@ shiny_red_cobra: You should see what we got here in Quebec City, it's ridiculous.


Anyways, I'd love to have a D-SLR, but it's just so expensive for me, let's hope for one day, hehe.

Otherwise, I have a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W55B (Black) 7.2mpx, 3x optical zoom, 2.5" LCD (sweet looking), now with a 4Gb memory stick, and it works just great. Small and lightweight, sweet to carry around. I haven't loaded any bundles of pics on the net yet, I'm supposed to do that eventually, lol.


Anyways, example of my camera attached below, as well as one shot.

Quote from JTbo :

He did wrote about that above

Thanks JTbo.
I edited my first post on this page just after send.

Quote from MattxMosh :

I'd kill for a new camera.

I've been using a Fuji s5000 for ages, its ok, but it has its issues. Mostly with every picture being grainy, no matter what you do. It was great when I first got it, (5 or 6 or 7 years ago?), but its surely showing its age when my wifes el cheapo camera looks just as good. (Well, in full auto anyway)

Heres a few random pictures I have kicking around on this computer.

Phillies Game Summer 05

Walnut cemetery 2004

Linwood cemetery 2005

I'm a creep

It seems I either deleted thousands of pictures or I moved them somewhere. Looks like theres a two year gap missing ha, Sucks to catch that now.

I check your camera's specs and "cons" from
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilms5000/page15.asp
as you mentioned, pro's are agreed; image sharpness affecting by using higher ISO.
However, I think your photo's sharpness level is not so bad. But, whenever light is weak for lowest ISO, it is good to using tripod to have crisp pictures. Anyway, SLR entry level machines prices are quite low now if compared few years before, especially in USA.
I have a Pentax K100D, here is the prices (you may find lower prices, links are for reference)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bn ... =search&Q=*&bhs=t
There is great cameras out there for around 500 usd.(Canon XTI 10 MP+18-55 lens 519 usd.)
http://www.cameraaddict.com/Di ... ge=1&qu=&attrid=5

I sort of inherited a 350D with 18-55 and 70-300 lenses, should be able to find some pics I made

Quote from MattxMosh :

I'd kill for a new camera.

I've been using a Fuji s5000 for ages, its ok, but it has its issues. Mostly with every picture being grainy, no matter what you do. It was great when I first got it, (5 or 6 or 7 years ago?), but its surely showing its age when my wifes el cheapo camera looks just as good. (Well, in full auto anyway)

Heres a few random pictures I have kicking around on this computer.

Phillies Game Summer 05

Walnut cemetery 2004

Linwood cemetery 2005

I'm a creep

It seems I either deleted thousands of pictures or I moved them somewhere. Looks like theres a two year gap missing ha, Sucks to catch that now.

Pics look great, IMO.

I just received my Christmas present last weekend from the wife, a Sony DSC-S650. An absolute horrible little camera. I took 175 photos around the house testing it (of various colorful stuff and the kids) and not one pic turned out even remotely ok. I was comparing to a 5 year old Fuji 2650 2 MP with no manual adjustment shooter as well as a 5-6 year old Nikon 880 3 MP with full manual control.

I took it back to the store and looked for something else. I'm not fond of Sony products like I was 10-15 years ago. I wanted somethng to easily fit in the pocket and read reviews of the Canon SD1000. Very nice little camera.

(here comes the relevance to the quoted post) First, I'm not in the financial market for DSLR, or the choice would probably be much easier... As I roamed around and looked at display cameras after narrowing it down to several with dpreview.com and steves-digicam.com, I moved to the end where the "normal sized" cameras were (only 3 out of the ~25 on display). I picked up the Fuji S700 (S5700 outside the US) and the camera melted into my hand. Went home and looked it up online and it looked favorable for the price (~$200).

So, now I sit with the Fuji S5700 purchased last night (it is actually the S5700, which everything I've seen on the net states that the S700 is US and S5700 is in Europe). Love the random test pics I was shooting last night. It has full manual control over everything (P, S, A, M, and several custom preset modes). Last day of work today until after the new year, so I have plenty of time the next 2 weeks to play with it. I'm hoping to have at least some knowledge of using the manual settings before Christmas morning when the kids wake up to get some good pics.

I dread hearing "I want to go outside and play in the snow!" because at 35, I no longer like the cold and like going out in the snow. Now I have an excuse to go outside with the camera and I'll be the one saying to the kids, "I want to go outside and play in the snow!" LOL.

Eventually, I'll have some pics. I need to decide on an online "gallery" site. Until then, this are from my 5 year old Fuji 2 MP full automatic. After reading quite a lot on the web about photography, I would love to go and retake all the pics there to see how they could be better.

Quote from mrodgers :

I dread hearing "I want to go outside and play in the snow!" because at 35, I no longer like the cold and like going out in the snow. Now I have an excuse to go outside with the camera and I'll be the one saying to the kids, "I want to go outside and play in the snow!" LOL.

good excuse indeed...
Congratulations for your new camera.
Your pics are fine, for a 5 year old machine imo.
Cook's Forest is beautiful. And Trail to the fire tower is could be desktop background.
I check your new toy from dpeview.com, there is plus and minuses but its same with everything,
looks like good value for the money, have fun with it.

My Nikkor lens did have some problems recently... the autofocus didn't work anymore, and as a result of that, the camera refused to take pictures. I've sent it in for repair, and got it back now... however, it started to have the same problems again... still works tho.

I'll be going to thailand in january. And i hope the lens will not break down when i'm there.

Quote from jibber :

My Nikkor lens did have some problems recently... the autofocus didn't work anymore, and as a result of that, the camera refused to take pictures. I've sent it in for repair, and got it back now... however, it started to have the same problems again... still works tho.

I'll be going to thailand in january. And i hope the lens will not break down when i'm there.

Did you cleaned the contacts? (where the lens and body connects)
I heard something about them, that they can oxydated and caused some errors.

I didn't try that. They look fine to me tho...

And i assume they did that when i sent it in for repair.

And it's not like the lens and camera would be in a place where they would easily oxydate. It's in a camera case/bag, inside of an (heated) apartment.

The lens is not even a year old btw...

Quote from mrodgers :

Pics look great, IMO.

(here comes the relevance to the quoted post) First, I'm not in the financial market for DSLR, or the choice would probably be much easier... As I roamed around and looked at display cameras after narrowing it down to several with dpreview.com and steves-digicam.com, I moved to the end where the "normal sized" cameras were (only 3 out of the ~25 on display). I picked up the Fuji S700 (S5700 outside the US) and the camera melted into my hand. Went home and looked it up online and it looked favorable for the price (~$200).

So, now I sit with the Fuji S5700 purchased last night (it is actually the S5700, which everything I've seen on the net states that the S700 is US and S5700 is in Europe). Love the random test pics I was shooting last night. It has full manual control over everything (P, S, A, M, and several custom preset modes). Last day of work today until after the new year, so I have plenty of time the next 2 weeks to play with it. I'm hoping to have at least some knowledge of using the manual settings before Christmas morning when the kids wake up to get some good pics.

Thats actually one I was looking at. For the price it seems fantastic, and I cant wait to see a few pictures to use for comparison. And since the dimensions are about the same, the right angle bracket, flash and bag should continue to work wonderfully. I'm curious though, what did it come with for lens adaptors?

Quote from MattxMosh :

Thats actually one I was looking at. For the price it seems fantastic, and I cant wait to see a few pictures to use for comparison. And since the dimensions are about the same, the right angle bracket, flash and bag should continue to work wonderfully. I'm curious though, what did it come with for lens adaptors?

For $200, it came with...... the camera. It has available the multiplier lenses you can purchase that just fit over the lens body on the camera. I think I've seen 2.2x and 3.2x multipliers. I have no idea how well those work. Also a macro and wide angle lens available too.

FYI, I'm by no means, remotely a good photographer. I was outside with it today taking pics mostly of the 4 year old. But, here's a few. All I did was reduce them down to 800x600, no other edits. (edit: resized them with PSP instead of my photo software and they are much less blurry from the resize. So, ignore the blurry comments above the pics)

The first one, the subject became a little blurry from the size reduction. It is much sharper in the original. I was testing out some stuff read on the photo forums about getting the background blurry.



Hungry anyone?



This one is on macro with zoom and hand held. It's one of the kid's toys. Again, slight blurriness around the edges from the size reduction.

Those look pretty damn good. Colors are nice and vivid, and are nice and sharp looking.

After doing some research I am kind of torn though. At iso400 it seems have the same problem as my camera. I also can seem to find any info on lens adaptors. I also prefer the viewfinder to the lcd, and if its anything like mine, its awful.

On the other hand, it seems to be pretty damn amazing for the price, which i in my range right now.

I suppose once all this christmas wackyness slows at some stores I'll I have to take a look see, because I'm already leaning towards it for my next electronic purchase.

I got a rebel XTi for my birthday/christmas (they are close together so I can often fanangle a big combo gift ). The weather has been pretty crappy since I got it, so I'm pretty much only taking pictures of my snake.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stregone/2129736465/

Haven't posted any of my pictures here, they're all on facebook

Anyways, here are my favorite shots from tonight.

I took these the other day at work on my phone!

Quote from XCNuse :

Haven't posted any of my pictures here, they're all on facebook

Anyways, here are my favorite shots from tonight.

3rd one looks weird. Is this how it came "out of the camera"?

Almost, there was a significant increase in saturation if that is what you are wondering.

Moon tonight coming over the horizon was huge!
That picture has roughly 50% increase in color.

With Christmas just around the corner, I got a shot of our manger scene.....




And, this is my first try at the sunset. It was dropping to around 20 F and extremely high winds. I ran out to take the shot and ended up shaking from the cold wind too much. I'd like to edit, but I'm not sure what to do to make it better.....

I have one of those I took the other day

The picture you uploaded though doesn't look blurry at all.
Your only issue is you need to learn the quartering technique, stop centering!

These are also taken from up in the mountain house.

edit- attached some others from the past week
edit2- hell attached some more from back during Thanksgiving (Aston Martin pictures)

you should be careful with the sharperning filter...

Yeah, some weird artifacts going on there.

Quote from mrodgers :

And, this is my first try at the sunset. It was dropping to around 20 F and extremely high winds. I ran out to take the shot and ended up shaking from the cold wind too much. I'd like to edit, but I'm not sure what to do to make it better.....

I hope you don't mind, but I've had a very quick go at editing your photo the way I would do it.

It was a nice shot but, as XCNuse said, putting the subject in the centre of the picture often isn't the best way to frame a shot. I've cropped your picture to match the framing I would probably have chosen. I'm not saying that it's perfect, just the way I would have done it. I'm a little unhappy with the large dark cloud in the top left corner...if I were to spend a little more time on it I'd probably vignette the other three corners to push the viewer's eyes back toward the centre.

I've also edited out the red/pink ghosting above and to the right of the sun and got rid of some of the bright speckles in the dark field using the clone tool in the GIMP.

If I were to suggest one more thing, it would be to add some negative exposure correction before taking the picture. That will help to preserve some highlight detail around the sun rather than leaving it white. It will also make the fields and clouds much darker, but you can fix that (if you wish to) by using the curve tool in Photoshop/GIMP/etc...

Bear in mind that this is how I would have done it, not how you should do it

Yes, I know about the "rule of thirds". This was an extremely quickly shot as we had a wind storm roll in and I was extremely cold, LOL.

Other than the frame cropping, I'm not sure I can see much different in the edit. But I have 2 kids sitting next to me yelling "when can I play on the computer!" so I'll look closer later . And, sure, thanks for editing. I haven't jumped into Photoshop editing yet (or PaintShop Pro actually, since that's what I have for the LFS skinning.)

Quote from mrodgers :

Other than the frame cropping, I'm not sure I can see much different in the edit. But I have 2 kids sitting next to me yelling "when can I play on the computer!" so I'll look closer later .

To be honest there's not much more I would do to it! I did have a quick play with the colour balance and tone curves but nothing I did seemed to improve things...it's a good shot!

Quote :

And, sure, thanks for editing. I haven't jumped into Photoshop editing yet (or PaintShop Pro actually, since that's what I have for the LFS skinning.)

I'm limited to pretty basic tweaking myself, but that's often all that's needed, assuming you take the photo properly in the first place

Quote from Don :

you should be careful with the sharperning filter...

Yea I know, I sharpened them beyond where they should be so they aren't so blurry on Facebook.. I should just figure out what size facebook is and sharpen them, upload, then delete then do my regular 33% pictures like those.


Anyways, got a tip for you guys, if you plan on taking pictures of Christmas lights, bundle up!
Make sure you have gloves too, I went to downtown Dahlonega last night, and took some pictures of the Christmas lights, which I landed up being disappointed with not only because what I went through to take them, but how they came out. My hands nearly froze off, and took several hours for them to thaw back out.
I also landed up going to the top of the mountain near my house, which was a 15 worthless minute drive up a nice mountain course. It turned out that ontop of that mountain it was 20ish degrees, and had 30mph gusts of wind.
So not only did a tripod not help at all, it was a waste of gas, not fun, and especially cold.

It also landed up being so cold in town that I couldn't even use my tripod anymore, it was a pain in the ass to carry around, and mainly (more so) to set up. I landed up using my fast manual lenses taking hand helds.

I did however get some useful shots of the water reservoir at night.. but those weren't christmas lights.

They're all so bad I'm not even going to upload any.. wasn't a fun experience and I don't plan on doing them again.

Take your wife/girlfriend around to see Christmas lights, enjoy them, have a merry time.. don't take pictures of them, they aren't as good as the real thing lol
Just a tip.

edit- here Don, this should look better on those ultrasharpened ones.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stregone/2133101369/

My first decent bird shot. Used my new 100mm macro lens