The Neowin Digital Photo Gallery

[snippet1]

For Canon owners and users of their software:

UPDATES! :)

ZoomBrowser EX 4.5.1a http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/custom...oombrowser.html (previously posted)

(requires previous version installed)

RemoteCapture 2.7.5 http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/customer/RCW_275.html

(full install)

File Viewer Utility v 1.3.2 http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/customer/fvu-e.html

(requires previous version installed)

and for the rare find :)

PhotoRecord 2.0.0c http://cweb.canon.jp/drv-upd/bj/photorecord-1x.html (in japanese)

direct download - http://download.canon.jp/pub/driver/bj/utility/pr200up2.exe

(requires previous version installed)

What does PhotoRecord do?

[Pigsweeeper]

Maui this summer ..... I scanned the negative to make it digital

[graeme_7799]

great photo pigsweeper, lots of depth and a lovely silhoutte

[Spyder Veteran]

What does PhotoRecord do?

....its an app that lets you easily make albums out of your photos and print it all out. more to it but thats it in a nutshell.

it should be on your cd that came with your camera. photorecord 1.0 gets installed by default along with zoombrowser ex on my cd.

[iCe_2x]

I have the Sony DSC-P72

Awesome camera, but its beginning to **** me off... I've got some Questions

1) It takes forever to take a damn picture, how do I fix this?!

2) What is ISO? What is the best Setting for it?

3) Metering mode? best setting?

4) Focus? Best setting?

5) EV? Thats how bright the picture is .. right??

Thanks guys

[graeme_7799]

iso is the amount of noise or grain in a photo. well actually i shouldn;'t say that, its how SENSITIVE you set the camera to light. digital cameras are trying to make diff iso modes for diff situations, ex. is an impressionistic look on high ISO. the camera is the problem with taking the picture, thats why its slow. the more you pay, the faster the camera. metering mode I dont really wanna get into, check out dpreview.com

focus? thats how sharp the picture is! you have to be focused to take a picture.... EV i believe is electronic viewfinder, ie. the thing you look in when taking a photo. hope this helps, any questions, further problems, please do reply....

[iCe_2x]

iso is the amount of noise or grain in a photo. well actually i shouldn;'t say that, its how SENSITIVE you set the camera to light. digital cameras are trying to make diff iso modes for diff situations, ex. is an impressionistic look on high ISO. the camera is the problem with taking the picture, thats why its slow. the more you pay, the faster the camera. metering mode I dont really wanna get into, check out dpreview.com

focus? thats how sharp the picture is! you have to be focused to take a picture.... EV i believe is electronic viewfinder, ie. the thing you look in when taking a photo. hope this helps, any questions, further problems, please do reply....

So theres no way to make it take pics faster? , my old sony used to be hella fast.. which is why i got this..someone said, "turn off white balance" .. but i dont know how!

btw: i paid 300 bux, i think it should be fast?

[BroChaos Veteran]

you can't turn off white balance, but you can set it to manual. but then you have to set it for every different lighting condition, and for flash too.

stick to evaluative metering mode if you are just a beginner.

stick to AF too. unless you are waiting for the action to come to you.

$300 p&s cameras by nature are slow. nothing you can do.

[graeme_7799]

well I dont believe you would be able to take pics faster. some cameras are just meant to be at a mass consumer level. so they cut back on the prices (ie. components to make the camera run faster) and make a profit. its a corporate marketing scheme. sorry to say, but if you want faster photos, stick with 35mm and scan in negatives, or be prepared to spend more $$$ on merchandise.

PS: Do you remember what model your old Sony was? I think it might have been faster because companies want to save cash, so they cut back and spend cheaper each new year (excluding their professional line of products). And if your old Sony model was faster, why did you sell it? Pixel count isn't always an issue. People get confused and think, Oh, this one has lots of pixels, the little sales person says, thats very good. The lens and camera? they might not be as great as the pixel count! I hope you know this, it might be a review to you (if so, please disregard this)

But yeah, what model was your older Sony?

[Billthy]

For Canon owners and users of their software:

UPDATES! :)

ZoomBrowser EX 4.5.1a http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/custom...oombrowser.html (previously posted)

(requires previous version installed)

RemoteCapture 2.7.5 http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/customer/RCW_275.html

(full install)

File Viewer Utility v 1.3.2 http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/customer/fvu-e.html

(requires previous version installed)

and for the rare find :)

PhotoRecord 2.0.0c http://cweb.canon.jp/drv-upd/bj/photorecord-1x.html (in japanese)

direct download - http://download.canon.jp/pub/driver/bj/utility/pr200up2.exe

(requires previous version installed)

hey man, do you have a canon? if so what one do you have?

[Kasteo]

-: Canon A80 :-

*** Click on the picture to see an original size(detail) ***

[graeme_7799]

nice depth of field effect Kasteo! what aperture did you use? that little canon must have a fast lens!

[aem4162]

-: Canon A80 :-

http://members.aol.com/ThailandZ/Yummy1.jpg

*** Click on the picture to see an original size(detail) ***

**** :o

*anita right-clicks and saves as wallpaper...she's suddenly hungry for strawberries...DAMN this winter weather!!!!*

[Kasteo]

Here is the EXIF information...

CCD Sensitivity : ISO50

ExposureTime : 1/2Sec

FNumber : F2.8

ShutterSpeedValue : 1/2Sec

ApertureValue : F2.8

ExposureBiasValue : EV0.0

MaxApertureValue : F2.8

FocalLength : 7.81(mm)

I'm so full now... just eat those strawberries after I took a shot. It's so sweet...yummy... :laugh:

[SirEvan]

iso is the amount of noise or grain in a photo. well actually i shouldn;'t say that, its how SENSITIVE you set the camera to light. digital cameras are trying to make diff iso modes for diff situations, ex. is an impressionistic look on high ISO. the camera is the problem with taking the picture, thats why its slow. the more you pay, the faster the camera. metering mode I dont really wanna get into, check out dpreview.com

focus? thats how sharp the picture is! you have to be focused to take a picture.... EV i believe is electronic viewfinder, ie. the thing you look in when taking a photo. hope this helps, any questions, further problems, please do reply....

EV = Exposure Value. as in Exposure Compensation.. meaning how many stops +/- you wish to influence your metering mode. This is usefull in various situations, because your camera is especially retarded. It will try to make everything look neutral grey (18% grey). Let's say you go out to the ski lodge one fine winter afternoon with your camera, and want to take a picture of all the snow. you put your camera on program. and you take a picture.. *click* there..but then you go to look at the picture, and everything looks kinda dull or faded, and not really bright white like you remember the snow looking... what to do? you would set EV to +1 - +2 depending on how bright you want it.. usually +1.5 to 2. Now you retake your snow picture.. and voila.. the snow in the image is bright white.. just how it looks in real life. The same goes for taking pictures of that big black dog you have.. dog comes out grey? set EV to -1 to -2, and take a pic.. now the dog looks as black as he does in person.

Basically you are assisting the camera in making it's exposure determination.

ISO as stated, is traditionally the sensitivity of the film you use, but for digital, it's how much current is applied across the CCD/cmos sensor, thus increasing it's sensitivity as well. this is to mimic film sensitivity across the digital sensor.

focus.. is what is blurry, and what isn't... when you focus on something.. the thing you are focusing on becomes sharp, and everything else becomes blurred. This also is affected by Aperture..or, the opening of the blades in your lens. The wider the opening is.. the less stuff is in focus. The smaller the opening... more stuff will be in focus. I know that sounds kinda backwards.. but thats how it is.

Metering mode: there are 3 differnet types of metering modes, and they usually have different names based on which manufacturer you go with, but here are the basic names:

Spot metering: uses aproxamatly 8-10% of the viewfinder, usually where your focus point is selected.. to meter the scene.. this is good for taking pictures of things such as white flowers, where you don't really care about metering the rest of the scene.. as long as the flower comes out nice.

Center-Weighted metering: This is usually different among manufacturers. some do 60/40%, some are 75/25%. what this basically means is that 60% or 75%.. or whichever your camera uses, of the center of the view finder (sometimes has a circle in the view finder to indicate the rough size of the center part) is considered for metering, while the rest of the frame is considered only 25% for metering .. This mode is not used very often, although it is good for portraits, and headshots sometimes.

Matrix metering: This is sometimes called evaluative metering, multi metering, and a few other things, and this technology is closely kept to the manufacturers...it is their biggest secret how they evaluate the scene. depending on how many metering areas your camera has, the cameras computer basically looks at the whole scene, and compairs the brightness levels to an onboard data base of images that were taken by pro photographers. It compairs what it sees to this database, and using proprietary alogrithms, determins proper exposure for the images after evaluating all the metering areas. so lets say you take a picture with alot of stuff in it.. and lets say your camera has 11 metering areas. Your cameras computer will read meter zone 1 as say.. 15% of the total equation, zone 2 as 2%, zone 3 as 25%...etc and then it will average all these together to get a specific aperture and shutter speed values to properly expose the image.

I know that sounds complicated, feel free to message me if you have questions about your camera, I would be happy to fill you in more about specific features and terms.

OOH I almost forgot. The higher the iso... the less light is required to take a pic.. so say you're in a club.. you'd be good around iso 400+ if it's a bright daylight scene, iso 50-200 is fine. If you're in a sports arena.. like ice hocky... good lucky.. you'll need a fast 2.8 lens, and at least iso 800-1600.

Metering mode for you, I'd suggest just leaving it on matrix/multi/whatever your camera calls it.

Evan

Edited January 14, 2004 by SirEvan

[SirEvan]

nice depth of field effect Kasteo! what aperture did you use? that little canon must have a fast lens!

Iso 50 is rather fast, and 2.8 is pretty wide/fast... but he says his exposure time is 1/2 a second.. that's pretty long.. must not have been that much light in the room. Iso 50 is for bright daylight.. would've used iso 200 or so if i were him, could've gotten slightly faster shutter speeds.. nice picture tho.

[sciguy007]

SirEvan, thats some great information up there, especially the stuff about exposure compensation, ive always kinda wondered how to use that. thanks for clearing some things up for me. at least photoshop can fix up my mistakes up to this point :)

[Kasteo]

Iso 50 is rather fast, and 2.8 is pretty wide/fast... but he says his exposure time is 1/2 a second.. that's pretty long.. must not have been that much light in the room.  Iso 50 is for bright daylight.. would've used iso 200 or so if i were him,  could've gotten slightly faster shutter speeds..  nice picture tho.

Wow... you are the Pro, just see the Exif data and you know the conditon the environment I took the picture. I will have to learn a lot from you. I'm very new to the photograhy stuffs(around 2 months). :)

Yes, light in the room is not that bright. I use Tungsten mode to make the orange light from room look white(white balace mode). The reason I'm using ISO50 because I used tripod and with the higher ISO, the more noise you will get in the picture.

Thank you, SirEvan. If you have time to look at some of my pictures I took and wirte anything you think I need to improve to make that picture look better, that would be great. :D

http://www.pbase.com/kasteo

[graeme_7799]

i meant the lens, not the exposure time. sorry for the confusion. talkin about aperture. i'm still gettin into digital, i'm so used to film. i think i mixed up EV and EVF!! lol sorry bout that.

[sin-ergy]

-: Canon A80 :-

http://members.aol.com/ThailandZ/Yummy1.jpg

*** Click on the picture to see an original size(detail) ***

is that a worm i see inside the top strawberry? :omg:

[graeme_7799]

SirEvan, have you heard of siliconfilm.com? You should check it out if you haven't. I've tried contacting them on several occasions and they don't seem to reply. I really like their idea, its brilliant. Its like getting 10MP for less money i'm guessing. Then you could put it in a traditional SLR and bang. Even manual SLR's.

My digital camera is the Olympus E-10. I'm still a 'digital' amateur I guess. But I love photo editing. I've been doing that for some time now.

[aem4162]

is that a worm i see inside the top strawberry? :omg:

no...i think it's an image of a virgin mary ;)

[Billthy]

here is some from our snow storm we just had, sorry some are a bit blurry i dont understand why they are coming out like that

[Billthy]

#2

[graeme_7799]

hmm. what camera do you have billthy? its almost as if the auto-focus has been turned off somehow, because I can already tell that the camera you are using has autofocus only. but the picture would have a lovely effect if it was sharp. so I dunno. let me know