Your digital camera: Avoid these common goofs Be a "fastidious photographer," not a "slipshod shutterbug," and follow these tips for better pictures [Consumer Reports Electronics]
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Huh. Some of these seem like bad ideas. You shouldn't clean the lens every time. They have special coatings and eventually you WILL wear away at it or grind that one spec of dust into the glass. Use a lens filter if you can so your lens never even sees dust or damage. though with most point-and-shoot models you won't be able to.
They also make lens-cleaning brushes that can brush away dust safely. Short of getting liquid/fingerprints on the lens a brush will get rid of most issues safely.
@StruckBySmoothCriminal_GitEmSteveDave: Ditto for the undercover agents getting pictures of unreleased products.
Oh, and you UFO photographers...get some image stabilization and some zoom lenses.
@winshape: Since we are passing odvice to UFO photographers... Take it off autofocus and turn the focus ring to infinity (unless of course your UFO is REALLY close) that way you're less likely to be focusing on the window, the reflection of the lamp in the window, the tree outside the window. As a side benefit you won't hear your autofocus motor whirring constantly as it hunts for something to focus on.
Who throws away a digital camera?
Are these the same people who in the 1980 poll, 28% of Americans answered that their favorite way for wine to be served was "on the rocks"?
@sir_eccles: And to translate your correct statement into something the average owner of a digital camera might be able to implement, "turn the selector on the top or in the camera's onscreen menu to the two-triangle or evergreen-tree icon that indicates distant or landscape shots." This has the added benefit on better-designed cameras of turning off the bloody flash. It range from amusing to annoying to see people with point-and-shoot taking pictures at concerts of the act on stage 100+ feet away with the built-in flash on their point-and-shoot that struggles to illuminate something 12 feet from the lens. At best they're running down their battery faster than necessary, and at worst the flash bouncing off people and things close to them is screwing up the exposure of the real subject that's out of range of the flash. A properly-used $100 camera can often deliver better pictures than a great $400 with a clueless user.
@Smashville: I essentially threw away my previous digital camera... I handed it down to my older sister, whose family seems to have a gift for turning mechanical and electronic devices to scrap.
Why do people even buy point and shoot cameras. They are so inferior. They should even sell anything other than DSLR cameras. Digital zoom sucks and point and shoots rarely have precise manual focus
@Smashville: The same dummies that cant hook up a digital converter box. The think the camera is full and dont know they can remove the pictures or remove the memory card
@Gorphlog: Y'know, I'm a snob about a lot of things, but I've had a point-and-shoot for years. My OM2S was just not a great travel camera... can't just toss it in a pocket or backpack for easy snapshots when not on a photo expedition. So, I bought a decent midrange point-and-shoot Pentax film camera in the '90s and learned that it's fun to shoot snapshots without having to worry about caring for the camera when photography is not the point of the excursion.
As to digital zoom, there are many pocketable cameras with useful levels of optical zoom. Digital zoom is just stupid, you're right, but to write off any possibility of utility in a point-and-shoot is ridiculous.
@Gorphlog: Most people are far, far better suited for point and shoots. if you're going to buy a DSLR and put it on auto-mode all the time and just use a kit lens, don't. You'll do better with a decent point-and shoot.
DSLR =/= quality.
Why do people insist they're better for everyone when they're not? I've had 4 different point and shoots (earliest from 2001) and all have had respectable manual focus options, and optical zoom. The last 2 even had image stabilization. They were insanely convenient, portable, and even did video for me. I still use my S2 IS as my backup to my EOS 40D.
The reason so many modern point and shoot pictures come out poorly has more to do with the photographer than the hardware.
//Clean the lens before each use, which minimizes the risk of focusing problems and blurry areas on pictures.//
Do yourself a favor and ignore this advice, and instead clean the lens only when you have to. A speck of dust here and there isn't going to phase most cameras, and you'll be unlikely to notice it. If you clean the lens every time you use it you are going to wear it down to oblivion
Correction: the ALIENS won't hear your autofocus motor whirring constantly and come and suck out your brains.
Thanks for posting this link. I'm still learning about my digital camera and playing with all its features. It's just a little Kodak EasyShare I got at Walgreens on sale and I'm not the greatest photographer in the world. But it's fun to play with.
I LOVE that it shoots videos. Only all I have to shoot is my cat, who won't do anything cute when there's a camera pointed at her.
@Ratty: The trouble with using a $20 filter on a $200 lens is that you turn it into a $20 lens. You're right in that the lens shouldn't be cleaned every use but lens cleaning paper or eyeglass cloths (no liquids) work pretty well.
@H3ion: When you find me $600+ filters for my $600+ lenses, then that argument may stand. Cheap lens filters don't help matters, but lenses should at least be stored and transported with extra protection and no one is stopping people from buying quality filters.
@GearheadGeek: That wasn't what the article was talking about, but rather a recommendation instead of chucking it into the trash barrel.
Really, was this article for CR or USA Today? Aside from the already commented on bit about constantly cleaning the lens, it insulted my intelligence, and while photography is a hobby of mine, I am by no means a professional photographer.
My list would advise people to turn off digital zoom, use the lowest ISO possible, turn on image stabilization if available, or use a tripod or even a flat surface if not. Avoid the built-in flash if at all possible, otherwise, be sure to use the red eye removal tool possibly built into their camera, but otherwise found in their photo editing software.
@H3ion: Horseshit. A good optically-flat color-neutral lens filter is not particularly expensive compared to the lens, and certainly wouldn't "turn it into a $20 lens." Yeah, if you buy a JUNK filter, you'll get junky light tranmission, but it simply doesn't cost that much to make one optically-flat piece of glass with a decent coating, so it's *gasp* vastly cheaper to make a filter of quality X than to make a complex, variable-focus, variable-aperture collection of several lenses that are not optically flat in a very precise way and align them in an equally precise way.
@HogwartsAlum: My Point&Shoot is an Easyshare C663. It's quite a decent camera for its purpose... decent resolution, tolerable optics, optical viewfinder in addition to a good LCD display back (a quirky old-school requirement of mine) and it's sized and shaped well to fit my pudgy fingers without making my hand cramp up after a minute like it does with so many of the fashionably too-tiny-too-flat cameras.
I find that it has very decent levels of manual control (though they're not always as intuitively accessible as they are on an SLR or DSLR) and it was affordable at Costco... I'd be very annoyed if it gets squashed, stolen or lost but I wouldn't cry.
@Gorphlog: I happen to have an older ultra-zoom which with lens adapter is nearly as big as a dSLR, and with full manual controls and a hot shoe, it's about as close to a dSLR as one can get without actually being one. I love using it to take time exposures and nighttime skyline shots, etc. Ironically, I tend to shoot more wide angle shots than extreme telephoto, so while my camera also does a fairly decent job at it, that's not its strong suit.
So why all that background in response to your question> Because while I wouldn't mind having a dSLR, my next camera purchase will more than likely be another fixed lens camera, probably one with fewer features than my Olympus Camedia C-750. Why?
1) Cost. An entry-level dSLR kit will set you back at least $600. Want additional lenses, filters, strobes, etc. And you're easily putting down a couple grand or more.
2) Portability. Lugging all that gear around is likely to make one look like a hunchback--eventually even after setting the gear down. I take enough risks as a woman walking alone along the riverfront downtown at night to compose a shot without carrying several pounds of very expensive gear along with me as well.
3) Spontaneity. Related to #2. Sure, I've got a camera on my cellphone. And I use it frequently as well. It really only helps for purposes of visual reminders. It barely takes passable web snapshots, let alone anything worth printing. But there have been plenty of occasions in which I wished I had a camera at the ready. To have something that can slip in a pocket or purse and still take a decent picture would be wonderful. A dSLR would not be very helpful in that regard.
Yes, a dSLR has more manual controls, being able to adjust focus with a turn of the lens barrel rather than via buttons on the back of the camera, and having virtually no noise even at higher ISOs are all good things. Another big plus with recent models is live view, which eliminates one major plus for point and shoot cameras in being able to compose a shot before releasing the shutter.
Still those advantages aren't necessarily always (or ever) worth the 300-500% increase in size nor the 500-3000% increase in cost.
Yes, it's very nice. Also, they keep having them on sale, so if something happened to our cameras, we could get replacements for under a hundred dollars. :)
My high school photography teacher told us to clean our [manual camera] lenses with hair. That's right, a quick wipe with our own hair. I have no idea if that was just her crazytalk, but anytime my [manual or digital] lenses have needed cleaning, that's what I do, and I can say that, at the very least, it does not destroy the lens. So, that's good, right?
a'course, this only works if you have hair long enough to reach the camera so you're not rubbing your lens all over the back of your head.
@GearheadGeek: At the very least, it's a decent workaround if you don't have a cloth handy but yeah, it is a bit counterintuitive.
However, none of my cameras have developed scalp problems yet. Plus, I don't think any of us were going to argue with our sassy, in-your-face Southern teacher.
Why, I can still hear her yelling at us to "PUT YOUR PEACH DOWN!" and wait for the bell to ring before getting ready to leave class.
...It reverberates through my dreams, actually.
Attn people taking photos for eBay. There is such a thing as a macro mode. It lets you get in close and take a photo w/o it being blurry. It's on most EVERY camera, and is awesome for up close work! That is my #1 complaint about things I try to buy when they are out of focus, and being sold by people who should know what they are doing if they are eBaying.