Digital Photography Help?

martinatkinson

martinatkinson

Registered
Hello!

I am hoping to get a little more into digital photography. I have a couple of questions, can someone help me out?

I have a Kodak DX3500, and my first need is a good telephoto lens. I would like to be able to pick up some good close up shots but the built in zoom on my camera totally trashes the quality :mad: So, I was thinking to get the DX3500 Lens Adapter so I can attach a 37mm Close-Up Lens. Can someone recommend a good one that is both fairly cheap and good pro quality?

Is the camera I currently have good for me or should I get a better quality one?

Also, I noticed that even the high quality shots are only 72DPI and for print work should they not be 300DPI? How do I fix this so it prints out at good quality?

Finally, does the new 1Gb Microdrive from IBM work as a flash card for this kind of camera? If not, what is the highest amount of space I can get?

Ok, ok, I said that was the last question, but I have one more (I promise) I need someone to refer me to a good flash card wallet, you know, a zippered case with pockets that you put your flash cards in.

And, if you think of any other tidbits of info I will greatly appreciate your sharing it! :)

Have a great day and thanks so much for your guys help!

Albert
 
Hello!

Hmm, that went over REAL well :rolleyes:

Nobody can help me out with this?

What I am looking at is a +10 +7 telephoto lens. It actually has two lenses a +10 and a +7 but if you use them together you can get a whopping +17 zoom. Will this be enough zoom for good closeups on wildlife activity?

Anyway, if someone, if anyone could answer my other questions I would be grateful.

Thanks!

Albert
 
Hello!

Hey, thanks for the heads-up on that site. I am heading over there and may repost this question if I can not find the answer on their Q&A boards.

Thanks again!

Have a great day!

Albert
 
#1 if you don't have a tripod, get one before you buy a macro lens. It may improve your picture quality more than you think.

#2 Your camera does have a few limitting factors. First of all it's a 2 megapixel camera. For print you probably won't be able to go much higher than 4x6 before losing sharpness. Consumer cameras are getting up into 4 and 5 megapixels now.

Secondly, Your camera has no optical zoom. This is what you should look for when buying a camera. Digital zoom is really useless. Most cameras have it but it really isn't worth using.

#3 it's not really 72 dpi it's 72 ppi (pixels/inch.) you can easily fix this in Photoshop under Image>Image Size just make sure you have "Resample Image" off. For print you'll want to change the "Resolution" of the image from 72 to 200-300 ppi.

#4 I would highly doubt that your camera is compatible with the microdrive. Most aren't. I believe there are 1GB compact flash cards out now, but they're insanely expensive. Almost to the point where it makes more sense to look at getting an iBook instead. 256 MB cards are down around $75-130 buying a couple of these is not such a bad idea.

As far as whether or not you should get a new camera, it depends on what you're doing with it. What you have may be fine for a while, but I'd pay attention to how much extra lenses and things cost because chances are they won't work with your next camera. Digital camera's are far from perfect, and just like computers, the longer you wait to buy one, the better it will be when you get one.

I hope this is helpful.
 
Originally posted by dlookus
#3 it's not really 72 dpi it's 72 ppi (pixels/inch.) you can easily fix this in Photoshop under Image>Image Size just make sure you have "Resample Image" off. For print you'll want to change the "Resolution" of the image from 72 to 200-300 ppi.
Click to expand...

Hello!

Thanks for your help. This is one of the problems I have run into, the 72ppi thing. My printer says my pictures need to be 300-400ppi because it prints really bad otherwise. Well, I am in charge of a year book design and all the pics are best quality but still 72ppi.

I tried what you suggested but the only problem is that the inch measurement goes way down...ughh, this is frustrating. I tried Genuine Fractals because they say it keeps good quality pictures. NO WAY! I tried it and it gave me the same result as if I would do it manually. :mad:

Any way you know of to keep the picture quality and res the same but to make it 300dpi?

Thanks and have a great day!

Albert
 
All I can really suggest is doing what I said to set it to 300ppi, then turn "Resample Image" on and change the dimensions to what you want. Keep in mind, however, that if your camera makes 1600x1200 images, at 300 ppi it will be 5 1/3"x4". Anything bigger than that, Photoshop will be stretching the image and you will get some bluriness.
 
You could try the s-spline software from shortcut (www.s-spline.com). I have used it for prepress and after a bit of getting used to, it produces pretty good images. It 'hardens up' an image without losing too much quality or blurring the image - by inserting extra pixels, I think.

Downside is re-saving - that takes a LONG time on large images.
 
Hello!

It seems as though my best bet is to get a new digital camera. Can someone recommend a good one? Needs to have the following:

Really high mega-pixel rating. I would like to be able to downsize it to 300dpi and still be able to take an 8x10" print after a good cropping.

Needs to be compatible with a powerful telephoto zoom lense. Basically I would like to be able to catch some closeups of wildlife without losing quality.

Needs to have rechargeable batteries (preferably some long lasting ones)

Needs to have an LCD screen (at least 1")

Needs to have plenty of image enhancement features for stuff like night shot and stuff like that.

NEEDS to be under $1500

Anyone can recommend a good camera?

Thanks and have a great day!

Albert
 
At the link I provided the have a page where you can find a camera according to the options you specified. There you have a list of camera's that you can choose from then. Try and look for Sony...at least that's what I found were the best camera's.
 
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