Large Scale Central

New Camera ideas?

Model Photography
#1

I want to be able to take better pictures then what I can currently…
My pictures are ok for general purposes, but how much nicer would they be if I was using a better camera then just a simple point & shoot camera from Sony?

Also, I have zero knowledge of anything technical, so basic explanations are all that is needed!
My requirements are simple:
Must be in the $500 (or below) price range
Must have easy editing software for a dummy like me!

I can figure out how to crop, change colors, and add borders… that’s my skill level!

Is there a best bang for the buck camera in this price range I should take a look at?

Thanks,
Vinny

#2

This is about the best I can do with my current camera:

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b107/139vinny/Trains/DSC09480_zps5ee23550.jpg)

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b107/139vinny/New%20Garden%20Railroad/DSC09138_zps18a98db7.jpg)

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b107/139vinny/New%20Garden%20Railroad/DSC09124_zps03e94fad.jpg)

#3

When I was looking for an upgrade for the little Canon point and shoot I had I just went on the internet to a couple different sites and found one in my price range with the features I wanted.

Your going to get a lot of different opinions about cameras. It all depends on what you wanna pay and what features you want.

Mine’s a Fuji Finepix HS30EXR. It has a 30x optical, manual zoom, HD video, viewfinder and a pop-up screen, built in flash plus a shoe for adding an external flash, it ran around $500 and I’m happy with it.

#4

Ken Brunt said:

. It all depends on what you wanna pay and what features you want.

That’s just it, I don’t know what I want!
I would like a nice zoom, but my main purpose is just a better picture quality.
Most of my pictures have what I would call a flat look to them, nothing really pops color wise.
Those pictures I posted above I had to tweak a lot to get them to look that way, and they still don’t come off the page with that sparkle I see in so many other photo’s that many here post.

I know sun light and camera position, plus a good eye for a great photo are needed, I just think I would be helped a lot with a better camera to start the process with.

#5

Vincent D’Agostino said:

Ken Brunt said:

. It all depends on what you wanna pay and what features you want.

That’s just it, I don’t know what I want!
I would like a nice zoom, but my main purpose is just a better picture quality.
Most of my pictures have what I would call a flat look to them, nothing really pops color wise.
Those pictures I posted above I had to tweak a lot to get them to look that way, and they still don’t come off the page with that sparkle I see in so many other photo’s that many here post.

A lot of that “pop” as you call it isn’t necessarily the camera. I sometimes have to tweak a lot of photos to get that myself. That’s done with a good photo editing program. I’m certainly no expert with a camera, but understanding how a camera “looks” at an object and how it measures the light on that object has more do with it then just getting a better camera. There are others on here who are a lot more familiar with how a camera works then I am. If you have a good camera shop near you I’d talk with them.

#6

Ken Brunt said:
. If you have a good camera shop near you I’d talk with them.

Sadly around here those stores have gone in the same direction as most hobby shops!
We used to have a couple of great close by to me… I think they are now both cell phone stores for this month!

#7

Same here. Fortunately there was one still in business when I was looking for one.

#8

Vincent check www.dpreview.com its probably one of the best camera site on the web.

One camera i would recommend checking is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. It has very high quality Leica 25 to 600 f2.8 lens, yet is light and has most features/controls of a high end SLR camera. It will shoot in RAW format, do HDR, shoot at 12fps, and video at 1080p @60fps. The DP review site will explain all these terms to you.

If you are manipulating photo’s you will need a copy of Adobe’s Lightroom or Elements

#9

Stuart Moxley said:

Vincent check www.dpreview.com its probably one of the best camera site on the web.

One camera i would recommend checking is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. It has very high quality Leica 25 to 600 f2.8 lens, yet is light and has most features/controls of a high end SLR camera. It will shoot in RAW format, do HDR, shoot at 12fps, and video at 1080p @60fps. The DP review site will explain all these terms to you.

If you are manipulating photo’s you will need a copy of Adobe’s Lightroom or Elements

I will check the site out when I get home, thanks.

#10

Vinny,

I love your Carlisle Station photo. I worked on it a little in Photoshop CS3 to try and make it “pop” for you. What do you think?

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/sparkyjoe/Carlisle-Station.jpg)

#11

I can see some differences Joe, but it looks like it added a bit more grain to the photo… which I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not.
But see that picture is a good example of why I feel if I had a better camera to start with, the end result would be better.
That day was very overcast, and with the simple camera that I have the original picture is very flat/dull looking, I think a better camera would have captured a bit more of the natural color that is really there… even though the sun was not out.

#12

The other thing to keep in mind with the camera you have is the lighting. An inexpensive floodlight to fill in some of the shadows can make a bigger difference than the camera.

#13

Vincent, a little better camera might improve your photographs some, but with today’s digital imaging, much of your image improvement can come from good software. Joe’s improvements clearly show that. Don’t be misled by the appearance of images on any web site. The limited and low resolution limits of most web sites (for data space savings), will not render the best looking image. Joe’s image actually looks pretty good. If you intend to print large, a higher end camera is a must. If your interest is web posting, a 10 or 12 meg camera is more than ample. $500 should get you one. Updated software for image work starts at about $90-100, unless you already have some. Good luck.

#14

A coupla’ observations from an non expert picture taker, when it comes to model photos.

Most point and shoot cameras now days (say last 3-4 years) are pretty dang good.

Do you want to take good pictures or do you want to play with computer programs (photo shop)??

Learn your camera and how to use it, no matter which one it is.

Lighting is of great importance, learn to use the natural light for fill lighting, as well as other sources.

Always, that is always, use a tripod or other solid platform for the camera.

Depth of field-- learn to correctly set it up on your camera. It makes the difference between a nice or alright picture and an exceptional picture.

One can buy a 100$ camera or a 500$ camera or a 5000$ camera but it still wont take the picture for you. It won’t compose it, wont fill in the correct light, and it wont always auto set the depth of field that your after. One has to learn to take pictures just like learning any other skill.

Photo Shop can overcome some minor imperfections in a photo but it can’t take a poorly composed and shot picture and make it an exceptional picture.

I know some will argue some of the points I have made but that’s OK. I like trying to take pictures not spending my time “tweeking” poor attempts.

Good luck on your quest.

Rick

#15

Vince -

Lots of good advice has been given here. What do you currently have? As Rick stated so well, lighting and settings can make or break a picture regardless of the quality of the camera.

If your current camera is at least 6 MP you might be able to make lots of improvements in your results without spending a dime on another camera.

For me, lots of optical zoom is important. My first digital was a Fuji Finepix S700Z. I still use it when shooting exclusively for the web mostly because it has a great Macro mode and it also does a great job with colors. I upgraded to a DSLR a few years back. I have much more control but have still not taken the time to learn how to use manual settings. It does have an auto depth-of-field mode which I use a lot.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I could take as good a picture with the DSLR as I could with the older Fuji.

#16

There are so many cameras about these days I won’t bother giving any recommendations.
It all depends on what things are most important to you.
For example I have been using a Samsung EX2F which has a desirable wide angle lens (24mm equiv) excellent low light sensitivity and a twist-able LCD view screen so I don’t have to grovel on the ground BUT the video stabilization sucks big time!

A few things I notice in your ‘Carlisle’ image is that because it was taken on an overcast day, the low light makes the image quality suffer, fully open aperture with small depth of field making subject out of focus and the white balance is way out giving it a lifeless blue cast.

A camera with good low light sensitivity would work better in that situation being able to have a good range in the darker tones otherwise pick your days for ‘quality light’ with bright wispy cloud cover to diffuse shadows and avoid harsh contrast.

I also agree that most images need tweaking in good software. I use PhotoImpact with easy buttons to control contrast, brightness or RGB. One click contrast and fix color shift is typical to give them guts.

Many consumer cameras saturate the colors more than others. Some way too much on bright days. Some have adjustable color saturation. I prefer to do this in software later as you can’t get back what is lost when the camera does it.

I had a go at tinkering with your image also to give it the warmth it lacked. The greenish fence and blue rails were a dead giveaway.

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b107/139vinny/New%20Garden%20Railroad/DSC09138_zps18a98db7.jpg)

(http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b565/Garratt42/Large%20Scale/Misc/CarlisleImageMod_00_zps5bde638e.jpg)

Andrew

#17

Vincent,

What you’re looking for is a camera that is capable of “in Camera HDR”

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-camera/

http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/27297/which-cameras-have-built-in-hdr

Happy reading!

#18

As a working professional photographer, that has taught photography, I suppose that I should weigh in on this discussion.

Vincent and everyone else that reads this… when asked about "What camera should I buy for… [ wife, self, mom, kid or whom ever], Here is a list of questions, that I make them answer, explore or think about.

  1. What are you going to be shooting the most of with the new camera?

  2. Why will you be shooting it?

  3. What is your expectations of the pictures that you will be shooting?

  4. How much time and effort are you willing to invest in reaching your expected goals?

All Key questions that make a huge difference in cameras that you could buy.

As example: I sold off my Nikon cameras and lenses and bought Canon. Not that the Canon at the time was better lenses or the bodies offered better features, the Nikon was a tad better all the way around both glass and bodies, But because of my smaller hands, I could not handle the larger size of the Nikon, nearly as well as the Canon. I shot better photos with the Canon because I could better control the camera, faster and or with one hand, That I could not do with the Nikon. For me, better pictures because I could interface with the camera better.

Ask and explore those questions. I’ll follow up these ?s in a day or so, with explanations of what and why.

BTW: A lot of times the answer is; You don’t need to invest more money in a new camera, You jest need to better use the one you have.

#19

I will try to answer and explain a little bit about what is going on with my current camera.

It is a simple point & shoot, Sony model DSC-WX9 16.2 mega pixels, 5x optical zoon, 25mm wide angle lens
We bought this camera to take easy pictures while working our side business that I have (sound reinforcement for local bands.https://www.facebook.com/pages/VP-Pro-Sound/154678147927641 ) And we would just upload them to our face book page so the bands that we worked with could have some pictures of the event.
Our needs for this was it needed to be easy to use and not to expensive because chances are being in that type of work environment it will eventually just get destroyed. (working in night clubs with alcohol involved!)
Since we first bought the camera we have had a hard time getting good pictures with it, this model does not do well in low light (as in clubs) no matter what settings we try. Best results have been in auto mode, and just taking hundreds of pictures to get a few that can be used.

The new camera I am looking for is to be used to take pictures of our yard as we build the garden railroad and add flowers, plants and structures. A much more controlled environment.
We would also use it on our vacations, would have loved to have a nicer camera on the trip we just went on. The train museum pictures and the mountains we went through could have looked so much better I believe.

I think where my camera suffers the most is in low & high light situations, if it is to overcast the picture quality suffers greatly, and if there is to much light (bright sunny day) the camera picks up way to much glare… almost like the shutter speed is to slow and allows to much light in. And again, we have tried every setting this camera has… and we notice very little difference, mostly worse results when not using the auto mode.

Now why I think most of my issues are this camera is because the camera that this replaced was much better. Our old point & shoot was a Olympus (forget the model#), this camera was much better all the way around… the pictures where even clearer IMO then the Sony.
The only reason we stopped using it was because it would no longer connect to a computer to upload the pictures… it was probably dropped to many times in the clubs.

#20

Since you seem satisfied with the pix from the Olympus, and your somewhat familiar with that type, look for another olympus just make sure it has the features you want. Most cameras come with computer software to upload and edit them.

http://www.getolympus.com/?clickid=wpXQG4UnGWW1xWKQmOTZTXnVUkWX4eSZIx0W0Y0