IS this camera okay for me.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Honey,

There are a lot of "twaddle" reviews out on the internet, having seen a few sites, I now have a fair amount of faith in Steve's Digicams, 'he' seems to be unbiassed and tells you useful things in a consistent way. With so many new camers on the market every month, you'll often find he's about 6 - 8 weeks behind what is on the shelves in shops and several months behind the manufacturers premature announcements of their new models.

There are others, I'm sure other members have their favourites - Yes, that's your cue folks, don't miss it

Honey, I would recommend finding one review site you believe in, then stick with that and do all your research there, the consistency this brings may save your sanity.

and beware; not all "customer" reviews on comparison websites are necessarily what they seem!

love honey x

Lots of xxx's Dave

[hoffstriker]

http://www.steves-digicams.com/ is an exceptionally well organized and honest site. I concur with Dave in Recommending it. I would also recommend http://bobatkins.com/photography/ for reviews on solely Canon product, however he does comparisons fairly honestly with other manufacturers.

[honey]

Thanks guys for all your help, i am going with the powershot, going to get it tomorrow !!! so will keep you posted how i get on

Thanks again you lovely guys, love honey



xxxxx

[honey]

Well its all been a bit of a disaster so far lol !!!
First my two choices of camera weren,t available, so in a panic i picked something completly different which was roughly the same price and similiar features, all that research i did means nothing now because i haven,t seen any reveiws and don,t know anything about this camera !!!
Frist prob i,m not sure its compatiable with my pc and for the life of me i can,t figure out where the memory card goes!!!
So going to have to wait till tomorrow when my son visits and hope he can sort it out for me.
Honestly don,t think i will be ready for a slr anytime soon lol so hopefully i can get it all sorted , i have just got back so i am go google for info on the camera, its a samsung PL60 hope i haven,t been too rash in my choice.
Anyway i am all in a flap now, be back soon love honey xxx

[wjh31]

the sd card goes in a slot near the battery, open the battery chamber on the bottom of the camera and the sd card goes in there infront of the battery, i.e there should be a slot closer to the front of the camera than the battery with the metal contacts facing the front of the camera, look around page 14 of the manual which is available online ( http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/co...60_English.pdf )

[honey]

Hi Wjh31 thanks for your help, i am trying to get it in but it won,t go all the way down,i got it the right way round, metal bit facing front camera it is a 4gb card
I am a real tech-dinosaur as you have probably gathered lol, i can,t read the manuel on line as don,t know how , i am new to computors too .
Will i break it if i push it in harder .
Thanks honey xx

[Dave Humphries]

Will it break it if i push it in harder?

As long as you are putting it in with the end with the corner cut off first (and the contacts as Will said) I doubt it. It ought to feel like you are pushing against a spring and at a certain point it will click in. If it doesn't feel like you are pushing against a spring, then don't force it, wait until your son arrives - and let him break it

To get it out; you push it in a little further still, against the spring pressure, then it suddenly releases and 'boings out'.

HTH,

[honey]

I done it !!! hurray !!! i had it facing the wrong way what a ordeal already !!!
Bet you all can,t wait for my pictures lol, god knows what their be like
Right i,m playing with the settings now doing the time,date etc
Thank goodness its got Auto mode !!! looks like there are a fair few other settings i can explore later when i get the hang of it.
I am going to charge it up now then try some pics tomorrow ha ha

Thanks sweetie for your help love honey xxx

[honey]

Hi guys been really busy today , had a little play on my camera and took a few pitures lol , here is my first efforts, feel a bit embrassed after seeing all your great pics








PS the helicoptor and train were moving lol so i did manage to capture some of it
Love hunny xxx

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Hunny xxx,

here is my first efforts, feel a bit embrassed after seeing all your great pics

Don't worry, everyone starts somewhere!

I'm going to advise you how to avoid some of the possibly unexpected things that happened with these, now some you may have already worked out yourself, if so, apologies for stating the obvious. I have also assumed you're a beginner and want to improve the quality of traditional shots and you were not actually intending to get some of these effects, it is not my intention to be patronising, just helpful

OK, No.1 primarly demonstrates shutter delay, to avoid this happening in future, you just need to take pictures of things that might get hidden a little earlier, same if you want say, horses jumping fences - they generally look better taking off rather than landing, but shutter delay makes that tricky to achieve with digital. Some cameras are worse than others. The other thing would be to zoom in as far as you can to get the helicopter as big as possible.

No.2 is what I'd call a picture without a subject, or too many subjects; swing, railings? It also doesn't look that sharp, are you half pressing the shutter button and giving the camera time to focus before finishing pressing?

No.3 has a sloping horizon , assuming this wasn't deliberate, and I appreciate the horizon and the trees are at different angles, you just need to look at the screen when composing, decide what ought to be level or vertical, e.g. the horizon or the buildings in this case and let the trees do their thing and finally, when taking the picture, gently squeeze down on the shutter button. If you stab at it or press it too quickly, it will likely upset the levelness of the pictures.

No.4 demonstrates why we photographers use a trick called panning on shots of moving objects. Next time, to avoid a blurry train; pick a bit of the train, (e.g. the front is traditional) and follow that by moving the camera in a gentle sideway motion as the train passes, taking the picture while you are still moving in time with the train, clicking just before it gets to you. Sadly, this also isn't level , but hey, that's arty, right?


Incidentally, as if by magic, Steve's Digicams now has just put up a review of this under its alternative (US) model number of SL420. Here's a link to the conclusions of the review, which you may find useful to read. I read up on my cameras there to spot features I overlooked from reading the manual that came in the box! Anyway, bottom line is 'he' was quite impressed with it "highly recommended", so you did OK with that model choice

So, in conclusion, we shall expect to see some better pics tomorrow! LOL
Nah, it is optional.

You did well getting the image posting working first time, so I think there's hope for you

By the way, you're obviously UK based, judging by the train, etc., where are you? (If I may be so nosey )

Hope that's helpful,

[honey]

Hi Dave Thankyou for your comments and advice, lol my pics are pretty bad !!! i half expected them to be removed by mods for their awfulness lol.
Yes i am a complete beginner as is pretty obvious , overall i am pretty pleased with my camera, but even as a complete novice i am disapointed a bit, i feel it is only a slight step up from my basic mobile phone, i am pleased with the zoom as i had none before or just a 1x, but the shutter time on my new camera is pretty bad almost the same as my mobile, i wish i had gone for something more advanced now, even a complete novice as myself lol i find the camera a bit simple to use.
I can manuely set a lot of the settings but the most important thing i have relized is the shutter time and i can,t do much about that but it feels so slow !!!

Thankyou again Dave for your advice, i will try some more tomorrow

[honey]

A few more i took today Dave









The last shot was my attempt at close ups lol, as for the plane i just can,t get these shots right lol !!!

Did you see my doggie pics i posted earlier. love hunny xxx

[wjh31]

For the last two, it looks like you missed the focus.

The berries have the focus on the leaves behind it. It may be that your camera cant focus that close so had to focus on the leaves, or the auto focus may havemissed the berries. Try putting the thing you want to focus on in the centre of the frame, then pushing the shutter half way down, this locks the focus and exposure for the berry. You can then move the camera a bit to position the berries where you want in the frame, but not forward/backward else the focal plane will move.

With the plane, it looks like your camera has had problems focusing far away, it can be a problem when you try and point the camera at the sky as the camera doesnt know to focus far away. Some cameras have an option to force the focus to infinity, others have a manual focus which you could also set to infinity, then you just need to worry about getting the plane in shot rather than focusing on the right place.

Edit: ive just looked through the manual i linked earlier, and for the berries, once you turn it onto macro mode the closest you can get the camera is 10cm when zoomed out ('wide') or 50cm when you are zoomed in ('tele'). For the plane, it seems you may be able to force focus to infinity if you turn the dial to scene mode then select fireworks, which looks like a dot with a circle of other dots around it.

[honey]

Thankyou wjh31 for your tips , i will try again tomorrow to improve my pics
Looking at them again i can see exactly what you mean, i need to learn more about my camera and the features it offers, i,m finding it hard to do the half shutter thing but will keep practicing, thanks again i really want to learn to do it right. x

[Dave Humphries]

Blush!

Yes, I did see the Yogibear pics, they were all quite good I thought and that's a lovely dog you have. I'll do a separate reply there on those.

#1; That wood needs a coat of paint! The dog is a little too hidden perhaps?

#2; If the camera were pointed a little lower and we had the end of the tail would be nice, or just not zoom in quite so much. It also seems the grass behind Yogibear is sharper than he is. Is it possible the camera focused on him, then you took a step closer, or zoomed in a bit while still half holding the shutter button down?

#3; Looks to me like the camera, set to a wide area focus, tried to make both the tree and the plane sharp but failed dismally. Best to get only one thing in shot at a time so it stands a better chance.

#4; I think you may have been too close and possibly not in Macro mode, or too zoomed in for the distance to berries
Steve's Digicams says this about focus modes:

Normal: 2.6 ft. (80cm) to infinity at wide angle
Macro: 4.0 in. - 2.6 ft. (10cm - 80cm) wide angle, but 1.6 - 2.6 ft. (50cm - 80cm) at telephoto

This is probably more distance than your camera phone, sadly.

Hope they help, tarrah for now,

[honey]

Hi Dave Thankyou for your advice
#1 the first pic was actually about 12 ft above me, and i saw this dogs head poking over lol so had to shoot it, the pic not the dog i mean lol but it is rather a bland boring shot.
#2 I see what you mean about this shot, yogi was actually moving in this shot maybe why it seems out of focus
#3 I was at the bottom of a hill when i saw the plane think i expected too much here
#4 I put the camera in macro mode but didn,t do the half shutter thing properly will try that one again.

Thanks Dave, love hunny xxx

[honey]

morning , i have tried a few more close up shots doing the shutter thing lol

[wjh31]

thats loads better, the first one looks like you missed the focus a little again but the rest are looking good.

I take it the plane still eludes you

[honey]

Hi wjh31 Thanks for your comments, ya i see what you mean in the first pic.
I did try to get a plane, time i got the camera out and found the firework mode it had gone past lol, i will get my plane pic !!!

Something i found i get some strange looks when i using my camera, think ppl think i,m crazy i was busy peering in to the blackberry bush and looked up and this couple were looking at me real strange

[wjh31]

when you are getting strange looks, you know you are doing it right.

if you are starting to feel a little more confident now, i might suggest you start playing around with a little post processing. Google (or bing!) for and download a program called 'the gimp' and try having a play with it, just experiment.