: Where shall i buy online and what brand,,, Nikon, Canon,Minolta, Leica………very confusing,,, whats the best and cheap selling online site, , I need valueable suggestions as I am based in UK................I photograph nature,,, Love nature,,what brand shall i buy, i have used old manual yashica brand.......... but the trends have now been changed......... plz help me out for better result and low price upto 300 pounds,,, what the customers should do,,,,, every company come with the assertion that their product is featured with everything..???????????????
You do not mention if you are looking for a standard SLR or for a digital? My best suggestion is to check the net for consumer ratings sites. Compare the cameras that interest you and then check out the different net retailers and make your selection based upon price, returnability, other customers references, and whatever criteria that you may wish to use to guide you. Here is a link to an internet consumer site on digital cameras. There is alot there. If you know what you are after it really will save you time but if you get through this site you will have a great field of reference at your disposal. http://www.dpreview.com/
The first digital was Kodak cameras about 10 years ago.They were sort of state of the art at the time, which isn't saying much. I have avoided Kodak since. Then I bought a Nikon 3.3 pixels and used it for several years. I still have it modified with an external battery pack.It was wonderful until I wanted more. Now I have a Nikon D70 SLR with several lenses. This is sort of top of the line semi-professional camera. Probably most professionals have less. I found over the years that one tends to want more depending upon the budget and interest. Almost all the point and shoot cameras today are more than adequate for portrait shots, and will even take some good flower shots. Printing from the camera is probably not a good idea, since one really cannot see the quality of the picture on the small viewer. It is best to print from the computer. For reasonably good photo one needs a file size of 50K per square inch of photo. So for a four by six print this is 24 square inches. This translates into about 3.6 meg for a colour print of 4 by 6 inches for a more than adequate photo. I use the 50 K figure as a rough estimate for a perfect print, but one can be more than happy with less depending upon the subject. The standard camera today has about 5 meg. Anything higher is simply sales hype and has no meaning unless one is printing billboards, and even then it is probably meaningless due to viewing distance. The biggest headache with point and shoot is the battery life time, particularly when using the LCD viewer, so always have spare batteries of the re-chargeable type. Serious shooters cannot rely on disposable batteries due to the cost. Travelling, it is a good idea to get a 110 volt converter for your car and plug the battery charger into that. Converters are relatively cheap about $40.00 Memory cards are cheap now, so a couple of 512 megs will more than satisfy most people. This translates into about 140 pictures for 512 meg card. A lot of pictures to process at one sitting. I suggest Nikon makes good cameras from my experience, but there must be other's, of which I have no experience. Digital Zoom has no meaning and will never be used so it is not a buying or selling point. Any external macro or micro lenses for a point and shoot are a total waste of money. My recommendation is a 3.3 meg pixel camera, with a 512 memory card, and two spare batteries, with a travelling converter of 110 volts. Nikon, Sony, or Canon. This should be under 500 dollars. Video is totally useless and has no value. You will never use it, but it often is included on cameras as is audio in some cases. Nobody likes un-edited home movies. Editing video is a whole new area. The internet in general is not for the transmission of video. Printing and sending over the internet are two completely different issues. For sending over the internet almost any camera will take a sufficiently good picture, but for printing larger than 4 by 6,one needs better quality. No matter what you buy, eventually the bug will bite if you take a lot of pictures, and you will eventually need or want something better. A better camera like a Digital SLR with micro, macro and normal lens. A good home photo printer-NOT INKLET but dye-sublimation-, and a computer with lots of RAM like to two gig, and photo editing software like Photoshop and a filing system and HTML making software like Breezebrowser. Such is life. But, start out slowly just taking picture with your choice, and add as you feel the need. Durgan.
Wow! that is alot to chew on, Durgan. My only comment is that I find Zoom very useful when I am dealing with imaging mosses and plants. I use an Olympus Stylus (my first and only digital) which I got for its features and cost. It has 2 close-up options (a 9cm range and a 20cm range). I have not mastered its use so I shoot alot of images of any subject at varying angles and distances to see what comes out best. My only complaint is that in bright light the LCD viewer is useless and really needs some kind of shade that can fold out or is built onto the camera. So I am often shooting blind!
terrestrial_man, be sure you are not confusing digital zoom with optical zoom. In short, "optical zoom good, digital zoom useless". Optical zoom actually magnifies.
Here is a link that defines the terms digital zoom http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...tal+Zoom&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title Mine uses optical!!!!!
Those who think a good camera will take good quality photos are only half correct. if you cannot see the photograph then all the tech gadgets will not help. its like buying a top line guitar and hoping that the spirit of jimi hendrix comes with it to help you play. if you can't play you can't play. as durgan pointed out some point and shoot cameras can take really good photos of plants and should not be discounted. I think daniel put up this great link http://bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/ http://www.all-things-photography.com/iso-settings.html and http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq/ sorry I tend to be biased towards canon cameras but the thoughts and principles are the same regardless of the brand hope this helps
