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| Greetings,
I just returned from a two week Alaskan fishing vacation, and a few Musky trips where I took alot of photos with both my new digital and my old film camera(both Olympus). While I have been happy with the performance of the digital, the quality still does not quite match that of my old film rig. My camera is a 7.1 megapixel(Olympus stylus SW 720) and is what I'd consider a do all(water resistance/shock resistant). I am not thrilled with the fish in photos(especialy muskies) as the shiny areas often come out a bit funky/pixelated. Scenery/mountain pic's were ok, but side by side, the film rig still won. I know that there are great digital cameras out there, and I do plan to keep mine for wet conditions along with shore fishing areas where dropping could occur. I would like to buy a better camera for 'good', that I keep in dry storage and to take on family trips, but there are just so many to choose from... I am a fan of Olympus and Nikon, and would like to have as much optical zoom as I can though it isn't overlly neccessary if there is a higher quality camera with less. Any recomendations on the higher end digitals would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jason Schillinger
[email protected] |
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Posts: 66
Location: Minnesota | J, a lot of the professional photographers still use old school instead of digital. I have an Olympus and it does great. I don't know a lot about digitals but I'm friends with a professional photographer and I'll shoot him an email to ask him what he likes. You can clean some photos up in photoshop and other programs. I do it all the time.
KEEP CASTIN'
Dan
www.bookemsmuskyshop.com
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | I've got a 770sw, the slightly newer version of your camera and it's great as a tough go anywhere camera, but it doesn't have nearly as good a lens as my wife's Canon Ixus. Canon seem to be ahead of the game with digital compact cameras and also with their SLRs, so if you are serious about your pictures you might prefer a canon of some sort and keep the Olympus for on the boat. I must say though, I've been pretty pleased with the fishing pics with my camera.
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| I was in the same boat with you in regards to Film vs Digital. My film camera was a Nikon, complete with a set of lenses. When I decided to go Digital i wanted to use the same lenses I had before, so I settled on a Nikon D-50. So far it has been a very nice camera and I have no complaints. I don't know if size is a big issue for you, but this camera is a full size camera, very similar to my old one. That is just what i prefered.
God luck with whatever you choose, as there are a lot of quality options out there for reasonable prices. |
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Location: north central wisconsin | Thanks guys, very helpful stuff. Size really not a big issue, though would rather not switch lenses if possible. Will look at the Canons. Tim, do you know what improvements were made in the SW? Heck mine was just introduced in 07'... I wonder if the new one would have some better color separation, and menu options. the other thng I don't like about my sw is that when I go to Walmart to print, I cannot get the time and date on the photo. My manual says I need some DPOF format, which no print store around here knows anything about. Time and date are fairly important to me, as I tend to forget after awhile.. Any other way to get the date printed from this camera that you know of, or a way to find a DPOF print offering center? Thanks again.
Edited by Reef Hawg 7/23/2007 2:57 PM
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | I think the only real improvements were making it waterproof to 30ft instead of 10ft and "dropable" from a bit higher without damage (alledgedly!) The lens is just the same I believe. Oh, and it's got an image stabilization feature as well.
Don't know about getting the time and date printed. I do my own printing and I think there's a bit in the Olympus software that lets you pring the time and date at the bottom of the picture, if that's what you want. |
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Location: north central wisconsin | Thanks Tim. I would think that they've improved the color some too, as it looks they have, from your photos. mine also has the image stabilazation, which just makes pics more 'grainy' when I use it. Is your Olympus software very slow? I know my computer is old, but the software is very tough for me to navigate through with any type of timeliness so I removed it, and just save them into a file on my hard drive.
i think I'll check out the bigger Canons and Nikons next time out and about. Thanks again. |
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| Reef Hawg - 7/23/2007 4:29 PM
Thanks Tim. I would think that they've improved the color some too, as it looks they have, from your photos. mine also has the image stabilazation, which just makes pics more 'grainy' when I use it. Is your Olympus software very slow? I know my computer is old, but the software is very tough for me to navigate through with any type of timeliness so I removed it, and just save them into a file on my hard drive.
i think I'll check out the bigger Canons and Nikons next time out and about. Thanks again.
I am frankly surprised you are having quality problems with that much resolution. I had read that 6 and X4 optical zooms should be a do all camera except specialty shooting, so it sounds disappointing that you are having these problems. I wonder if an integrated, one maker system might do better. I have looked at a lot of digital film and really find it pretty satisfying when put up against my Canon that I historically used, and find it much better than the 400 film I often had loaded into my old style camera for potential fish shoots. If you do like your film pictures better, you can always get them developed and placed on cd at the same time, and photo shop them yourself into enlargements, but my next serious camera will be digital, since it doesn't take very many rolls of film, and developing, to create a big cost per picture gap between film and digital, and frankly, they are coming up with so many methods to display digital pictures I think the future is probably going to be completely digital at my house.(That being said, usually I carry a disposable kodak as my only camera on most fishing trips, LOL.) |
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | I must confess I don't use the Olympus software very much. I use photoshop mainly, which I understand. Most picture software seems to be aimed at making everything easy, but it mainly seems to make it difficult to do what I want it to do, so I stick with Photoshop. The Canon software seems a bit easier to use than the Olympus software though and has some good features for making an album type page with multiple images on it for printing. |
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Location: north central wisconsin | fsf, it surprises me too, though the 7.1 megapixel rating isn't an end all. There are alot of paramaters that go into making a decent camera, and the megapixel rating is one that often gets people thinking they are getting top quality(so the camera store guy told me...). While it is pretty good(and might be just what it was designed to do), it just does not quite get the quality shots that my cheaper9though quality) film job did, and takes much more fineggling(word??) with settings to get the 'perfect' shot in certain light/water levels. That said, I do have some pictures from fishing trips and my recent vacation that are as good as some I took side by side with the film, and the fact that it is waterproof and shock proof still have me happy to own it. That said, I just read a few reviews on my unit and most have said the same thing so that makes me feel much better. Improvements are probably already realized in Tims model. That said, my camera seems great for its intended purpose(getting wet, in a boat, or hike etc. etc.) but I might be better served with a higher end model for the memory shots and from some of the great shots I've seen on this site, I'd like to know what others really like today. Again, not all the shots are bad from this rig, in fact bright light photos come out as good as i'd expect my film. Though the colors of the fish are a bit 'washed'(as is the common gripe on this rig) this is one of the better ones it has taken.
Edited by Reef Hawg 7/23/2007 6:05 PM
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | Just had a quick play with it....
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Location: Medford, WI | Jason, the camera shop guy was right as far as it's not all about megapixels. I used to know the reason why and wish I would've kept researching/updated with digital photography. I can't remember exactly what it is, but I do know for sure that it's not alllll about MP's.
I have a Canon Rebel SLR film camera that I love to take pics with, and three years ago I got a nice Kodak digital camera on a sweet deal (Z760) and was really impressed with it. As Tim mentioned, Photoshop is a really nice option to have for your digital shots. I usually do two or three things with it; 1. Change the Levels (You pick a spot that's supposed to be black and a spot that's white on the pic and it really helps with the "brightness" and light in your pic; 2. Sometimes Brightness/contrast on it's own helps, and 3. Sharpen the image: if you can set it at the right level, it does really help with clarity.
Unfortunately, both my cameras got wet on a canoe trip (I know, I know...dumb move on my part, even though I would've been completely fine if some moron in a kayak would've have yelled for me to go another way right before I hit the rapids and I listened thinking there was some big, sharp rocks where I was headed!!!) Anyways, now I'm in the market for another camera or two...looking to get the same Kodak Z760 that I already had.
Hope everything works out, Jake Bucki |
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Location: Burlington, WI | I found a huge difference in quality just by switching from a soft gloss to a hard gloss film paper. I print all of my pictures out on my printer for my computer and the hard gloss gave me quite a bit of improvement on the detail. I just have a Canon Powershot A85 (I think) with like 6 megapixels, nothing special and with that hard gloss the pictures come out with very good detail. |
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