Should I Buy A New Digicam?

[steve]

Ok so this is not strticly trials related but the camera will be used for Trials photo's so here goes.

I have an olypus c-220 2meg pixel.

The first problem is shutter response time, by the time it take the piccie my subject has gone ( even when pre-focussing)

The second thing that annoys me is blurring.

I have posted a picure I took of my daughter, it's nice and colourful and she has a lovely smile (hard to capture) but she was waving her arms and consequently the hands are blurred - picture ruined

Would a newer more expensive camera with perhaps a faster shutter speed cure this, I am sure there was plenty of light and my camera is supposed to have a shutter speed of 1/1000

I have been looking at a Cannon A80

[ianj]

Hi,

Having a camera that's capable of a "faster shutter speed" is not the main issue. Your pic was taken with no flash, thus , you were at the merci of what the lens on the camera was capable of given the ambient light around at the time.

Your camera has a relatively "slow" lens which means that it needs to have a slow shutter speed to get a given amount of light through the lens.

Yes it's capable of 1/1000 or more, but only if the light coming through the lens is great enough.

There are two alternatives - one is to always have flash turned on, this increases the ambient lighting which enables the camera to use a faster shutter speed and thus you get a less blurred shot.

The second alternative is to use a camera, without flash, that has a much "faster" lens thus is able to use a faster shutter speed for the given ambient lighting.

Note: For trials photography you would be amazed at what shots you can get with a cheap and dirty digital camera if only you learn to pan the camera with the action. Look at the following pic, very slow shutter action and the background is seriously blurred but because the camera was panned with the movement of the bike you get away with it.

[steve]

Hi,

Thanks Ian, I have to admit the camera is usually set on auto flash but have noticed that it activates 90% of the time even outdoors.

That's a great shot, the bluring actually adds to the effect but it is in the right place.

Pretty much understand what you're saying but not too sure about lens speeds? Is it the f No that counts?

If I had taken that same picture on a canon A80 set on idiot (auto) mode would it have turned out any better? or do you have to tweak the settings for each piccie?

[ianj]

Pretty much understand what you're saying but not too sure about lens speeds?  Is it the f No that counts?

If I had taken that same picture on a canon A80 set on idiot (auto) mode would it have turned out any better? or do you have to tweak the settings for each

T piccie?

Hi,

The lower the F number the faster the lens is.....thus the better at low light shots without flash. Some lens can only go to F3.5, some can go to F1.8. So, getting the same light through the lens, a camera capable of F1.8 could use a much higher shutter speed. You have to watch also, because if you zoom in on your subject matter the lens can slow down....I.e the lens might be capable of F2.8 at full zoom out, but F4.5 when zoomed right in. As ever, always try to get as close as possible to your subject irrerspective of whether you can zoom in far enough. Being close also means your flash doesn't have to work as hard.

Also, I should have mentioned that if you set the film speed ISO to a higher number then you'll be able to use higher shutter speeds. The pictures will get grainier though.

Generally when you set flash on the camera will set the shutter speed to a fixed speed, that way you are stopping the camera from automatically selecting a ridiculously slow speed and spoiling your pics. Depends on your camera though, you might have to select a manual mode and set the shutter speed yourself, say 1/60th for those family shots and then let the camera add light using the flash.

I used to have a digital SLR, but sold it and now just wander about with a much cheaper, smaller digicam.....but one of my pre-requisites when buying was getting a camera that had a reasonably fast lens....The Canon G3 has a F2.0 lens.

I need it for taking pics of our band without flash. The piccy I posted here was taken using a Canon IxusV, a tiny little point and shoot job!

[steve]

You've now got me thinking about buying a Canon G3 ! I found what looks like a cracking deal on the 7dayshop.com