Feb 09, 2009 12:21 AM
1371 Views
My husband is a photographer, so when I needed to purchase a digital camera for myself, I took him with me. My main concerns were the following:-
1.Auto and Manual Settings
2.Picture Quality
3.Fast Reload Time
Fast Shutter Speed
This Camera has all of the above. We went to Best Buy to purchase and they had about 50 cameras in this price range and level. It made it overwhelming, but as soon as I picked up this camera, I felt that it was the right one.
I took a few pictures with it and it is super fast on the reload. It takes the picture, shows you the image for a split second, and then is instantly ready for the next picture. It also has a burst shutter so that you can take up to 10 pictures in a burst format where it just takes one after another for a very neat effect.
The other most important thing to me was how quickly the camera snapped the picture after you click the shutter button. I had a camera BEFORE I purchased this one that was horrible. I missed so many pictures because I would click the shutter and it would flicker 4 times before it snapped the pictures and I would loose the shot. When you have kids, pets, or if you want to take action pictures, this is VERY important.
When using this camera, you will hardly be able to tell that there is a lag in the shutter speed. As soon as you click the shutter button, the picture is taken and you have captured the shot. I LOVE this camera for this main reason, and I would not trade it for the world.
Now after those two important criteria were met, my husband started looking at the more technical specs.This camera has a pretty large span of ISO settings. It actually goes lower than my husband's SLR camera. ISO is important if you are taking pictures in a setting where if you use the flash, it can blow out the picture, but you do not have enough natural light to just take it without the flash. For instant, with dogs and cats.
If you take ANY picture of them with a flash, you get these scary glowing eyes, but if you take it without the flash (on autmatic setting) you will get motion blur and a dark picture.When you set your ISO, you are changing the amount of light that is absorbed while the shutter is opened.
So while you are on automatic, the shutter stays opened longer to absorb more light in a dark situation, however, the longer the shutter stays opened, the more chance you have for the subject to move and blur it. The ISO setting will allow you to absorb more light with a faster shutter speed. So you set your ISO to 80 and you can take a picture of a cat running across the living room without a flash and get a nicely clear picture. The only downside is that the lower the ISO, the grainier it can get..However, you will find a happy medium where its not grainy, but you do not need the flash.
You can also adjust the white balance so that when you take a picture of something with white in it, the white does not look yellow or blue. It allows you to automatically set the white balance by choosing a lighting type, or you can use a white piece of paper to set the white balance.
And finally, this is another AMAZING thing to this camera. The MACRO pictures are PHENOMINAL!! If you like to take pictures of flowers and the like, you will love this camera. You turn your flash off, set it to macro (you can choose regular or digital macro) and you can focus up to 1/2" away from your subject. Without a flash, t he images come out amazing!
