Digital Camera ?

[netposer]

I know the feeling, latest vehicle has the DVD built in for driving and we fly almost exclusively Song or Jet Blue for in flight TV and movies. I am a www.fatwallet.com and www.techbargains.com junkie. I have a thin wallet because of those sites, but hey I save a lot.

How big is the DVD screen in your vehicle? I was thinking about installing one (DVD system) but my laptops have 15.4" screens and we don't do that much traveling so spending 5 mins setting up the laptop is working.

I'm gonna try an FM modulator this trip instead of the cassette adapter.

 

[manticore]

How big is the DVD screen in your vehicle? I was thinking about installing one (DVD system) but my laptops have 15.4" screens and we don't do that much traveling so spending 5 mins setting up the laptop is working.

I'm gonna try an FM modulator this trip instead of the cassette adapter.

It is relatively small 7"-8" but my DS is sitting right in front of it. It is mounted on the back of the armrest between the driver and the front seat passenger, so it is very easy to see from all three back seat positions, unlike some units mounted on the ceiling. It also has the wireless headsets and allows me to listen to whatever I want without having to listen to Nemo again and again and again. (Sorry, I love the movie just not everytime i get in the car) I'll tell you, I have not heard "ARE WE THERE YET?" since we got the car, instead it is "Can we go around the block once I want to see this part!!".

BTW the car is the Malibu Maxx LT. Nice car but not my choice. For driving fun I prefer my old Pontiac Vibe GT, but it didn't have a DVD player and the 6sp tranny was a pain for my job. The Malibu fits both needs nicely and with employee discount from my old man couldn't beat the price. They had $5,000 rebate on top of $3,500 discount when I bought it.

 

[netposer]

It is relatively small 7"-8" but my DS is sitting right in front of it. It is mounted on the back of the armrest between the driver and the front seat passenger, so it is very easy to see from all three back seat positions, unlike some units mounted on the ceiling. It also has the wireless headsets and allows me to listen to whatever I want without having to listen to Nemo again and again and again. (Sorry, I love the movie just not everytime i get in the car) I'll tell you, I have not heard "ARE WE THERE YET?" since we got the car, instead it is "Can we go around the block once I want to see this part!!".

BTW the car is the Malibu Maxx LT. Nice car but not my choice. For driving fun I prefer my old Pontiac Vibe GT, but it didn't have a DVD player and the 6sp tranny was a pain for my job. The Malibu fits both needs nicely and with employee discount from my old man couldn't beat the price. They had $5,000 rebate on top of $3,500 discount when I bought it.

We bought a KIA minvan 2 years ago and have been to Disney in it twice. This year I'm taking my XM SkyFi2 with me so I don't have to *listen* to movies the entire trip.

I setup my laptop on a "milk" crate just behind and between the 2 front seats. My wife and daughter (sorry, don't feel comfortable saying DW or DD--lol) can sit back and relax with pillows and blankets from NC to FL. When we stop they are upset when we have to pause the movie.

I have a TiVo with the TTG/HMO option. This allows me to transfer tv shows/movies to the laptop from the TiVo. So this year we are gonna try that out. Maybe transfer "Good Eats" or "Lizzy McGuire" to the laptop before we leave.

 

[manticore]

We bought a KIA minvan 2 years ago and have been to Disney in it twice. This year I'm taking my XM SkyFi2 with me so I don't have to *listen* to movies the entire trip.

I setup my laptop on a "milk" crate just behind and between the 2 front seats. My wife and daughter (sorry, don't feel comfortable saying DW or DD--lol) can sit back and relax with pillows and blankets from NC to FL. When we stop they are upset when we have to pause the movie.

I have a TiVo with the TTG/HMO option. This allows me to transfer tv shows/movies to the laptop from the TiVo. So this year we are gonna try that out. Maybe transfer "Good Eats" or "Lizzy McGuire" to the laptop before we leave.

I picked up one of TIVO DVD players last fall, that transfer option is great. The Windows XP media 2005 also gives that capability.

 

[Carrie Ellis]

I am not very digital camera savy so please forgive me! I have a Fuji Film S3000. With 4 kids moving all the time I can not get my pictures to not be blurry. Even pictures of other things that move slightly. I have worked with the settings and I have read the instructions. Is there a digital camera that is good for people with kids because they are always moving! I am considering getting a new camera before our next trip.

 

[netposer]

I am not very digital camera savy so please forgive me! I have a Fuji Film S3000. With 4 kids moving all the time I can not get my pictures to not be blurry. Even pictures of other things that move slightly. I have worked with the settings and I have read the instructions. Is there a digital camera that is good for people with kids because they are always moving! I am considering getting a new camera before our next trip.

That camera should take photos of moving objects without being blurry. Some cameras have icons that show the type of scene. Like a sports figure for shooting moving objects.

I'd break out the manual and play with it for a bit trying the different settings before trying to take 'real' photos.

 

[manticore]

I am not very digital camera savy so please forgive me! I have a Fuji Film S3000. With 4 kids moving all the time I can not get my pictures to not be blurry. Even pictures of other things that move slightly. I have worked with the settings and I have read the instructions. Is there a digital camera that is good for people with kids because they are always moving! I am considering getting a new camera before our next trip.

Looking at some of the comments on this camera over at www.dpreview.com, I noticed you are not alone in this complaint for this camera. You will find though that most digitals are not as good as film in capturing motion, but what is usually more the issue is missing the shot due to slow shutter not focus. It does seem a few people do have focus complaint on this camera.

 

[ukcatfan]

Look for a camera that has a fast lens all the way through the zoom range. Most new cameras have f/2.8 at wide angle, but go to something like f/4.8 at full zoom. This means that there is less light getting to the sensor and therefor the camera requires a longer shutter speed to capture the image properly. The longer the shutter, the more likely that you will get a blurry picture. Blurring could also be caused by not keeping the camera still enough. Cameras with image stabilization help with this.

I recently upgraded from a Canon A70 to a Canon S1 IS which has both a faster lens (f/3.1 at 10x zoom) and image stabilization. I have seen a dramatic improvement. It also has a 10x optical zoom which is pretty fun. I was torn between this camera and a similar ultra zoom from Panasonic. The Panasonic probably takes a slight edge over my S1 IS, but I already had the memory and extra batteries to work with my S1 IS. I would have had to spend over $100 more to get those with the Panasonic. In my opinion, it is always helpful when you do not have to buy new media and can use AAs instead of specialized batteries.

I believe that your Fuji used xD memory, so you could save money by sticking to Fuji and Olympus models.

 

[Dementia]

Anyone have one of these? I've been trying to find someone else who owns one because there's an issue I've been having with it (the only other person I know to own one has the same issue), and I want to learn if there are any tricks to maximizing this camera so we can get the best quality photos we can out of this. I've checked the manual (which didn't give me much) and also google'd the camera, but I haven't found anything helpful. I'd actually rather discuss the camera with people who have used it as opposed to reading reviews from a website, you know?

 

[tigertam]

Hey...thanks for all your help! I just ordered a Canon A95 from Dell. It actually worked very well...I just bought a computer from Dell, so they gave me a $35 coupon for accessories and with the discount there and free shipping, I got if for $244. Hope that was a decent deal! Wish me luck with it! THANKS AGAIN!

I bought a canon A80 in Mar. 2004 and I love it. It takes great pictures, it has features to use if I'm interested in growing. I believe it was considered easy enough for the amatuer but has the capabilities of the intermediate. One of the reasons I bought it (along with everything else it bragged about) was because all camera's in the same comparison catagories all seemed to have about the same quality pictures, but the A80 was the best for low light situations and indoor photos. I do my share of indoor photos and hate getting dark pictures due to poor lighting. I was highly impressed that I can take birthday pictures and they come out great! I can take a picture in the complete dark and it looks like it was taken in the day time. The pictures of them blowing out the candles come out awesome! And of course with most camera's the outdoor pictures are vibrant with color. The only thing I do not like about the camera is the delay of how long it takes to take a picture. Hopefully the A95 shutter speed is faster. But I believe at the time most cameras at that time were the same speed unless you paid big money to compensate.

 

[manticore]

But I believe at the time most cameras at that time were the same speed unless you paid big money to compensate.

Even spending big money on a point and shoot like my Pro 1 or the Minolta A2 will still give you fits with slow shutterspeeds.. The only way to take good action shots is prefocus on the spot you think it is going to happen. Of course you could solve the problem completely and buy a Digital SLR.

 

[tigertam]

Even spending big money on a point and shoot like my Pro 1 or the Minolta A2 will still give you fits with slow shutterspeeds.. The only way to take good action shots is prefocus on the spot you think it is going to happen.

I just started experimenting with my cannon A80. They have a special button that takes action shots. I didn't experiment a lot, but it did take pictures of them dancing and moving and they come out good. Do most cameras in that range(4mp) have that feature, or was this another feature the cannon just had?

And about getting action shots. I just keep clicking until I get the right photo. ie. trying to get babys first smile, and digital is so slow. You know what another feature I think I have is continuous shots for action, just reminded me I haven't tried it.

 

[manticore]

Most of the new digicams have some kind of action preset function. It sets things like aperature, f-stop and ISO for you. This works fine as long as there is adequate lighting. In poor lighting conditions on highers ISO you will get more noise in the darker areas and shadows. This may not be a big deal on most 4x6 prints but as you go larger it becomes more noticable. A lot of it can be taken care of using software. The only drawback to the noise software solutions is a little loss of sharpness and detail.

Yes many cameras also have continuous shooting. The number of shots per second varies by camera. Yours is good for about 4 pictures every 1.5 second. (www.steves-digicams.com).

 

[darlene9947]

Okay there are a few things that will dictate which camera you want.

I used to work at a camera store (along with 3 housekeeping jobs amongst others in college! lol) so for me I'm a bit picky about cameras. Plus my father does wedding photography so I'm used to new camera hunting with my father. That being said my husband just got me a camera from Circuit City last week for my birthday, and I'm very impressed with it. It's a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P93A, has 5.1 Mega pixels, 3 zooms, and it shoots movies as well. The pictures are phenomenal and when you activate the close picture feature you can get as close as 4 inches to the object you are photographing, and the pictures come out extremely clear. There are different flash features, the camera is small, but not so small that you need a magnifying glass to read the labels, and you can take pictures when it is practically pitch black. If someone would tell me how to post pictures on here I can post a few non-Disney examples from this past weekend.

Theres even a slow flash feature that brings dark backgrounds into stark focus along with the person your photographing. An example of this is say that a person in a house is standing about 5 feet in front of a doorway to a hall. The halls lights are out but with this feature the details of the hall come. I imagine that this would very well when photographing in indoor Disney areas.

It's great for fast action shots as well. We have two ferrets that run around like mad and they always come out clearly in pictures. I haven't had a chance to try photographing traffic on a street yet though, I'll let you know how that experiment turns out. (I always do that with new cameras to get an idea of how well their fast action shots come out.)

It also has a nice feature where it captures about 16 frames within a second or two, thus allowing you to see how something moves across your camera screen. This is good if your checking the form of a runner or just want kicks out of watching how your pets run. You can also do time lapse easily on this camera so we have quite a few of our ferrets streaking across the floor with short time lapse settings on this one.

The only downside to the camera is the video feature. The videos come out beautifully mind you, so long as you are outside or in a brightly lit room. If you film inside in a normally lit room though the camera does not have an extra light source (like you cannot turn the flash on and keep it on) to add mroe lighting so then videos in darker indoor areas become a bit too dark for my taste. However that is to be expected since it is a digital camera primarily.

The memory cards are also relatively inexpensive at Circuit City compared to most places. You can get something around 556 for $70 right now. If you plan on using the video feature with a camera like this you need a memory card that size and you will get about 35 minutes of video onto it.

It's easy to load things into your computer as well. I've been uploading our videos to family and friends all weekend!

The cost of this camera was $285 I believe (my darling husband wouldn't tell me but I sneaked a look when we went back to get some extra memory cards in anticipation of my tendency to break those things accidentally). This camera also takes regular AA batteries and comes with rechargeable pair and the battery charger. To buy another set of rechargable batteries at Circuit City it was $15 for 4 I believe.

There are other options of cameras there as well. Though I'd recommend that you go with at least 5.1 megapixels or higher though.

PM Me if you have any general camera questions or specific ones about this model and I'll be more than glad to help.

DAWGPOUNDAJ,

I have a Sony digital and have had more problems trying to upload to the computer. I find the Sony software is so confusing. I can never figure out how to use it.

Do you use the Sony software or is there something else I could try?

I just recently bought a Kodak Easy Share DX7590 and believe it or not, I'm having problems with that also. It must be me or my computer Probably me!!!

I have re-installed the Kodak software 3 times and everytime I try to upload, the computer freezes. I'm leaving for the Mouse House on 5/21 and hoped to take lots of pix, but now I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just buy more memory cards and bring them to Wally World when I get home. LOL

 

[netposer]

DAWGPOUNDAJ,

I have a Sony digital and have had more problems trying to upload to the computer. I find the Sony software is so confusing. I can never figure out how to use it.

Do you use the Sony software or is there something else I could try?

I just recently bought a Kodak Easy Share DX7590 and believe it or not, I'm having problems with that also. It must be me or my computer Probably me!!!

I have re-installed the Kodak software 3 times and everytime I try to upload, the computer freezes. I'm leaving for the Mouse House on 5/21 and hoped to take lots of pix, but now I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just buy more memory cards and bring them to Wally World when I get home. LOL

I refuse to use the software that ships with most cameras. It's usually buggy and it's really cheap. Seems the camera companies have to ship something just to compete.

There is quite a few Free software titles to choose from. Some of the easiest is free if you become a member to one of the online photo printing sites like ofoto (which is now http://www.kodakgallery.com). My wife and I have been using ofoto since it first came online and she uses their free client application.

Also if you have XP it's a good bet that your pc recognizes your camera without you having to install any software out of the camera box. Most USB connected cameras are seen as "mass storage devices" (just a fancy name for a hard drive). Then you can treat your camera as another drive and just copy the photos from the camera (example, G drive) to your C drive.

As long as you're not having any USB issues you should be ok.

Other great software that's less than $99 is:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 [best red-eye removal tool out ther](http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/main.html) And check out Adobe Photoshop Album while you are there (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopalbum/main.html)
ACDSEE 7 (http://www.acdsystems.com/nr/acdsee7/en/homelife/index.html)
Picasa 2 [free Google addition] (http://www.picasa.com/)

I like the above 3 and the ofoto app as they will hold your hand when you connect your camera to your pc. They help keep your photos organized.

I can probably answer any question you have about getting your photos from your camera to your pc. Just reply and I'd be more than happy to help you.