Dr Bonz, I bought a Sony V1 Cybershot and absolutely love it! I have had a few Sony cameras and was disappointed with fotos in dull light or in extremely bright situations such as out on a boat with the reflection or in the snow.

The V1 has resolved these issues and has a fast shutter speed. Quality has been great. 5MP, Carl Leiss lense with enough features in a good size.

My friend is a sales rep for Canon and even he is impressed with the V1 for the cost....

Regards
Mike

 

Personally I use Sony TRV-70. It's a camcorder with descent 2mp pictures capability. It also takes mpeg video to memory stick, and it has one of the best video qulity for 1CCD camcorders.

It's an all-in-one thing, and it's doing nice job on everything. Video is of amazing colors and quality, and pictures are great too. I never print, only use it for web, so 2mp is more than enough for me. Here is some pictures taken by it (scaled down):

 

Bonz, You might want to check out May, 2004 issue of Consumer Reports.........it has a large section on digital cameras hot off the press. Only problem is it only ranks cameras up to 6 megapixels.

Nikon Coolpix 5700 (5 MP) is top of the heap. It has 8x optical zoom & takes movies.

 

vlad, those are some pretty good pics. I was always under the impression that the still pics taken with a video camera were pretty bad. I guess that at least at the small sizes used for the web, I'm wrong!

I currently own 2 35mm cameras and 2 digital ones, I don't think I can justify another.....

 

I've seen some pretty bad stills come from video cameras. Those above are by far the best I have seen.

 

Yeah, me too. I have a JVC mini DV digital recorder and it takes decent stills but not fantastic ones. It has a small internal storage capacity but no removable memory. You can take stills in the video mode (i.e. when you are recording video, you hit the still button and it imprints the still in your movie). It's not very practical though. It's a hassle to get onto your computer.

 

Well, I finally went and purchased the Canon 8 Megapixel Power Shot Pro1. I like it but I am still in need of advice on using it.

Went taking pics of my daughter's basketball game last week, I still get the annoying delay between hitting the button and the pic being taken. I am in the AUTO mode and I assume I'll need to use one of the manual modes.

Can anyone tell me what I need to adjust for fast action shots like in sports INDOORS. Outdoors it's not a big deal and works even in auto mode. What do I set the ISO, the shutter speed, the Aperture etc. to? Should I use the COMPLETE manual mode or the mode where you can manipulate the shutter only or the aperature only, or what?

Help this poor digital photo NEWB!!!

One other thing that I DO NOT like about this camera is that it has no Zoom button. You have to turn the dial on the lens to zoom in and out. It is a little awkward since every other digital camera I have used has a button to zoom

 

If yours is anything like mine (and it might not be because yours is about 6 times better), you have to hold the shoot button halfway down for it to actively focus, then when you actually snap the button all the way it will take the pic more quickly.

 

i suggest with a camera as high tech as that, that you ditch auto mode altogether and use (or at least try to use) the manual mode. I personally prefer the aperture priority setting, where u only manipulate the aperture. This way, the shutter speed automatically adjusts to the light levels and you get a nice pic everytime.

and the zoom button? You have there a professional camera. Zoom buttons are for girls.

 

Heres my $.02

As Vlad astutely noted, many camcorders today have built in still cameras. The old think was that the still camera part sucked. The new think is that the still camera camera portion is getting there but isn't there quite yet.

As a background on me, I shoot a bit of film (canon EOS elan and eos 3) and have a few digital cameras.

But I freaking love minidv camcorders. The ones today are so incredibly small. The canon optura 300 for example is smaller than the digital rebel with a standard 50 mm lens. I'm a big fan of the Panasonic DV953, which can take 3 megapix stills and has a 3 ccds/optical stabilizer/and much much more. The greatest thing is that you can hookup to firewire and d/l real quick. you can also use USB to download the stills for most camcorders.

Sites I've found with excellent information for minidvs are:

www.camcorderinfo.com
www.dvspot.com

Warning... this type of addiction can get really expensive.

 

Well slap my a$$ and call me Shirley!!!

 

>> and the zoom button? You have there a professional camera. Zoom buttons are for girls.

Are you talking about my camera? My camera is for boys. It even says so on the box.

 

Bonz, if you want to take sports shots, what I'd suggest is the following.

Take a look at your surroundings, are you indoors or out? What's the available light like?

Set the ASA to 400 or maybe 800.

Put the camera in aperture priority mode, and then set the aperature at the widest possiblity (for whatever reason, that's the smallest number).

Go ahead and shoot.

The combination above should give you fairly fast shutter speeds, so you won't have too much blur or loss of focus. As for the shutter delay, I'm kind of surprised that that camera has a noticeable delay. That's the big downfall with non-SLR digital cameras.

 

Thanks Rouxany. I just tried that while sitting at my computer. To simulate "action" (NOW DON'T LAUGH) I spun around in my desk chair really fast and took the pic with those settings. NO BLUR! Cool! I'm a little dizzy but that will pass I'm sure

The delay seems to be the autofocus. If I press the button half way it will auto focus but not take the pic. When you press it the rest of the way down it snaps it pretty fast. I just have to practice a bit with real action shots.

I'll let you know.

Thanks again.