Comin' down the pike...DIGITAL CAMERA? (Advice)

we got the similar olympus 3.2mp model, with weatherproofing. the slide-y lens cover does seem better than the one jodi's mom has had for a while (a 1.3 mp), but you're right- it's still a moving part. we need to pick up a bigger card; the one that came w/ it is 16mb.
 
top. I'm seriously considering this one:

Olympus-C-5060-Wide-Zoom-1650.jpg


Mmmm...wide angle.
 
I am seriously considering this one even if it is a bit more expensive than what I initially planned. I think that one would be an investment more than any other at this point:

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Hmmmm! Any lens I want :)
 
Not bad!

You know, one thing which I didn't consider as strongly as I ought to have is the actual size of the camera. I ultimately got a teeny tiny camera, and thank God I did--in retrospect, I would barely have brought it anywhere if it couldn't be slipped into my pocket. Dan got a much better but much larger camera about the same time I got mine (it has a real lens and such, like the ones you posted above) and he has barely ever used it because he doesn't bring it anywhere unless he's specifically going out to take pictures.

So, unless you plan on doing magazine-spread portraits or something, consider sacrificing some quality for compactness...
 
Well I have had offers to shoot shows for a magazine and a website so that's why I am considering it. Plus with compact flash memory you can stock a LOT of pics on a single disk (there are tiny 4 gigs hard drive that fit in a compact flash module and that retails for about 200$, a lot cheaper than other forms of memory). I already have a smaller, less quality camera that I can carry everywhere as the need may be, I just want to start making a more professional product in the future. And I have been very disapointed with the performance of my other one.
 
mindspell: one thing I failed to consider when I was looking at Digital SLRs is: if you really like wide angle photography (it's pretty much all I shoot usually) you have to keep in mind the manner in which the smaller size of the "film" comes into play. Like I shoot 90% of my 35mm stuff with a 24mm lens - and that would end up as a 35mm or so on a digital camera...On the other hand, you'll get a little more mileage out of your telephotos if thats your cup of dirt.
 
FalseTodd said:
mindspell: one thing I failed to consider when I was looking at Digital SLRs is: if you really like wide angle photography (it's pretty much all I shoot usually) you have to keep in mind the manner in which the smaller size of the "film" comes into play. Like I shoot 90% of my 35mm stuff with a 24mm lens - and that would end up as a 35mm or so on a digital camera...On the other hand, you'll get a little more mileage out of your telephotos if thats your cup of dirt.
I would expect to shoot a lot in wide angle actually. Excuse my ignorance of photography optics but I am not sure I understand what you are saying by " I shoot 90% of my 35mm stuff with a 24mm lens - and that would end up as a 35mm or so on a digital camera"

Please explain. Thank you
 
Well basically the viewing angle of a lens is determined by its focal length (in this case 24mm) and the size of the film it is shooting on to. (Focal length is determined by the distance of the rearmost lens element to the film plane when the lens is focused to infinity - although modern lens design clouds this occasionally). You can imagine if the lens were just projecting onto a wall, it would create a circular image behind it. The film is placed at the center of this image. If you draw one size square behind it to simulate a particular size of film, it will determine how much of the image makes it into the photograph. Thus you can determine a viewing angle from the combination of film size and focal length. If you draw a smaller piece of film on the wall, you can imagine that the apparent viewing angle will be decreased, simply because your smaller piece of film will "see" less of the projected image. Is this making sense? It's early.

When I say the 24mm will end up as a 35 - what I mean is that a 24mm lens put in front of a digital camera will have a viewing angle comparable to the viewing angle of a 35mm lens put in front of a piece of 35mm film, because the digital sensor will "see" less of the lens' projected image.. (Note of course, that the 35mm lens and 35mm film thing is a coincidence).
 
I wish I had saved my money and gotten a more versatile camera. it's nice n all, but it works like shit in low-light situations and has no way to adjust the 'shutter speed' (or whatever it would be in the digital world).
 
In that case, does a wide angle digital lens work differently than the traditional wide angle lens? Are you only saying that because you want to re-use your 24mm lens?

This one is pretty sweet too, 8 MP!

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No SLR though.
 
I took the plung and bought the Olympus shown above. A little big, but it has the features I wanted. I looked at a bunch of other stuff at BestBuy, and just felt I would miss the stuff I'm getting with the Olympus (a wide angle lens, and the ability to focus really really close).

If anybody wants to buy a camera, check out www.BestPriceAudioVideo.com - they were fully $100 cheaper than most places I found online, and like almost $200 cheaper than BreastBuy. Only $50 for a 128MB card, too!