Time for a newb?

B

bastage

Pics of your wife?
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
12,874
So I have never been one to take allot of pictures even though I have owned a digital camera for many years. My 1st was a 1.3mp poloroid that I though was awesome way back in the day.

Well for the last couple months it kept popping back up that I don't have many pictures of the family. Hell other then craigslist & the very occasional shot of my daughter I haven't even gotten my money's worth out of the 10mp Samsung sl420 I bought for 80 something bucks a couple years ago at Walmart.

Well I have a family vacation coming up. Me & the wife are taking my 5 year old daughter to San Diego with the sole intention of visiting the zoo, but will be going to the wild animal park & SeaWorld as well. I want to get some good pictures.

So I started a thread in GenMay for recommendations with a couple requirements & the biggest of which was I wanted at-least a 20x zoom as all of the times when I wished I had a camera on me & didnt it was to get a picture of something at great distance..

So I bought a Nikon that I absolutely hated. I could not get a sharp picture & promptly returned it.. Further into the thread a couple of members kept circling back to a Canon sx20is or sx30is. Well I found a sx30is on craigslist for a price I thought was good (225) & I picked it up yesterday..

So all of that to say.. Im a newb & what are the best practices to get some good pictures.
 
Practice, practice, practice. Do this before your trip. Take many pictures of your family members now. Take pictures in your house/apartment and outside. Pass the camera to your wife also, so she can feel comfortable taking a picture. You should show up in a few also!:D

Review the pictures and notice the ones you and your family like. I'm guessing they'll be the ones with your family members as the subjects, and the environment they are in as secondary.

The zoo photos I always like are the ones with the kids expressions as they see the animals. Also their excited happy faces as they view the exhibitions. If you see another family with a camera, ask if they'd want you to take a picture of all of them and if they'd do the same in return. I suggest not taking pictures of only the animals. Find a balance between being behind the camera, and just having fun with the family.

Technically, read the camera manual so you know the features available, and an understanding and comfort in the different automatic modes. Make sure you are taking all your photos at 14.1 megapixels and at super fine jpg setting, and not some ridiculous low quality mode - make sure you know what is shown on the LCD when you are in the best quality mode. The worse thing is getting home and loading up the computer to find that you are in some 1 megapixels, ultra low jpg mode the whole time. Notice what symbol is displayed on the screen when there is a risk of camera shake making the picture blurry, and then switch to a different mode or ISO sensitivity so the blurry shake symbol goes away.

Edit: At 5 years old, your daughter might like having a go at taking a few photos. See if she is interested. Pixels are cheap. Kids have a different view of the world; she might just take some really cool photos. Let her use the old Samsung, if you aren't comfortable letting her use the new one.
 
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Thanks for the feedback MN Scout.. I intend to basically carry it with me for the next month until its time to go so I should be nice & comfortable with it. I hadnt considered actually reading the manual, but I will make sure to do that. The MP setting is a must, I never change the quality. I also know to not use the digital zoom. I will in fact disable it if such a option exists (which I will learn when I read the manual).

The wife has absolutely no ambition to touch it at all. I just offered in fact & she was like NO.. The daughter on the other hand loves to take pictures with her DS & some kids digital camera. I am not sure if I am going to let her use the samsung, or my old Photosmart m517 (5.2mp w/ 3x zoom). I am not at all worried about the photosmart coming home given its age & obsolesce, but in case the kid manages to steady long enough to take a picture the samsung is of course a much better performer. Not to mention the Samsung's battery life is awesome where the HP, well not so much...

I am also going to order a larger memory card. Was thinking this 32gb. I know that some have issues with video & although I think the limiting factor will be my abilities I want to make sure there is no bottleneck from the card, & I need one big enough to last the whole trip (as I don't own a laptop). Was also thinking about a mono-pod to help steady incase I do move that lens all the way out.
 
I have never used a mono-pod. Have read that they are useful. Anybody else with any experience with a mono-pod want to chime in?

Regarding the memory card, that looks like a good one. I'd try and fill it up a time or two after you get it to make sure everything is good with the card and it won't fail right away. Copying files to it from your computer, and then copying them back off will work. Also shoot a bunch of video to make sure there isn't any stuttering, freezing or early ending of the recording. (Depending on how concerned you are with data loss, you could shoot with two 16GB cards, so you'd only lose half the data if something catastrophic happens.)
 
Well I hope I dont regret it, but newegg has the Patriot EP Series 64GB on Sale for 51 bucks with promo code EMCNDNB222. So I bit & ordered it. Couldnt find a whole lot of info other then that it is fast. It is Class 10 & "UHS-I (Ultra High Speed) Compliant" whatever that means.
 
Class 10 is good as opposed to lower numbers. I have a 16GB card from Amazon that is a class 10 and the videos and pictures come out fine. I also shoot in raw and that alone holds atleast 500 pictures. So 64 will be more than enough for you. I don't have a mono pod so I can't help you there. I also don't believe there is a setting in any cameras to disable digital zoom. But i'm not certain. I have a canon 60d so I haven't dealt with digital zoom. Definitely play with all the different picture settings in the camera to see what works best at what times.
 
Yeah it only took me about 5 minutes to find the setting to disable the digital zoom.

I think 64gb should be good for like EVER.. Currently my 4gb card I bought when I got my HP which was at this point 5+ years ago & I have never formatted it or deleted any pictures..

Looks like I will have plenty of time to learn anyhow as my trip just got cancelled. My dad got sick & we found out he has cancer earlier this week & will be having surgery right in the middle of when me & the wife were going to be in San Diego so I wont be going anywhere.
 
Well I thought I would update this.. Dads surgery came out ok so we went for a small vacation anyway since we had the time off work. Started out by going to salt lake city to go to lagoon & then the zoo. Well didnt take the camera into lagoon, but dropped it getting out of the car when getting back to the hotel that night. Wasn't a far drop & it was in its padded case so I didnt imeaditly think anything of it. Well the next morning when I pulled it out to make sure the battery was charged before going to the hogle zoo I found that the internal lens had shifted & now takes pictures of the external lens.. Also get a grinding noise when working the zoom.

So we go to the zoo & my 6 year old gets plenty of shots with her Samsung sl420. Well aside fromt he camera thing my windshield got a hige rock chip (non repairable) & several new scratches on my car, and my wife, daughter & mother got to be at a baskin robins as it was getting robbed. Then the last straw is that our hotel lost power so we left. On an impromptu move we decided to head to vegas. While there I stopped by fry's & they have the sx40 hs on sale for 270, so new camera for me..

I must say that this is a hell of an upgrade for a novice like myself. Using the super zoom while holding the camera it still takes clear pictures. I ahve some examples, but I cant find my card reader & the camera wont locate the directory (we had a total of 5 cameras in use so before I left vegas I coped all to a master folder on my moms desktop & then coped back to a folder on my 64gb card, but it was higher in the directory structure then DCIM which is the highest I can access through the camera).
 
That sure was an experience!

Bummer about the camera, car, windshield. Great to hear that your Dad's sugery went alright, and that your family made it all back home alive and safe.
 
MN Scout said:
Bummer about the camera, car, windshield. Great to hear that your Dad's sugery went alright, and that your family made it all back home alive and safe.
Click to expand...

Yeah this about sums up my week off work..

Here are some same shots I did witht he sx40 to try out the zoom.. Keep in mind as well these were freehand with no tripod or brace to the camera or my hands/arms.

I added a red arrow in this to each of the next 2 pics.
http://oi45.tinypic.com/2u7ce1i.jpg

This one had the full 35x optical & then some digital zoom before I disabled the digital zoom.
http://oi49.tinypic.com/29yfgpw.jpg

This was all optical zoom.
http://oi46.tinypic.com/be6fzq.jpg

Witht he sx30 I was able to get the long shots as well, but it required a tripod or some solid bracing at bare minimum as well..

This is just a pic I snapped off in the distance. We were driving along highway 93 in northern nevada for this one.
http://oi50.tinypic.com/23jh2fo.jpg

I have also notice that in low light the sx40 does a damn good job where the sx30 got grainy..

So overall even though it cost me quite a shiny new penny that I wasnt planning to spend I am very happy with the new camera..
 
Digital is basically free, so just go take pictures of everything and see how it turns out.
 
Skillz said:
Digital is basically free, so just go take pictures of everything and see how it turns out.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that is mostly true. Though I just bough a 2TB drive, and then another one for backup. $349.90 :eek:

Lesson: if you bracket only keep the best ones, timelapse sequences are evil, delete the worst photos....

I whole heartily agree with the take pictures of everything, in different ways, and look at them critically and learn what you like, don't like, and what could be better. If you take criticism well post up pictures here and ask for comments good and bad.
 
yeah I am not at all worried about the space.. My server has 10tb as it is & I am only utilizing about 40% now so I have plenty of room to go.
 
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