Atomic Systems

Many younger people have abandoned conventional cameras, using the cameras in their mobile phones instead. But digital cameras are fighting back!

A lot of compact digital cameras now include “Face Recognition” - if the camera recognises a face in the picture it focuses on that face, making it the clearest point in the picture. If it thinks there is more than one face, it “frames” the others, focussing on the main face.

You can in due course connect the camera to a printer and select which pictures you want to print. If one of them is a picture where the camera thought there were, say, three faces, it will ask you if you want 3 copies of that photo – one for each “face”

It does not stop there! The camera can ”improve” a face, softening hard lines and shadows and adjusting the complexion ( although it might have a hard job with some of us old ones)

And isn’t it annoying when your subject smiles just after you have taken the picture? The camera can now wait until it recognises a smile and then take the shot. .

Have you ever taken a picture with the self timer? You set up the group and then click the shutter and dash back to rejoin the group and get into the picture before the shutter clicks. Not any moré – you saunter back and the camera waits until you turn and look at it, taking the photo when it recognises your new face joining the group.

Apart from faces, the new cameras can remove the mist from landscapes or brighten the colours on a dull day. The list of tricks is endless!

There is a cost but you can get such cameras for around £150. ..

Apparently there's one where the shutter speed is so fast that it's possible to take a picture of the wife with her mouth closed !

Aah yeah, but what's the quality like?

I've been in computer and camera shops, and the moment you go anywhere near one of these cameras, the salespeople are all over you like vultures, talking about how these cameras are all great with these features. All I do is this:

Me: "Can I take a picture with it?"

Sales: "Be my guest"

Me: takes picture and zooms in on the resulting photo: "The quality is rubbish"

Sales: "But it's got all of these WONDERFUL features!"

Me: "I don't care about all of your wonderful features if the quality is rubbish"

Sales: "But ... but ... but ...

Me: walks away shaking heads.

You can change this for any electrical product, especially large TVs, and laptops with rubbish software from the maker piled on to them. Its just the same. The quality is rubbish/it's too slow.

thanks,

chaddockdk

My phone has face recognition on the camera and yes it makes a bug difference.

Problem is most people buy a camera based on the number of Mega pixels when twice the Mega pixels on a ccd the same size just means less light to each pixel.

A good lens and a good ccd are the most important thing, my 5 MP Kodak camera has a nice lens and ccd, nice and big, and it takes better photos than some 10mp cameras.

Matt


Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

What do you do if you want to take a picture that doesn't have a face in it?

dggar wrote:What do you do if you want to take a picture that doesn't have a face in it?

or the dog?

If you want to see excellent, un-biassed and very full reviews of dozens of digital cameras go to this link

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

Each review has a good sample of test shots which test the camera’s claims fully.

It is an American site but none the worse for that
I would recommend it to anyone contemplating buying a new digital camera

Tony

I'd rather get a dSLR (If I could afford one. )
Big and bulky, but worth it in my opinion. You can get Compact digital camera's to come close but not match I feel.

It is correct that many of the new features I mentioned are gimmicks which are unlikely to be use by the majority of owners of such cameras. However the quality of photos taken by a modern compact digital camera is actually very good.
For most people there is no necessity for any higher quality as most people are content with 4”x 6” prints, and very rarely would contemplate a large enlargement where imperfections might show up.

For many years I used a Pentax SLR with a set of three zoom lenses, expensive, bulky and heavy. I now have a pocket size compact digital with 10x zoom (plus 4x digital zoom, which might be worthwhile on rare occasions). Compared to the Pentax it is fool proof and ready for action within seconds. I waste no expensive 35mm film - if I make a mistake I just delete it.

As an example of the capabilities of a compact 10 x zoom camera look at these two shots, taken from the same spot. In particular look at the detail on the banner below the signs in the telephoto shot. Use the zoom in or magnifier function if you have one. Remember that there is probably some loss in transmitting over the internet.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-r ... MG0052.JPG

http://www.steves-digicams.com/camera-r ... MG0049.JPG


I don’t trust camera shop salesmen any more than I trust car salesmen, but if one reads un-biased reviews such as those I recommend you will not be likely to buy an unsatisfactory camera.

Tony

One of the best photos I've ever taken was with a Kodak Instamatic 50.

Just like the cameras described in this thread....you just had to point and shoot. And the camera did the rest!

Good afternoon everyone
I used to have a Minolta SLR Camera
These days I use a Kodak Easyshare C613
Not the most expensive compact but it suits me
Like Tony correctly says unless the image was going to be super sized then any imperfections are not obvious
I like the convenience of a point and click digital camera
Gone are the days when we had to pay for under or over exposed prints
Kind regards Stephen

I've just replaced a Fuji S8100 as I hated the resulting photos (lots of noise).
Having read a fair few reviews I ended up not going for the newest model exactly for the reasons Matt mentions.
They appear to have added more pixies but kept the same CCD, resulting in noisy photos again, and a bigger price...

Mobile phones are only used by 'youngsters' because they are now common in schools, how many children bring their camera into school nowadays? How many 'kids' bring in a compact camera expecting to picture of something interesting?

Personally I hardly ever use the camera feature on my phone since the quality between a 2MP Blackberry and a 15MP Canon DSLR is FAR between.

Can anyone recommend a compact camera that has decent macro imaging?

Sort of thing one could use for model railway close ups.

Sub £120 preferred !

oldrocker wrote:Can anyone recommend a compact camera that has decent macro imaging?

Sort of thing one could use for model railway close ups.

Sub £120 preferred !

Tony (the old one) is the man you want, he has some knowledge in this dept.