Strong Bad, Shack, and other photography guru's...

audiobliss

Mom's looking for a new, cheap compact camera she can put in her purse. She did some research and brought home a Canon Powershot SD1000. She's happy with it all the way around, and I like the way it looks/feels/operates. And it was in her budge (<$200). However, I'm not sure I like the looks of the pictures.

They look too flat, 2d, and oddly textured to me. I've also read that this camera is terribly grainy at any ISO setting of 400 or greater, and that's not acceptable, as just about any indoor setting will require an ISO setting of at least 400.

However, I'm also not a photography pro by any means and may be totally wrong with my assessment and/or just expecting too much from this price point.

Would someone be willing to let me email them these pictures (since I can't upload them anywhere without resizing/messing with them) and giving me their input?

Would be greatly appreciated, as we have 10 days to play around with it and decide if we want to take it back.

Thanks!

billbillw

I think for the money, its hard to beat the Canon A590IS. Its not quite as compact as the SD series, but the photo quality is much better. Also, having IS means you can take indoor/lower light photos at longer shutter speeds, so that you don't have to crank up the ISO and suffering from graininess. To me, IS (or whatever the various manufacturers call it) is one of the best photography innovations to ever come along.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/canon_a590is.html

This will fit in most purses or pockets too. We have an older A model and my wife carries it everywhere.

jdhdiggs

To me, it sounds like you ran into the constraints of cost and size. I don't think you will find a super small camera that does everything well under $200 outside the used market.

But then I really don't look into the P&S world anymore.

shack

She may have a bad copy. As stated above, Steve's Digicams is good source of reviews and he gives it good marks. Here are a few sample pictures from his review:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/sd1000_samples.html

That said...even with a P&S you need to use some photography skills to take good pictures. Understanding lighting when/if to use flash, etc. You can take good pictures with a $200 camera (the Canon Powershot SD1000 had a MSRP of $299). Checkout these from Darla's thread about what camera to buy:

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showpost.php?p=871251&postcount=11

They were taken with a similarly priced P&S camera. Play with it for a couple of days and see if they get better. If at all possible stay away from any kind of flash shots other than some thing 8-10 feet away as most P&S flashes are hardly worth having.

Another thing could be the monitor you are viewing the pictures on. It may be poorly calibrated and the reason the pictures look bad.

shack

Yes send me some pictures. Do you know how to resize them down to 1024 x 768 px? that is more than enough to see how they look. I'll PM you my email.

audiobliss

billbillw wrote: »

I think for the money, its hard to beat the Canon A590IS. Its not quite as compact as the SD series, but the photo quality is much better. Also, having IS means you can take indoor/lower light photos at longer shutter speeds, so that you don't have to crank up the ISO and suffering from graininess. To me, IS (or whatever the various manufacturers call it) is one of the best photography innovations to ever come along.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/canon_a590is.html

This will fit in most purses or pockets too. We have an older A model and my wife carries it everywhere.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm not sure she'll go for something any larger, but if she decides she's not happy with this one I'll definitely bring this one up.

jdhdiggs wrote: »

To me, it sounds like you ran into the constraints of cost and size. I don't think you will find a super small camera that does everything well under $200 outside the used market.

But then I really don't look into the P&S world anymore.

You very well may be right about that.

shack wrote: »

Yes send me some pictures. Do you know how to resize them down to 1024 x 768 px? that is more than enough to see how they look. I'll PM you my email.

Yeah, I looked through that thread real quick earlier. I might should give some of those a closer look.

I'm really not sure if I know how to resize them without destroying them.

shack

audiobliss wrote:

I'm really not sure if I know how to resize them without destroying them.

Once you have them saved on the computer, make a copy and name it whatever. If you are using windows, just open the copy in windows picture manager. If you don't have picture manager open in windows picture viewer and click on the green check icon below the picture and it will take the picture to windows picture manager. Once there click on "edit pictures", then "resize". Click the "predefined width x height" option. It will give you several options with the largest being 1024 X 768. Click on it then hit OK under "size setting summary" and you are good to go. You will still have the original in its full MP size and a copy that is managable to email.

66chevyIISS

you can email them to me if you want.

sixty6chevy@hotmail.com

high iso on almost any small P&S is going to be grainy unfrotauntely. Your not going to get SLR high iso quality. I think thats a high expectation. Better to use a lower iso and the flash for low light situations.

Also what settings is the camera on? Large file normal? fine? super fine? etc. That will obviously play a roll in overall quality as well.