what digital camera

I have a Nikon Coolpix 3700 and it is totally brilliant - except that the batteries don't last very long between charges. If I lost it, I would buy exactly the same again - no question.
I bought a 64mb compact flash card in the USA for not much money, but you can get a 128mb card from www.novatech.co.uk for only £25 or a 64mb for £15. Yes..really.

PR is correct again. You should listen to this man.

Although I would go for the Coolpix 4300. This place sells it for a good price:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=51702&_LOC=UK

The Coolpix 4300 is a bit bigger & bulkier, and I looked at this when I bought my 3700. I decided that for what I was using it for, 3.2 megpix was more than enough and the smaller size made it more pocketable, which was the most significant consideration in my case.

The Canon Ixus 400 would get my vote. It is really good and is also small and convenient but it might be a bit more money.
Ever since my wife bought the Ixus I've almost stopped using my Olympus OM gear and my Canon G3 is gathering dust

Eddie

the tiny ixus was my other choice but it is just outside my price range. the nikon 3700 seems to have covered everything the 3100 was missing. audio facility, more ergonomic and sturdy case, noise reactive self timer etc. it,s just finding the best deal now. bit dubious about these ebay dealers who ship from hong kong. loads of hidded costs etc. keep the advice coming cheers.

what were barn owls called before barns were invented?

My mistake - I have a 3100, not a 3700 . Still - great camera

I've just bought the Olympus Myu 400 - it's a belter.
4MP, small, light and stylish - plus an added benefit is it takes cracking good piccies!
Retails for £329, but I took printouts from the websites of Dixons and Amazon, who offer the camera for £229 and Jessops did a price-match. This leaves some spare dosh to upgrade the memory card. But don't tell 'em I told you.

Steve.

Before you decide, take a look at the Canon A70 here http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_a70.asp particularly the user reviews - it might just convert you from the Nikon.

David

quote:

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what were barn owls called before barns were invented?

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Owls ?

I'll place a vote for the lens quality of the Nikons. I use a coolpix 900 and at high res it's a belter. I've used other cameras and prefer the images from the Nikon - they look less "digital"

But you pay your money and take your choice....

Please make sure you try before you buy. There are considerations such as start up time and shutter delay that may be important to you (If you are going to take action shots for example). Also some have very 'interesting' ways of implementing manual focus.

Interestingly enough, DP Review include a lot of timing data in their full camera reports, which are generally very helpful, providing you're experienced enough to be able to interpret them. Not so easy for a beginner though.

David

Do not think that you have proved your point

The analog picture would have been taken with a daylight type film. The digital was taken with a camera that has auto colour balance. (Unless you had set it to say 5500K for bright sunlight)

The pictures (based on the analog image) were taken late in the day hence the warm colours in the analog image whereas the digital camera had adjusted the colour sensivity to normal. Hence removing the warmth and some of the richness

Also the analog image does not contain a significant area of shadow which on the digital image will have caused the digital camera to attempt to compensate by increasing the exposure and reducing the saturation of the colours.

Also you do not say whether you used a polarising filter which tends to increase colour saturation - I think that you might have done due to the change in blue sky density across the image.

So I say that your point is not proven

See here for a saturated digital image


Derek

<< >>

DId you have the colour temp on the digital on auto or preset - presetting to 5500 for sunset type pictures and underexposing gives the results I want.

Derek

<< >>

Digital one seems alright to me.

Count D

Please describe what corrections you did to the digital image

Thanks

Derek

<< >>

Virtually no meaningful information about relative performance of the two cameras, let alone film vs digital, can be gleaned from the pictures posted. Least of all anything to do with colour rendition and saturation where there are like a gazillion variables in the two processes that led to the above images.

Also its a bit pointless to talk about an F80 when what really matters is the lens. In fact if its got some dodgy cheapo super-zoom it might even be worse than the better Coolpix lenses in pure optical terms.

Matthew

PR,
I have studied the two photo's very carefully and for me the digital camera is obviously the better one as it hasn't killed all the plants.
Steve.

Derek,

Generally, I masked everything off below the sky and adjusted colour balance by adding red and yellow, then saturated it. The sky was saturated aswell, but not as much.

I shaded all the corners, lightened the ground and plant's highlights, diffused glow the whole lot and despeckled the sky only.

PR, I see what you mean, but I can't comment as I don't have both the originals at hi-res. On the image I retouched, after compressing it down again to under 50kb it looks pretty bad. If you look at the mountains, they're blocking up with magenta colours.

The only real problems I have with digital are irretrievably bleached out highlights and skin tones being over saturated. Skin tones are a pain to get back looking right.

Count.d


Thanks for the detail

PR - Photography has been going down hill ever since the introduction of roll film - if you want quality you need 10by 8 b&w negs to get the best colours <g>

I expected your CD versus vynil comparison after your "soul" comment.

Derek

<< >>

Digital or Analouge?

Matthew

Definitely soulful (opinion)
Digital (wild guess)

So what do you think of the picture 2 posts up?

Is it a high quality but souless digital picture?

Or a obviously soulful analogue jobbie?

Is it merely equivalent to Nikon digital (for screen/magazine use) or good comparable to Nikon analogue (portrait/print use)?

Matthew

You can not tell digital or analog if the image is only 511x341px... The reason why it looks soulful is because the photographer knows his business.

This picture could be taken with a Nikon SLR as well as with an Optio 555, but I think it was not a digital camera...

- Jun

I wouldn't disagree, Jun, but earlier in this thread (and others) we were told that the digital/analogue thing was obvious and it was "soul" related. And Nikon was generally best. And we were shown some pictures of a hill in support of this view.

So surely it should be obvious from the picture above whether soul, analogue and/or Nikon were involved?

Matthew