camera's

jankers · 27-08-2005

Been veiwing the site and am impressed with the pic's.

Don't have a camera and am confused by the range of models available, any advice?

**John** · 27-08-2005

Your right there are a lot to choose from, for most part you don't need to buy an expensive one, and certainly don't go to somewhere like PC World, comet etc they are very expensive and will try to sell you something you don't need.

The higher the mega pixels (MP) the better the picture would be, that said I have a 4MP camera and at it's highest resolution I can print a picture without loss of quality is bigger than A4 but how often would you need a picture that size? most pictures you print are around 6"x4"

Try somewhere like Asda they have a good range and are cheap, of if you want to buy from the net there's plenty of places, just with a quick search I found a couple for you.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...940939-7640601

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=83266

Also no matter which camera you buy you will also need to buy another memory card for it as the one's you get with them usually aren't big enough to hold that many pictures, for a good price on the cards look at www.cclonline.com

At the end of the day you get what you pay for, my camera was nearly £300, but I went for a named make and it also uses a Pentax lens, but just because it was expensive doesn't make it any better than some of the cheaper one's on the market.

Hope that helps you a little?

John

KenP · 27-08-2005

With cameras, like most things in life, you get what you pay for.

You can get a real cheapy DIgital , but they have far too many limitations .
Lower Range there is a lot of choice around £200-£250
Mid range is about £ 350 . In this bracket the Canon G6 is excellent.
Top range amateur cameras are the Digital SLRs at about £700, say the Nikons and the Canons.
Above this are the Semi Pro Cameras at over £1000

Look at cameras in Jessops and Dixons after deciding what to look at by browsing the Webb. Ask questions and get a feel of the camera
Then buy via the Webb - Cheaper deal

Ken

boatman · 30-08-2005

I bought my camera from http://www.newegg.com. It's the cheapest Sony camera I could get. I love it!! It's 4.1 megapixels, and can record mpeg video. It's small enough to fit in my pocket. The uploading software is easy to use.

new to trains · 30-08-2005

It is worth considering the memory card issue, as has been pointed out most cameras come with a small memroy card, so after a relatively low number of pictures the meory card is full,

alot of cameras use cards, the most popular being smart media, SD card and compact flash, sony however do a 'stick' card which does appear to be pretty much unique to sony.... and it would seem that the prices reflect this, the more widely used cards are available in branded and unbaranded formats for a lot less dosh !

jankers · 30-08-2005

Many thanks for your posts. Will take on board.

Any advice on zoom? - i expect to be photographing real ships as well as models (both on and off water) and tend towards scale models eg "96 scale" so short focal is important as well as zoom,

**John** · 30-08-2005

go for the higher optical zoom and not digital zoom, basically optical zooms in on the subject using the lens and digital zooms in on the picture using digital enhancement, so it's not as clear, and pretty much all of them will have a macro option for closeup work

adzam · 31-08-2005

an overview.........

1. set a budget,
2. look for optical zoom over digital zoom as preference. ( minimum of 3 times)
3. 4-5 megapixels , but depending on budget 3 upwards will cope.
4. check the card type and pricing.
5. look for a known manufacturer, sony pentax,nikon,canon etc
6. a bit of legwork here really , have a physical look and hold the camera,play about with it in the shops people take pictures because they want to, if you have a camera you dont like, you wont want to take pictures !
7. once you`ve found your ideal camera, have a root about the web and get some competitive prices, and dont forget to include in your budget the extra memory card ! .

8. takes lots of model pics and post them here for us all to see.

you`ll find many people use different cameras, some people are more confident than others at taking pictures , some people just have a camera for parties ,days out etc. but you`ll find that the resolutions found on teh forum are not very high to save hosting space and enable fast page loading.

have a look at No.6 `s pictures. he uses a nikon d70 slr,but you wont see many differences between the resolution of his pics compared to compact cameras pictures posted on here. But you`d notice the difference on a pc or printed pic.

i hope this helps.

Adz..

jankers · 01-09-2005

Many thanks for you posts, particularly Adzam for the neat precis. Now a question for the boat-bod's; anyone know where I can purchase model ship doors(water-tight barred) with dims of 12-15mm H and 5-6mm W?, also portholes at 3mm diam? I (foolishly) started a scale model of a 'Blu Flu' ship called "Hector" , a 1950's merchant/passenger ship at '96' scale (so I could get it on the bus) but commercial parts at this size seem hard to come by. I have searched ALL the catalogues listed on the Westbourne site. Sorry to keep posting question's, hope there is no limit!

adzam · 01-09-2005

deans marine do a lot of 1/96 scale stuff........ http://www.deansmarine.co.uk/

or you could try sirmar .....http://www.sirmarmodelships.com/

you could try these for starters.