doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com CAMERAS FOR POSTED GUN PICS

Two comments:

-Lots of pixels do not always mean good quality. The camera I mentioned has
"only" 3.2 mega pixels.

-Second LeeS' tip on using the delay/timer to avoid movement.

Good photos, btw.

JC

Camera technologies change very fast. Last Christmas, the most advanced point-n-shoot pocket camera I could find for my wife was a Canon S90 and it was over $400 at the time. Now you can buy it for around $329 on Amazon.com.

The Canon S90 never ceases to amaze me...and I've had quite a few digital cameras, including my latest big DSLR a D300 Nikon. But the S90 has really great onboard processing and logic. Color saturation and exposure is a dream. The sensor is from their semi-pro G-11. But the software logic is better than the G-11 in my opinion.

If you can swing the price, I think it's still one of the best pocket Point-n-shoot cameras out there. The lens retracts and the whole thing is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

That said, any digital camera will take pix of guns that are adequate for the net. Some will just take better pix than others.

All the above advice is excellent but you may have got a bit confused with some of the technical terms.
Basically you have 2 main types of camera and they will both take excellent photos.

You have the pocket camera which most people hold at arms length and view the screen on the rear to compose the photo. These are excellent value for money and will take cracking photos. The two main disadvantages are that at arms length they wobble about a lot and the small lens is always going to struggle if you are looking for much more than a snapshot. Mostly these will work automatically if you don’t want to fiddle with the settings.

The second type of camera is the SLR (single lens reflex). Here you look through a view finder and a mirror and prism enable you to look through the actual lens which will take the photograph. While these cameras are larger and more expensive they do have many advantages. You can change lenses for ultra close up or telephoto work. Holding the camera against your nose is a great aid to steadiness. You can manually focus which can be a help especially on close up work. The SLR’s do tend to be more expensive as you would expect. These will operate automatically if you wish or you can usually take charge of the settings manually to add that personal touch.

There are also a number of hybrid designs where you normally look through a view finder but the image you see is projected from a small LCD screen.

I think you need to decide on which type you want to go for, make sure it has adequate megapixels, 8 – 12 should be OK, check it can get up close (macro facility) and then look for one which feels good in your hands and represents good value for money.
Best of luck.

+1 on no need for mega-megapixels.

Most of these were taken with an ancient Nikon Coolpix950....2 whopping megapixels or 1600x1200 resolution.(actual gun pics on pages 4,5 and 6)...click the picture then "actions" then "see all sizes". Biggest available is only 1024x768 though, let my subscription lapse...DOH!

2mp pics

I am about to see if Nikon will refurb it...I like it that much, and I use a D70 at work:)

Best,
Mark

Hello Mark,

Great photos. Congratulations!

JC

It does go to show that no matter how many megapixels you have a good lens is essential for pin sharp photos. I have to say that I have some early digital photos, which I would love to print off in a large format, but they just don't have enough pixels. I completely agree with the comment to use the highest resolution you have - you can always reduce the size of the file but you can't easily improve on the original. I think you will find that most modern cameras have plenty of megapixels as standard. Hard drive storage has become so cheap now it isn't worth economising on picture size – you may well regret it in years to come.

Totally agree. If you have the size, use it is what I say!

JC

Thanks JC...and I do agree with you about the size thing:)

Mark

Years ago I needed a digital camera because I was interested in getting fast good pictures. I had been used to an SLR, using a Minolta SRT 101 with a few lenses, and then I went to a Nikon F1 with the FTN feature with various Nikor lenses.
The digital camera I settled on back then was an Olympus Camedia C-2000 with 2.1 Megapixels. Took great pictures and coupled up with the HP Photo and Imaging program I could crop and adjust the pictures. The downfall was that at the time you had to use the Camedia batteries which were NI-MH. Regular Duracell batteries would let you take one picture and that was it. I upgraded the memory card to 32 MB. On high resolution it allowed me to take about 64 pictures. That camera back then when they first came out was a $1000.
A few years ago I got my wife a Nikon Coolpix S520, fits into my top pocket. It has 8.0 Megapixels with an ISO of 2000, upgraded the card to 512 MB and the battery will die a few tunes before you fill the card. Takes unbelievable pictures, I still use the HP program but now have Photoshop Elements 7 to do editing and to write on.
I think that camera then was less than $250.
I still like the SLR feature and I'm thinking about getting a Nikon D3000, with a 18-55 mm zoom 10.2 Megapixels and a 3" LCD Monitor. You can buy the kit for $499. Best thing is I can use my old Nikor lenses in the manual mode.

The whole thing comes down to is "what do you really need". These new digital cameras are basically fool proof and take excellent pictures. The main thing as you can see on a lot of these gun sites is lousy lighting.

Good luck and let us know what you decide on.

I think with the point-n-shoot cameras, they are constantly improving them in terms of onboard software/firmware logic and sensor technology. A few pictures with a current camera will reveal striking image quality improvements without the post processing often needed for earlier cameras. Heck the pix out of my wife's S90 often look better than many out of my DSLR Nikon D300.

For the budget mentioned, I know of no new DSLR available that will do what a good point-n-shoot will do (macro, telephoto, mid length).