Cameras & Picture Talk (Read 9,781 times)

I remember my dad coming home with a new Polaroid camera and a bunch of film when they came out about 1956 or '57. The film had the little "coating" thing you had to put on the finished picture so it would stay visible, I guess. My dad was interested in cameras and taking pictures and he took a lot of them during family functions and get-togethers. There is a large Rubbermaid container with a lid in their basement. It is full of pictures, most of them are the Polaroids dad took.

I had a box-type camera that I don't remember the name of. It used 120 film and you looked into the top of the camera, like a Brownie. It took decent enough pictures if you were a steady shooter.

I bought my first 35mm camera in Thailand. It was one of the first things I did when I got to Korat. It was, and still is, a Yashica 35mm RangeFinder camera. There was an available accessory box with two lenses that screwed onto the main lens and a rangefinder viewing lens. I bought the camera and accessory box for about $125. I took hundreds of pictures with that camera. It went everywhere with me. It took pictures for the next 11 1/2 months in Thailand and then 2 more years in England and Europe. I have several boxes full of albums and the negatives.

I loved that camera. I retired it about 7 years ago when I bought my first digital camera. It was a Kodak 3.1 MP and it fit into a shirt pocket but it was easier in a pants pocket. I love taking night pictures using a tripod and just the available light. One of my favorite pictures is one I took after a snowfall and the roads were plowed and there were a couple trees and a street light. I still have the camera but somehow the lens on the back of the camera where you look to see what you are shooting was bumped or hit with something and it cracked. The camera still works, you just don't know what you are getting.

I bought another Kodak to replace the first one. I think the new one is 7 MP but I forget. It is a little larger than the first one so it doesn't fit in a pocket. I keep it in it's own padded bag for protection. It takes some nice pictures and there are plenty of things to play with if you want to experiment with apertures or shutter speeds.

Again, I took some pictures about 3:30 AM at the family cottage. There was a full moon moving across the lake making interesting reflections. I got some with several trees between the moon and the camera. I would share the pictures with you but they are not in this computer. I have to go to the desk top computer and then I can post them here. I'm not sure I know how to post them here but I will try if anybody is interested in seeing them.

I am not close to a professional photographer but I can take a nice picture. I absolutely love digital cameras. I have made a couple Power Point presentations and had to add a slide of something I wanted included. The camera comes out and I take a picture of whatever it is and after a dozen or so pictures of the object, I have a good one that I put in the computer and add it to the show.

I like Kodak because it has been around forever and I don't need an expensive camera for my purposes. Also, they are in my price range. I bought a camera for the wife to put in her purse when we go to a family party. She doesn't enjoy taking pictures but if she has her camera, I can use it. It's a Nikon with about a hundred megapixels. I don't remember how many MP but it amazes me how the cameras coming out have more and more MP's. I don't think I will ever need to enlarge a picture enough to make a wall mural of it. I am happy with my Kodak and I will probably never buy anything else for my needs. The one I got for the wife was advertised as a digital camera that came with a couple things for a good price. I grabbed one and when I was checking out, I saw it was a Nikon.

That's my story about cameras. I'm glad I had one that took nice pictures and I can go back to another time in my life by looking at them. I want to scan them all into an external hard drive and put some of them on discs. That will be a project for later this year.

and that coating had a nasty smell...

dont know if you've really researched computers lately, but in my experience, going to a GOOD local shop and having something built to your specs will probably provide the absolute best combination of needs, wants and budget for the buck.

My last three have been customs, none of them has cost me more than 900 bucks. My most recent has a terrabyte main drive, and a terrabyte backup up drive (shared files with 3 other computers in the house). Lots of storage for photographs.

I've used a bunch of lower grade film software, my needs are not the same as yours (BTW, my first 35mm was a Minolta SRT 102, my daughter still uses it when she wants to take GOOD pix). Photo shop certainly seems to be the standard and has become the VERB, like Xerox it, or FEDEX it.

Cant see any reason for different lighting. Granted the temp's of the different lights could affect any picture, but I would have to assume that if you're looking at the pricey cameras, there should be some kind of color temperature adjustment for any situation.

Of course, you know all of this much better than I.

But if you're gonna get THAT kind of camera, I would STRONGLY recommend not getting an off the shelf camera from a big box store. Visit the local guy, tell him what you want, dont even settle for what he wants to add on, just for hoo ha's. I'll be happy to check your prices or specs with my buddy who owns a shop that I've been doing business with for almost 20 years. Not trying to sell it for him, but you can have a price point to deal with.

In fact, you might even be able to convert what you have now, depending on what you have, naturally.

I'll be happy to help anyway I can, if you want an extra shoulder to cry on, when you see how much it's gonna cost all together.

Check with the online stores too. Adorama and B&H Photo are probably the two best. Definitely price shop and be sure to ask about price matching.

This topic has picked up some great posts.

We've learned a lot about how we all got started taking pictures and the equipment we have owned. We've talked about the best ways to use pictures on this forum (Internet photo sharing site versus the forum's storage feature).

Lugnuts55 has talked about how to use your photos in PowerPoint (ways to use/display/share the pictures you take).

Bullhunter has shown us how to combine still shots in a video with music.

Ron has pointed out the value of getting expert advice from people who do this for a living versus the clerk at the big box store.

Lindel has talked about getting good prices and where to buy (B&H). www.bhphotovideo.com/

GeneJ50 has decided to make the jump to digital and is looking for what he needs to buy (identifying his requirements).

Just shows us that there is a wealth of info to be learned from members of this forum. And it got me thinking what would I have done differently if I was just buying my first camera today and looking to use it for the next 40-50 years. The choices used to be easier when we were growing up. Film, prints, slides, B&W or color, slide projectors, photo albums or shoe boxes in the closet.

Then PCs, photo edit software, video cams, digital cameras, the Internet and cell phones came along and changed everything. The choices are mind boggling today.

When I walked into a camera store 45 years ago to buy a camera the guy asked, "What do you want to use it for?" That was probably the single most important question to ask because the answer changed over the years.

Looking back, I learned that I needed to do more research before making a purchase. What type of pictures you wanted to take was one thing but how you wanted to use them in the future was just as important. The former helped you select the right camera, the latter helped you decide what other equipment you needed to store, edit, share and display them.

Gene, with that in mind, tell us the answers to both of those questions and we'll see what we can recommend.

On the photo edit software, I have used Ulead PhotoImpact 10 which has been bought out by Corel. It was the cheapest full featured editing program at the time ($59).

Most folks I know use Adobe PhotoShop Elements 10 ($99) or the Premiere version ($150). They also have a trial program for each.
www.adobe.com/products/photoshopfamily.html?promoid=JOLIW

Windows comes with some limited photo editing software that may fully suit your needs. You may already have it on your PC.

Thanks,
Pat P.

Windows 7 photo is CRAP.... They couldn't leave XP and Vista alone

Fully agree,,,I loved XP.

In XP you could print different pictures on the same paper. All I can get it to do now is print one image per page.

pretty much decided that im not going to spend enough for DSLR...that means a good point and shoot...they can be manually focused for those shots that require it... and what the heck is CMOS?? it has to do with the ability for good low light photos...

you read the specs for two of the same models and the more expensive of the two has the CMOS chip...

still surfing the net and reading the "dummies" book...

thanks pat... so im thinking of going cmos and looking for the optical zoom over the ditital zoom...

the other plus is that all these cameras are offering movies... the best seems to be 1080... so im starting a list of what looks best... a good optical zoom, cmos, 1080 video... around 10 to 15 mega pixals...

batteries are something to concider... some have a dedicated type battery and some use AA's... best are lithium or rechargeable... so im thinking AAs in case some thing happens you can get AAs just about anywhere...