....my picture problem

PolknPepsi

I have learned to download pictures which is great but the pictures show up fuzzy and distorted/not clear. My camera is an old fully automatic Nikon which takes beautiful "film pictures" but online or developed on a disc they are terrible.

Is it necessary to purchase a digital camera to get clear pictures?

nadams

So, you're saying that your camera is a 35mm film camera, and when you take your film to wal-mart or wherever to be developed, you get them put on a disk, but the pics on the disk look bad? If that's the case, then it's the fault of the developer. However, for the best digital pictures, it is much easier to just get a digital camera.

brettw22

Technically, a 35mm SLR camera is about the equivelant of about a 19MP digital. At the worst, the pictures should look no worse than a 10-12MP digital camera, so better than most out there. You should definitely take the order back to where you had it developed and have them fix it. Although digital cameras will do digital well, a properly developed 35mm to digital should still be superior.

beardog03

or your having pixel problems by making the picture too big..

Use photo shop, or photo suite,or something similar to fix it...

the guy ar Wal-mart that makes 6 buck an hour must be having a bad day..
as compared to a good day at 6 bucks an hour..!! :eek:

ledhed

I would just buy a high quality scanner. Sure, it may take longer but you are in control

PolknPepsi

.....thank's guys,

We thought about getting a good quality scanner for business and other stuff, maybe well do that sometime. if there are any more fuzzy pictures on disc I will ask the developer what's going on.

MacLeod

brettw22 wrote:

Technically, a 35mm SLR camera is about the equivelant of about a 19MP digital. At the worst, the pictures should look no worse than a 10-12MP digital camera, so better than most out there. You should definitely take the order back to where you had it developed and have them fix it. Although digital cameras will do digital well, a properly developed 35mm to digital should still be superior.

I agree 100%. I have a very nice, $200 Nikon compact 35mm camera that takes awesome pictures but I went out and bought a $400 digital a couple years ago and thought it would be the ****. I never really compared the two til Polkfest. This was the first time I took a lot of pictures on a long trip and ran into several problems.

1- Battery life. My battery died right before Polkfest was over but luckily I had the 2nd. Also glad I charged it up that night at the motel cause the next day in DC it died right before I got to the White House, and these are the long life InfoLithium batteries! The battery in my Nikon lasts about 2 years!

2- Memory. My 64 MB Memory Stick filled up right about the end of Polkfest but I had a whole day of shooting to do in DC so I did fix this problem by buying a 128 MB Stick which holds 140 pictures.

3- Picture quality. Noah posted his pictures and he and I took the same exact picture of those vintage SDA's outside the conference room yet his looks 10 times better than mine! The clarity is good but the color was not.

4- I went out and tried some of Kodak's HD film and just got the roll developed Friday. Man these things look as good as my sister in laws pictures she gets with her $400 Minolta SLR!

Either way, Ill still use the digital for some things but for trips or dedicated outings for picture taking, Ill be taking my trusty little Nikon. Im sure I can get a digital camera that will take as good a picture as my Nikon but it would cost $600 or better. For that I could get an even better 35mm SLR!

F1nut

I use a 30 year old Nikon 35mm SLR, very hard to beat for picture quality.

nadams

Macleod- just FYI- my camera is the Kodak DX7590, which I bought from beachcamera.com for something like $350. It's a 5mp, but has some nice glass in front of it, which really helps it take some nice pics.

I use a 512mb SD card in my camera, which gets me a theoretical max of 149 pictures, but you can get more on depending on the detail and orientation of the pics. I only have the one battery for it, but it lasted the entire day at Polk. I essentially left it on all the time we were walking around the different places, except during some of lunch. I haven't seen the low battery warning on this camera (though I assume it has one), but when I put it on the dock when I got home it was on 1/3 bars. That's the lowest it's been, up to that point and since. I nearly filled up my SD card, too, but still had a few pics left. I was also carrying a wall charger and backup 256mb card.

There are definately advantages and disadvantages to both types of cameras. I personally see that digital cameras fit my lifestyle better, which is why I've never owned a film camera beyond one of those crappy cartridge-style kids cameras that everyone's had at some point or another

PolknPepsi

My old Nikon #800 cost $400.00 about 12 years ago.

MacLeod

You may have a point Noah. The lense is very important and mine may have a crappy plastic lense despite it being a $400 camera. It is 2.5 years old so its probably the equivalent of a $150 camera now.

A friend of my wife is a professional photographer and he recently switched to all digital from 35mm. He went and bought a supreme Nikon digital camera that he said cost severl thousand dollars but still the pictures, while very good, still had the "digital camera" color.

nadams

Digital cameras have progressed in leaps and bounds over the past few years. The problem is that it's harder for the average consumer to take pictures with a digital than a standard 35mm camera. The film cameras are much more forgiving! You have to remember that for a typical consumer, you take the film to a developer, where all the post-processing is done. With digital, you have to do the post-processing, because you are the developer!

One nice thing about the digital SLR's is that you can use any lenses you already have for your 35mm slr, which can help defray the costs if your already into photography. Still, a body for a nice DSLR can be $1000 (in the case of the Canon Digital Rebel XT).

But yeah, the whole reason I bought the DX7590 over the current production model z740, is that the z740 had a Kodak lense, whereas the 7590 has a Schneider-Kreuznach lense. Dunno how much of a difference it makes, but I think it does make a difference. And you're going to have to pay a lot more for a digicam that takes nice pics if you want one you can fit in your pocket (which it seems everyone does). If you noticed, my camera (and danger boy's nice Sony) are not exactly slim! BUT, my camera has a 10x zoom, and danger boy's had a 12x. Usually all you can get in those slim cameras is 3x optical.

danger boy

Noah, where are your pictures posted? Are they on here some where?

thanks, al

nadams

Al,

You can see them here- http://www.king-nerd.com/dood/images/minigal/index.php?list=PolkFest%202005

Standard thumbnailed gallery. You can see the original images by clicking the arrow in the upper right corner of the enlarged thumbnails.

Also, when working with a digital camera, buy an ample storage card... much larger than you think you might need. for every one picture you would normally take w/ a film camera, you're going to want to make sure that you take 5 w/ a digicam to make sure you get it right . It's often hard to tell if it's in focus when looking at it on the small screen on the camera.

Okay, so maybe not _5_, but you get the idea...

F1nut

Interesting article if you're printing your digital pics at home.

http://pcworld.about.com/news/Sep032002id104151.htm

danger boy

K thanks. i'll check em out.