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ellenmillionWe're going to break down and get a digital camera. Any suggestions, and/or warnings? We want one that takes pictures quickly, with decently good quality (but nothing spectacular), that can talk with an XP. And isn't enormous.
Haven't been able to post any of my challenges to art_challenge due to scanner inaccessibility. Not that it's been inaccessible, exactly, as much as it is that I haven't had six fricking minutes in a row with it. I have lots of time to kill in the evening, but to get to my scanner or use a computer I have to drive 20 minutes back into town, deal with my parents (sweet, wonderful, nosy people who are lonely and want to chat), suffer a cold car, waste all that gas and time, and... well, I generally don't. We have a computer at home now, but it is Jake's, just like my computer is... well, EMG's and therefore mine, and he wants to play Civ and read up about the latest war news. (He went to military HS, and he's never lost that fascination with things that go boom.) I get some time on it; he's not a miser, but not a lot. So I've actually been doing a fair amount of sketching. Nothing in color, and nothing in ink, to speak of, but lots and lots of hours of pencil work. One of these days, when I'm not busting my butt on business stuff at my parents house, maybe I can scan some of the stuff. I've been on a real creative low lately, so I've been mostly going back and fixing up various old art, but I have managed a few new pieces. I even did some RWH art.
List of short stories I want to complete for Grindstone (they will probably total 10k words): Losing, No Promises (mostly editing; I suspect this won't boost my wordcount. Does deleting words count as a negative?), Leverage, Nothing Fair, ID Crisis, Pulling Rank, the unnamed Dapple story, and one cliche Jenny/Bjorn story for the storychallenge. I'll be very happy if I pull this off. Very happy indeed, no matter what the wordcount.
Jake's got a hockey game tonight, so I'll have some business time, yay! Muuuust update. I also have two orders to get mailed.
I think the war has been bumming me out rather subconsciously. I feel all tired out and disappointed in everything. I hear that the 'shock and awe' campaign has begun in Iraq. Here we go... Do I feel we're doing the wrong thing? I don't really go either way. Saddam is undoubtedly a cruel man who ought not be ruling. But I feel the same way about China's ironhanded administration (favored trade status, my sweet ass!), and North Korea's, and I'm not at all sure that it's America's place to do anything about it. The UN, I have very mixed, but mostly negative, feelings about. It's very odd to be getting up and going to work and buying groceries and drinking coffee, and to put that side-by-side with the pictures on the television screen.
I want to go home, drink hot cocoa, watch a girl flick without any violence or car chases, and snuggle with my cat.
Haven't been able to post any of my challenges to art_challenge due to scanner inaccessibility. Not that it's been inaccessible, exactly, as much as it is that I haven't had six fricking minutes in a row with it. I have lots of time to kill in the evening, but to get to my scanner or use a computer I have to drive 20 minutes back into town, deal with my parents (sweet, wonderful, nosy people who are lonely and want to chat), suffer a cold car, waste all that gas and time, and... well, I generally don't. We have a computer at home now, but it is Jake's, just like my computer is... well, EMG's and therefore mine, and he wants to play Civ and read up about the latest war news. (He went to military HS, and he's never lost that fascination with things that go boom.) I get some time on it; he's not a miser, but not a lot. So I've actually been doing a fair amount of sketching. Nothing in color, and nothing in ink, to speak of, but lots and lots of hours of pencil work. One of these days, when I'm not busting my butt on business stuff at my parents house, maybe I can scan some of the stuff. I've been on a real creative low lately, so I've been mostly going back and fixing up various old art, but I have managed a few new pieces. I even did some RWH art.
List of short stories I want to complete for Grindstone (they will probably total 10k words): Losing, No Promises (mostly editing; I suspect this won't boost my wordcount. Does deleting words count as a negative?), Leverage, Nothing Fair, ID Crisis, Pulling Rank, the unnamed Dapple story, and one cliche Jenny/Bjorn story for the storychallenge. I'll be very happy if I pull this off. Very happy indeed, no matter what the wordcount.
Jake's got a hockey game tonight, so I'll have some business time, yay! Muuuust update. I also have two orders to get mailed.
I think the war has been bumming me out rather subconsciously. I feel all tired out and disappointed in everything. I hear that the 'shock and awe' campaign has begun in Iraq. Here we go... Do I feel we're doing the wrong thing? I don't really go either way. Saddam is undoubtedly a cruel man who ought not be ruling. But I feel the same way about China's ironhanded administration (favored trade status, my sweet ass!), and North Korea's, and I'm not at all sure that it's America's place to do anything about it. The UN, I have very mixed, but mostly negative, feelings about. It's very odd to be getting up and going to work and buying groceries and drinking coffee, and to put that side-by-side with the pictures on the television screen.
I want to go home, drink hot cocoa, watch a girl flick without any violence or car chases, and snuggle with my cat.
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Date: 2003-03-21 11:44 am (UTC)Do you want something easy to use, quick to learn, but limited in overall functionality? Or would you rather have a camera that will take a bit longer to learn all the features, but give you more flexibility and freedom in the long run? (Think of a program like Photosuit or another idiot-proof photo editing program vs. Photoshop, which lets you do almost anything but takes a long time to learn)
If you want the first option, quick and easy, then go with either HP or Kodak. My personal preference between the two is Kodak, since they were one of the pioneers in digital cameras. They make good stuff, and their EasyShare dock system is a nice perk, if a bit expensive.
If you want the second option, my preferred brands are Canon and Olympus. Fuji makes good stuff too, but they sometimes get caught up in the 'show' instead of the quality of the product.
Other considerations: 1 - megapixel resolution, 2 - optical zoom, 3 - memory format.
1 - This isn't everything, no matter what people are going to tell you. If I had a dime for every customer that came in wanting the 'most megapixels' they could get I'd be rich. Yes, it makes a difference. No, it's not the whole difference. A 3 megapixel Canon will out-shoot a 4 megapixel HP camera any day, simply because the Canon lens is of much higher quality. In general, don't get anything less that 2 megapixel. I'd aim for 3 at least, myself.
1mp = printing 4x6 max
2mp = good 4x6, decent 8x10
3mp = good 8x10, decent 11x17
4mp and above = great in general.
2 - Optical zoom is FAR better than digital. Digital zoom sucks, basically, and you should never use it for images you plan to print. It's suitable for web-viewing only, since it's like cropping an image in Photoshop and then blowing it up to be twice as big. Get at least 3x optical if you can, and more is better.
3 - Memory cards can be expensive. If you get a camera with internal memory, remember that you'll always have to plug it into a computer to get the pictures off. I use external memory and have a card reader, so I don't waste my batteries while retrieving my pictures. Plan to buy at least a 64Mb card with a new camera, you'll be glad you did it later. Nothing hurts more than having to decide what pictures to delete just so you can take more.
Other considerations:
Rechargeable batteries: Digital cameras are a BITCH when it comes to batteries. I have three sets of rechargeable AAs that I use. Warranty: Digital cameras only come with one year, mine is just over two years old and it's already messing up.
...this is getting long, so I'll wrap it up with my picks based on price range. This is in CAD, mind.
$100 - $300 - Kodak CX4230 <- Solid and simple, 2MP
$300 - $600 - Canon A70 <- Nice range of functions in a 3MP camera
$600 - $900 - Olympus C730 <- 10x Optical! Sweet machine.
$900 and up - Canon Powershot G3, or something fancy from Nikon. I wish!
..okay, now that I've talked forever, I'll go back to my paper. Hope this helps! ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-03-21 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-21 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-21 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-21 03:07 pm (UTC)It's perfect, takes beautiful clear pictures, is little and cute (I keep it in my cellphone holder), has a USB cable to plug directly to the puter and a memory stick rather than a disk or anything, and can record little .mpg movies :)