doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com ? on photographing guns and posting online?

Ya'll come too Mark.

Kurt,
What you're thinking of doing will work fine. Have the prints made to standard size, then scan them. The issue is one of time/convenience more than anything. Sure, a good digital SLR could do better in terms of quality. But as someone above said, web pics suffer from quality for other reasons.

If you can spare a few hundred bucks, take the digital plunge. You'll make out in time and in short order, money. With a digital camera, you can go from taking the picture to having it on this bbs in few minutes.

If you are an accomplished 35mm SLR guy, jumping right to a digital SLR would be easy. However, I recommend that a person's first digital be a midsized camera with all the bells and whistles they offer at relatively low cost. You can buy a new close-out model loaded with features. For gun photog, I'd suggest one with a relatively large diameter lense (light gathering and quality), a macro mode (very handy), a built-in flash, and a telephoto mode of at least 8x (for outdoor/hunting).

If you have an old SLR, the lenses may or may not be of any value for use on a new digital SLR. I have a digital SLR now, but held out on film for a long time. Digital SLR models from the big names (Nikon, Canon, etc) are coming out at a rate of a about 2 new models per year or more. That means people are upgrading and selling their earlier models. The high number of used digital SLRs on the market has made them cheaper. However, one of the most useful lenses for gun photog is a macro lens, and these can be fairly expensive for one that does the auto-focus/auto-exposure coupling to a late model camera. If you post the make and lens models of each, the group here may be able to tell you if they will work with a new model of same make.

Take the plunge to digital, you'll like it.

I took pics with my 35mm took them to Thrift Drugs and they turned them into digital pics I have them on my computer now. Came out real nice.
All the best

Excellent advice from Chuck.

Hello Kurt,

I would recommend getting a pre-owned digital camera which you can do for around
$80. Some very good ones out there ( Pre-owned ). Experiment with it and then decide
if you go the SLR way which will set you back several hundred dollars for just the body.
(hopefully you can use your lenses, otherwise you are looking at least at around
$600.- for the likes of a Sony Alpha).

JMTC.

JC

I can highly recommend this model as it's a later version of one I have. The ease of use and macro/super macro setting coupled with a large diameter lense that assures light gathering and excellent image quality makes this camera a really nice package for our bbs usage and other common uses. This would be the best $125 I think you could spend.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Konica-Minolta-DiMAG...1QQcmdZViewItem

I recommend this model highly:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_/105-...p;x=14&y=19

big improvement over my old G2 Canon!

best regards,
JBP

Kurt,

In a nutshell, posting to a website does not require state-0f-the art digital imagery. Your computer monitor cannot reproduce the detail that a printed, much less projected, slide has.

So, go digital, but you need two components: a digital camera, and a computer with the software to repair/enhance the images. That means something halfway serious in the way of a camera, say close to $600 for a point and shoot; e.g. Canon's G9 (if I've got the model right) or Leica's D-Lux 3 (which is what I have). They come with software for your computer. In the case of the Leica it's Adobe Photoshop 4 and you download the module for the D-Lux 3 from the Adobe website, not at all difficult (I'd guess that more recent sales have a CD-ROM with the new module part of the Adobe software).

Why do you need to enhance your images? Basically with gun photos you need to minimize the highlights caused by lighting and increase detail in the shadows. It's dramatic how you can bring out the detail by suppressing highlights/enhancing shadow areas. You can actually take a noontime shot with scanned slide or print film and produce a decent image out of it without the harshness and lost detail in the shadows. But, you've got to invest a few hours to figure out how to use the software.

Using a digital SLR with your old lenses (Canon, Nikon, Leica) is a different matter and quite doable, but you have to invest some serious bucks which is why I am using the Leica point and shoot rather than going to Canon digital SLR so I can use my old EOS lenses.

Regards, Tim

These two pics were taken....





...using this bouce flash technique with an inexpensive point n shoot with a relatively large lens dia.




This pic was with the same camera, using a halogen lamp for light source and in the "super macro" setting.

Chuck, I'm thinking of moving up. Is my 35mm Nikon lens Micro-NIKKOR 105mm compatible with the new digitals, and which of the digitals would you recommend, Canon, Nikon, please? I'm happy with my first digital five years ago, an Olympus 720 ,but I'd like to have greater flexability.