• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Need help picking out a digital camera for work. Help!

T

Terr0r

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
275
Okay so I work at an Architecture Firm and it was mentioned to me that I should look for another digital camera for the firm. Now, I know NOTHING about digital cameras, but what the camera will be used for is taking pictures of buildings. I don't know if its possible but widescreen picture would be nice (some buildings are very long). The price should be reasonable, I'm thinking ~$200? Needs a digital display on the camera, needs a viewfinder

Thanks for all of your help!
 
is less than $200 a price set by you or the company you work for? I ask because for $200 or less you are not going to get anything that great and if you are looking for quality architecture photos for your company then I think you'll want to invest a little more. Sub $200 digital cameras can be found in most any store and if thats your budget then I suggest you go try them out and see what you like. Sub $200 I'd suggest Canon for their P&S cameras but not sure how wide these low end comsumer cameras will get you without accessories?
 
In architecture you generally want to be able to control the perspective of the images produced. To do that with the absolute highest quality requires an SLR (film or digital) with a tilt-shift lens. Which would be at least 5x-10x over your budget since the lens alone would be at least $700 but closer to $900...

On the other hand, if you can stand to lose some quality you could always use the perspective correction in Photoshop to approximate it and get the verticals vertical. You'd also have to de-barrel the images so lines are definately straight. In the end very tall buildings would be weird blot of pixels at their tops, while the bottoms look alright... If you could get far enough away and zoom in the images would be somewhat better because there is less perspective to correct, but correction would still be necessary unless you can get the sensor plane parallel to the building's walls/up/down plane...


So what kind of pictures do you need to produce for your architecture firm...? Do you guys have a staff photographer (some firms hire professional photographers for some shots, but it can get expensive if they're good at it) or did someone (you) draw a straw out of a hat and get this task?
 
we dont need a really fancy camera at all, its mainly for taking pictures of schools or other projects so we can create elevations from them, or send to places, etc. We hire specialized photographers for our presentation shots, but not for the stuff we need this for.

It really doesnt need to be anything special, just a decent one for ~200
 
I don't have much expirence in this compact class of cameras, but the Canon PowerShot A510 looks to be a decent camera that fits your budget & needs. If you need a little bit more resolution the A520 is nearly identical with a slightly higher megapixel sensor, but the A510 should deliver useable results.

A510 Review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona510/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top