Digital cameras

[joesoap]

After many years of absence from photography I am thinking of taking it up againl But this time I was thinking of going digital. When i last did photography digital was not on the scene. I used medium format cameras (6x6cm) and a Linhof 5"x4", technical camera (all gone now). Spending hours with smelly chemicals in the darkroom was no fun.
I have a Mac G5 and full photoshop so I should be off to a good start with software?
This is a fresh start for me with digital cameras. Anyone recommend cameras to look out for or avoid
Paul.

[Galbally]

After many years of absence from photography I am thinking of taking it up againl But this time I was thinking of going digital. When i last did photography digital was not on the scene. I used medium format cameras (6x6cm) and a Linhof 5"x4", technical camera (all gone now). Spending hours with smelly chemicals in the darkroom was no fun.
I have a Mac G5 and full photoshop so I should be off to a good start with software?
This is a fresh start for me with digital cameras. Anyone recommend cameras to look out for or avoid
Paul.

I have a fuji film digital SLR type camera, I have to say its cracking, it wasn't that expensive and it takes great pictures. I must check out the model number for you.

[spot]

It's a real bind at the moment, I'm not sure it's technically possible to do what you're ideally wanting to do. The reason you used those formats was the resolution of the film combined with the size of the negative to give clean enlargements on big paper.

If you reckon a fine grain film gives effectively 3000 dots per inch (in modern terminology - there's no direct equivalent but that's a good guess) you can estimate the pixel count your 6x6 format was capable of. There just aren't any cameras on the market that will provide so much. The consequence is that you can't enlarge to the same extent you could before without showing granular artefacts.

These days you could reckon that printing 300dpi gives a clean image. That's similar to saying a 35mm negative would blow up to 16"x12" before grain effects are detectable. To get that resolution digitally you need a camera with 3600x4800 pixels which is a 17M pixel camera, and that's just to get to the upper edge of 35mm performance. To emulate even medium format is simply not an option yet.

I may be wrong at a fundamental level though I can't see why. I may also be wrong about your intention as far as image reproduction goes, but if you want to produce 30 inch exhibition prints I don't know how you'd go about that digitally. Tell us a bit more about your previous reasons for medium format and above.

[joesoap]

It's a real bind at the moment, I'm not sure it's technically possible to do what you're ideally wanting to do. The reason you used those formats was the resolution of the film combined with the size of the negative to give clean enlargements on big paper.

If you reckon a fine grain film gives effectively 3000 dots per inch (in modern terminology - there's no direct equivalent but that's a good guess) you can estimate the pixel count your 6x6 format was capable of. There just aren't any cameras on the market that will provide so much. The consequence is that you can't enlarge to the same extent you could before without showing granular artefacts.

These days you could reckon that printing 300dpi gives a clean image. That's similar to saying a 35mm negative would blow up to 16"x12" before grain effects are detectable. To get that resolution digitally you need a camera with 3600x4800 pixels which is a 17M pixel camera, and that's just to get to the upper edge of 35mm performance. To emulate even medium format is simply not an option yet.

I may be wrong at a fundamental level though I can't see why. I may also be wrong about your intention as far as image reproduction goes, but if you want to produce 30 inch exhibition prints I don't know how you'd go about that digitally. Tell us a bit more about your previous reasons for medium format and above.

Hi,
I very rarely had prints made bigger than 20"x16". most of my work was printed by me up to 8"x10". The reason behind my use of medium to large format cameras back then was a purely practical one in that it was so simple to make contact prints from the neg's and have something you could look at without a viewing aid! As you rightly say you could safely crop an image and still have sharp results.
This time I will be just taking pictures for my own enjoyment and I am not thinking of selling any of my work or entering competitions or such. It would however be nice to get good sharp results up to say A4 or 8"x10"
I guess I need to do some thinking
Paul.

[Tater Tazz]

I like my fuji camera. It takes wonderful pictures.

[spot]

I guess I need to do some thinking

No, that's a large part of the way. Most people would reckon that an 8 Mpixel camera would print faultlessly to 10"x8" or A4.

The words to consider next are tripod or stabilized and exchangeable lens or miniaturized.

If you have no preference there then the market's flooded with 8Mpixel hand-held image-stabilized cameras around £200. Getting one just for the experience would teach you a lot, get you a feel for what editing on the G5 is like and if you send the output to a website like Photobox you'll get prints back through the post at a fair price. Last time I sent off for 10"x8" it was about £1 a print.

As for which camera, the quality names are still a good indicator. Canon, Olympus, Pentax. I've no idea whether Leica have a sensible priced entry camera any longer. Computer companies like Sony have jumped in as have Kodak. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/timeline.asp?start=2007 is where I read up about digital cameras.

[Peter Benders]

hey can anyone of u guys tell me which digital camera is the best and cheap to buy? i am planning to start photography myself .so any suggestions will be helpful.thanks

[Chookie]

hey can anyone of u guys tell me which digital camera is the best and cheap to buy? i am planning to start photography myself .so any suggestions will be helpful.thanks

Depends what you want to do. If it's mainly the tourist thing or just to get some experience, any compact (sometimes they're called point and shoot) would be fine. If you want get into it seriously your looking at a DSLR or a Prosumer at the very least.

[dubs]

I got this one cos I wanted something a bit more than a snapper, but didn't want to bankrupt myself getting a DSLR....I get 33-400 zoom, but without a bag full of lenses..I love it! Cost me £115 . Bargain!

FinePix S1000fd Zoom Digital Camera from Fujifilm UK

[mikeinie]

Nice: You got that for £115??? Great deal, look like a nice camera.