flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

But I ask because I value the opinions of many of guys, and I dont know anyone in the cameras and aireal photography forum,, what is a or the good digital camera???,, My father has bought 2 of them, one was like 49.99 the other was 99.99 and they both suck, and I also think my port was damaged last year during the ice storm..and may be part of the problem.. Rog

matchlessaero

Rog, I'll relate this back to 1/2A for you......

I have have had two digi cameras, both of which were good for taking pictures of small models.

The first was a Canon (hand me down). This was a 2 megapixel cam which had a good 'macro' feature. The macro feature is especially useful for taking pics of small engine details, small radio mounting details, etc.

My current camera is a 5 megapixel Sony(present from the wife). This one is wonderful. I used the video capability today to video DB flyin SpinDr's Cornbread. The videos are pretty good quality and they have sound (captured that fine-runnin' DB tuned Cox). This camera also has a good macro capability. I have also found the 5megapixel capability to be very useful for filming small models in the air. I zoom in on the model, shoot the pic and I can then crop the pic to a more usable size and the airplane is detailed enough to look like a good picture....

Lynn S

Rog,
I have used a cheap Intel camera that took some pretty good pictures.It will even take 2 min of video. It didn't have a flash. I learned that I could focus very close-up pictures by using the computer monitor to see the subject before I made the snap shot as it also works as a web cam.
I now use a HP that cost around $200 and it takes terrible indoor pictures with flash, but I found that it did much better when I turned the flash off.
You can experiment with light, flash and focus to see if that helps your pictures.

BMatthews

You can't get a GOOD camera for under at least a couple of hundred. 2 to 2.3 megapixels is probably the minimum you want in order to produce decent looking shots. OK, I'll take that back a little. If you don't want a zoom on the lens you can get a decent fixed focal for between $150 and $200. At least as far as I know since I'm trying to project into US prices.

If you don't mind spending a trifle more and getting a camera that'll do you for years to come (IMHO) I can heartily recomend the Pentax 33WR. This is a weather resistant camera that can be used in the pool being water resistant up to a 6 to 12 inch dunking. Don't go snorkeling with it though. As a bonus the corners of the cases have shock absorbing rubber pads for those less coordinated times... The flash works great at least as far away at 15 feet. It's a 3.2 megapixel with a 2.8 zoom range lens that has the mechanism inside the case. I got the wife one for Xmas and it's been everything I could ask for and then some. Definetley good value for the money. Highly recomended in fact. Check it out here....

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_...optio33wr.html

And if you click on the title header of the page you can review a lot of other camers. It's one of the better review sites. Just don't forget you also have models to build and end up lost over there ....

crashawk

if you don't mind spending a little more you can get the a mavica series from sony, they come in several different resolutions and write straight to a 3 inch cd-r instead of using flash cards. I have the mavica cd-400 which is 4.1 megapixel with both digital and optical zoom. the plus side of this camera is when you go on vacation or to a fly-in you don't have to stop taking pictures when your cd gets full, just pop in another and keep going. with 210 meg cd-r I can take about 100 full resolution pictures or 1000 small email size pics. the camera uses a lithium ion battery which makes good sence because digital cameras are hard on energizers, I have 3 batteries and can take pictures for about 180 minutes per battery, it don't care how many pics you snap it runs for the same amount of time. it also does video and sound, can do macro for close up, has adjustable flash rates and you can play with all the functions to take any pic anytime. I'm just starting to learn how to take action shots with it and they are coming out pretty good. I no longer use film cameras, I've lost too many good pictures because of other peoples mistakes in processing. you can print your own pics or take your file to almost any film lab and have photos printed for less than the cost of film developing. if you are really tight with your wallet you can even use cd-rw's and keep reusing the cds. good luck.

Jason

XJet

Depending on what you want to do with the pictures, sometimes a good miniDV cam will do the trick.

All of the images on my own website are frame-grabs from a miniDV camera and they are excellent for web-based stuff. At a pinch they'll also produce a reasonably good 6x4 glossy too.

The advantage of recording to tape and then playing back to the computer is that you can choose the best frame -- which is partularly useful with "action" shots. The chances of capturing just the right piece of action with a still-camera is pretty remote but with a video cam you get 25 (or 29 with NTSC) frames a second to choose from :-)

I used to use a cheap Sony analog camcorder but now I have Panasonic MX500 with 3 CCDs. This produces much better color and boasts a 3 megapixel still capability -- that's a lie though. The actual resolution seems to be somewhere around 1-1.5 megapixels.

A MiniDV camcorder also offers features that cost a lot in still-cameras -- 10x optical zoom, macro capability etc.

For the best quality stills then a proper digital camera is still the best by a country mile -- but for versatility it's hard to beat a miniDV camcorder.

XJet

Just to give you an idea of the kind of results I get with this little miniDV cam (and to keep things on-topic -- 1/2A that is) here's a picture of the engine mount I made today for my Norvel 061. The image is unretouched in anyway except that I cropped it a little to save bandwidth.

All the settings were left on "auto" but it would have turned out much better if I'd manually set the exposure -- few auto systems handle reflective surfaces such as freshly machined aluminum properly :-(

Bipe Flyer

I have a Nikon Coolpix 775 2 Megapixel digital camera that I bought in 2002. It was $500 then but I see that there's one on eBAY with a buy now price of $139.99. It has a macro function, can do 15 second quicktime video clips without audio and uses compact flash memory. One nice feature is if the Lithium Poly battery is dead you can pop in a standard camera battery.

I'm sure that the newer cameras have much higher resolution and better zoom.

Here are a few pictures that I have taken with it.

Bipe Flyer

Hmm, it looks like RC Universe resampled and resized my upload. Let's try that again.

[link=http://donatelli.net/images/dscn1775.jpg]Click here to see a Great Planes DR1 converted to electric.[/link]

[link=http://donatelli.net/images/dscn0721.jpg]Click here to see Gene Soucy's Ag Cat[/link]

jboy381-RCU

i have a fuji finepixs A 205...it has that close up feature you guys are talking...works good,but a motion shot is kinda blury...

wild fred

My Feedback: (3)

I've got an olympus. I don't know much about digicams, but it is water resistant, has zoom and movie, and takes nice pix. the pix I have been posting lately are taken with it.

interesting note, I smoke cigars and fly a lot of sig stuff, too; must be catching!