idea what to look for. The camera we have is an inexpense one and won't turn on. Replaced the batteries but still nothing. Sounds something like the problems Jamie has had.

[Glen Butler]

I have been impressed with Canon's point and shoot digital camera's. You almost can't go wrong between canon and nikon.

[Lee Schierer]

Although I now have a digital Canon SLR, I used a Canon A520 (4MP) for many of the photos I've posted here. I find the best lighting to be out doors when I can. I try not to use the flash as it tends to leave bright spots and unnatural highlights.

Lee

[Myk Rian]

Any camera will do. I use my LG cell phone.
No matter what you decide to use, you'll have to resize the pics. 640x480 or 800x600 are good choices.
Your favorite pic. software will do that.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have an old HP - something like 1.3 MP - that I bought way back when.
The thing was the "latest and greatest" back when I bought it. It had so many settings and gadgets that I never did figure them all out.
While it did take very good pictures, the batteries would drain almost instantly and it had an annoyingly long recovery time between shots.
Transferring the pictures to the PC was a nightmare. You had to hook up the camera via a USB cord, then using the controls on the camera, transfer the pictures, then again using the camera controls, delete the pictures. Memory for it was horribly expensive. IIRC, it was about $6 or $7 per MB.

About three years ago on a Black Friday, I picked up a Sanyo VPC S1070 10 MP w/3X zoom for $59.00 at WalMart on impulse - since it seemed like a decent deal.
It's been great. Just point and click - then check out the preview on the LCD. It uses SD RAM. I picked up a 4GB chip, based on my experience with the HP, and have never had to use it. The 2GB chip that came with the camera has been plenty.
Battery life is excellent - even with the rechargeables that came with the camera. It also came with a charger.
My only compaint is - like the HP - the thing has too many features and settings.
I just leave it on one setting and let the camera itself figure out if it requires a flash or not.
Needless to say, that results in a lot of red eyed pictures.

Also - the default setting takes pictures that are too large to post here.

What I have to do is:
Remove the SD chip from the camera and stick the chip in the card reader on the front of my laptop.
Windows 7 sees the card inserted and opens up a window asking me if I want to browse the contents. I click that and it opens up the card where I drill down through the folders to where the actual pictures are located. I select all the pictures, then cut and paste them into a folder on my laptop.

Once the pictures are there, I can hi light each one and it shows a little preview in the lower left corner of th window. Or, I can double click one and open a slide show and view them that way. When I find one I like, I right click on the picture and select "edit", that opens Windows Paint program. The on the menue bar, I select resize and plug in 50 for horizontal and vertical - then save as - and name it whatever I want.
That reduces the size of the actual .jpg down from about 2.5 to 3 MB, to around 250 to 350 KB.

(Sorry for the long tutorial)

Here's a shot I took and edited of the stupid toad that took up residence in a planter box on our front porch.

[Curt Harms]

My most handy is a pocket Canon SX120IS, the preceding model to the SX130, which works well but quits very early if you use the rechargable batteries, i.e. it will not operate with battery voltage at 1.2 or below, which is the nominal voltage of a rechargable AA. Have had it back to Canon twice but they say it's working per spec. Had returned two Canon A590s for the same exact problem! So, take your chances or buy different brand. Quit using Nikon SLR when film was replaced by solid state memory...whoopee. Make sure that data transfer from your camera to your computer is simple and easy...either by cable or card/stick. Have not been that satisfied with Canon color....think Sony and Nikon and perhaps others have them beat.

I'm trying a fix for the voltage issue with rechargeable batteries. I just got 4 of these plus the charger:
http://www.amazon.com/PowerGenix-ZR-PGX1HRAA-4B-Charger-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B0029NZVZ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316351573&sr=8-1
Like I said I just got 'em (for $1 less than they are now:)) and they do indeed read 1.76 volts after being off the charger for 3 weeks. I was a little gun shy about that voltage so right now I'm mix & matching -- 2 NiZn cells and 2 NiMH cells. I put 1 of each type together in series and got 2.99 volts, close enough. I guess I'll see if mixing chemistries causes problems.

[glenn bradley]

Everyone has their favorite and asking a photographer about a camera is like asking a computer salesman about a laptop; lots of information but, generally way over the head of the general "user". I use an SLR but, picked up a Canon elph at Coscto for about $150. 12megapixel, comes with a good battery and charger (a couple HUNDRED shots between charges), image stabilization (a must unless you are going to use a tripod) and is recognized automatically by most Windows OS versions. Take the pics, plug it into the computer, a window opens asking what you want to do with the files, select download (you can even delete them from the camera as part of that operation if you want), re-size with something free (like PIX-resizer) and your done.

So, for easy general snapshots of your shop time:
- Auto-everything
- Image stabilization
- Easy downloads to computer
- Good battery system / life

I have gotten shots with the elph that compare to unprepared shots with the digital SLR. It is when you start getting fancy that the little guys fall short but, being realistic, the whole camera costs half of what one of my lights does.

[David Cefai]

My 2 cents worth: Something with a good zoom lens. Don't worry about the Megapixels. After all you'll be downsizing the photos to about half a megapixel to post them.

This week I discovered that Lumix cameras (by Panasonic I think) have Leica lenses and are cheaper than Leica cameras.

[Jason Jackman]

Absolutely any current model from a major manufacturer will be adequate for Internet forum photos. Nikon and Canon are the major players in the camera business. You can't go wrong with any of their latest models. Many will also shoot hd video. Pentax and Sony also make nice models, but may not compete with the high end performers from the upper end brands. if you don't aspire to be a pro photographer, don't worry about it too much. Buy something that is in your price point, that seems simple enough to use, that is an appropriate size for your needs. Almost any picture can be made better if you add artificial light. If your indoor pictures of your work look poor, add more light.

[Hilel Salomon]

Cameras, lathes, chainsaws, cars, tractors. In whatever forum you look, you'll see widely varying opinions-often held with passion. You can get a lemon from a brand well known and well regarded. I, for example, have had nothing but bad luck w/the small Canons, and nothing but good luck w/my various Nikons. I have friends whose experience has been the exact opposite. My advice is to search for consumer ratings on the internet, not just from consumer organizations but from photo magazines as well. It isn't a guarantee but it will help.

[Mitch Barker]

A picture for the web should be about a "1 MB" class image. Something like 1024x768 pixels. The file size you see on the computer will be much smaller than 1 MB because the computer can compress the file with just a small loss of quality.Any camera you buy today can easily be 8 to 12 MB. So you either need to reduce this file using your computer, or set your camera to take a smaller image. I find it much easier to set the camera to take a 1024x768 image, than to mess with changing the image size on you pc. Pay careful attention to lighting. Make sure you use multiple lights, or shoot the pic outside in open shade to avoid strong shadows.

[Bill Walsh]

I've got a camera and just trying to post a photo before sending shop and work photos.

[Joe Angrisani]

Looks a bit soft to me, Bill. As if it is slightly out of focus or you moved a bit in the dim light.

What camera did you end up getting?