Camera Oasis

If you shoot film and have it processed at a drugstore, watch out. Walgreens and CVS are trying to steal your silver. By Eastwind41 (Own work) [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons That's the only possible explanation as to why they no longer return your negatives when you develop color negative film. Instead of giving you prints with negatives in your photofinishing envelope, they give you prints and image files on a CD. You don't get your negatives back. By SkywalkerPL (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Why? The film contains tiny particles of silver, which can be extracted and recycled, usually benefitting the photo lab. Companies used to offer kits that allowed labs to recover the silver, and you'd get your negatives back. But that technology likely isn't widely offered, since film processing declined. This page of Kodak's website talks about the process. The labs want to keep the silver. So you don't get your negatives ...

Your iPhone or Android might take pretty good photos. For $500+, it ought to take photos Annie Leibovitz would buy. But it doesn't. It's more like the world's most overpriced point-and-shoot camera.  Compact 35mm film cameras from the 1970s-1990s are my Kryptonite. I find most of them in thrift stores, next to audio devices with old 30-pin iPod docks. Those film cameras have better lenses than a smart phone. Flashes that actually light up a scene. They make me think about composing a picture that tells a story. And if I drop a camera I bought at a Godwill or Salvation Army, I'm out a whole $5 -- not $500 plus a pricey screen replacement. I can live with that.  Here's a brief guide to real 35mm cameras worth looking for when you're garage-sailing or cruising thrift stores. You can go retro for just a few dollars, and see if you remember how to compose a photo with a real viewfinder pressed against your brow. 10. Olympus Infinity Twin - a some...

Had a day to play with a Kodak M583 camera, described in the previous post. A quick summary: Image quality: pretty good, edge-to-edge. Nice handling of low-light/twilight images at 28mm wide-angle. At 224mm full zoom, however, subjects looked softer. OK for general snapshots and travel images in bright daylight. In very low light, the camera could not lock focus on a table candle. Image stabilization (optical) worked well. Camera selected a moderately low ISO 125 for a portrait shot in twilight, and didn't fire its flash, making for nice skin tones and no blowouts. Menus are now so heavily layered that you're really forced to choose your settings in advance, because there's no quick-set beyond the basic "Smart Capture" function. Camera uses a micro SD card, which big-fingered hands will find hard to load and unload. For me, the most challenging feature were the microscopic buttons on the right side of the LCD screen (see the red camera, above). They access menu ...

Every time I read of someone's disappointments with their new digital camera, the whines fall into three categories: The batteries don't last long at all. The camera manual is inadequate. I can't see the LCD in bright sunlight. Quick answers: Batteries : alkaline batteries weren't ever intended to run a high-drain device such as a mini-computer with an always-on LCD (which is what a camera is). Buy some name-brand rechargeables. I use Duracells, and I've heard good things about Sanyo Eneloop AAs. To avoid frustrating yourself, buy a charger that doesn't require 8 hours to charge your batteries. As for the lithium-ion batteries that come with most cameras: they need to be charged first, then completely drained, then recharged before you get optimal performance. Manuals : Funny, hardly anyone read these things when they came with film cameras. Learn how to download the full PDF version from the CD that came with your camera, or the manufacturer's website. Prin...

No, not what you're thinking. Here, "POS" abbreviates "point of sale." As in, where you go to buy cameras. I hate the camera bar. Or, as I've described it elsewhere, the "camera anchorage." That semi-circular tier of cameras on display, where every camera is attached to a weighty metal anchor which, in turn, is cabled to the display. This is the worst way to experience a camera. You can't tell how a camera feels in your hands if it's bolted to an anchor. You can't tell if it's lightweight or too heavy. And you probably can't tell whether its tripod socket is in a centered position or off to one side. I want that experience. More to the point: I want to power up the camera and see if it works as I expect. That means the power connector from the camera bar has to operate. Which it seldom does. Target, Walmart, BJ's and Best Buy all have a variant of the camera anchorage, and every one I've experienced has electrical issues...

Here's a quick guide to getting information about any camera you're considering: If you understand f-stops, apertures, and aspect ratios, web sites such as dpreview.com, CNET.com and dcresource.com are good online resources. Between the writers' in-depth reviews and the opinions you'll find in the online forums, you'll trip over more details than you need. Do note that dpreview.com has lately acquired a certain ambivalence in its professional reviews, and rarely comes out to say it dislikes a camera. Maybe this has something to do with most digital cameras sharing the same lenses and sensors, to some degree. I also recommend Steve's Digicams and imaging-resource.com, although both tend to get wrapped up in techno-speak. If I want to watch Star Trek, I'll watch Star Trek. If all those tech terms frustrate you, head on over to amazon.com. Almost every camera has user reviews to read. These are real-world people, for the mostpart, who don't dwell on pixel d...

I'm going to tell you how to choose a digital camera -- what to look for, and what to ignore. Please pay attention. Many people ask me which camera they should buy. It's easy to suggest one sold by my employer, but different people have different photographic needs. And an $80, 3x zoom camera with a plastic lens might not make you happy if you want to shoot wildlife that's 100 feet away. This isn't to say my employer makes inadequate cameras; it's merely that one size doesn't fit all. I'm currently using a K odak Z950 , which delivers fine performance, feels great in my hands, and costs around $150. First, the items you can ignore: IGNORE "megapixels". Really. If it has more than 8 megapixels, it'll give you the photos you want. If you need a 14-megapixel camera, you'd better be shooting images to display on billboards, because you'll seldom need a 14-MP file. IGNORE "fits in a pocket." Ninety percent of today's cameras fi...

Spent some time this weekend sorting out my collection of 35mm film cameras. Way too many film cameras. And now there are a couple in the trash can. I'm a fan of 1970's era rangefinders, cameras that allowed you to hold the camera to your eye, look through a viewfinder, and focus on your subject. Some even allowed you to control the aperture or shutter speed. Olympus, Minolta and Canon made the best of these. Konica made some wonderful cameras, but later jobbed out the manufacturing to a company called Cosina. Then Chinon got involved. Ultimately, the move to auto-focus film cameras doomed the rangefinders. Not to mention the corroded electronics. Most of these cameras used mercury batteries, which seem to cause some degradation in circuit contacts. The camera above is a Konica C35EF camera. Happens to be the very first thing Dick Kidder stuck in my hands when I started my first newspaper job. So I'm sorta fond of them. This afternoon, I pitched two Konica C35EF cameras wit...

Here's a short but handy checklist to help you sell cameras on Craigslist: Don't simply say "Nikon digital camera." Give a model number: Coolpix 5400, L20, whatever it says on the camera body. Get the brand right. Shoppers often search by brand name. There's no "Cybersnap" or "Olympis" brand in digital cameras, but there are a Cybershot and an Olympus. Again, it's probably spelled correctly on the camera. Write a better headline than "Digital Camera 12 Megapixels." The difference between a camera made by Kodak or Polaroid is striking. Again, brand matters. Don't fill your ad with meaningless specs borrowed from a web page. Instead, be sure to tell us whether all the camera's functions work, if the LCD screen is cracked, and whether the essential accessories (battery, charger, connector cord, manual, etc.) are included. Show a photo of the camera. Don't blow this off! If you're selling your only camera, set the cam...

Why aren't there any digital cameras with shutter buttons on the top left of the camera? SLRs, pocket cameras, ... pretty much every camera you can buy today requires actuating the shutter with your right index finger. Less than half the world is left-handed. But among that group are artists, photographers, actors, and directors. All of whom have some influence on the general public. Couldn't a digital camera maker connect with an under-served market segment simply by introducing a camera with power- and shutter buttons on the left side of the camera? Just asking.

Camera companies spend loads o' cash designing cameras. They do studies. They make clay models, churn out non-working prototypes, and show 'em to would-be owners to see what'll work. Everyone wants to have that breakthrough design. So, I'm moseying around the camera universe one afternoon, and I spot: And I've got to ask: was there a saloon in some European city where the camera designers get looped and take home the wrong USB drive?

Want to know what's going on in photography, 15 months ago? Hop over to SLR Today, which somehow seems to have halted publication in August, 2007. Meanwhile, over at MJU-MJU, someone started out saying nice things about the Olympus Stylus Epic -- a really great film camera that's sadly no longer in production. Then, in 2006, the world changed. And that's all he (or she) wrote. Someone should catalog some of these timeless sites, devoted to photographic marvels that once showcased the technology at its pinnacle. Given all the '70s - era rangefinder cameras I own, you'd think I'd take on the job. But, no. I just have to delete them from my bookmarks list.

Vivitar used to make some exceptional lenses, and the 285 strobe flash that was every news photographer's workhorse. My favorite 35mm compact rangefinder camera was, and still is, the Vivitar 35ES camera -- built by Cosina, which made and makes low-end cameras for many big brands of the day. (Trivia: Vivitar's original name was "Ponder and Best.") More recently, they slapped their brand on inexpensive digital cameras. One was a decent 6-MP underwater camera that sold for around $100 USD. But most insiders knew that Vivitar -- like Polaroid -- was a brand for hire. You could, for a price, slap it on a digital picture frame, a TV screen, or a toaster. But it didn't have that legendary Vivitar lens quality us film dinosaurs so enjoyed in the 1980s. Fast-forward to today: Vivitar's name has been sold yet again, to Sakar. ( Read it here. ) Sakar markets a wide array of plastic photographic accessories that you won't find advertised in Popular Photography . So, ...

One good indicator of whether you'll get sharp photos from a camera is if the camera lets you adjust the image quality setting. This is generally found as a menu option called JPEG Compression. Inexpensive digital cameras generally don't allow you to adjust JPEG compression. Other cameras let you choose different compression levels, such as "Standard" or "Fine." Choosing the "fine" setting results in slightly larger image files, as the camera's processor isn't squeezing your image file into a smaller "standard" setting. If you visit Flickr and use their Camera Tracker, you can track down a specific camera and view the output quality. (Check out full-size versions, not the default snapshot size). Then see if the image quality meets your expectations -- and visit the manufacturer's website to see if the camera's specs list several JPEG compression levels. Don't confuse this with image size. Most cameras permit you to se...

In the bargain department: refurbished digital cameras. It's no secret that most digital cameras are built in Asia. Check the label on the bottom of any camera. And, like any other consumer electronics device, they're bound to have an occasional problem. In the U.S., some brands have such cameras refurbished in this country, often by employees who are a little better compensated than the people overseas who assembled the camera. So, refurbs are a good deal, as long as you get a decent warranty. Example: Geeks.com is offering one of my current favorite cameras, the Kodak M1033, for $119.95, and Kodak offers a one-year warranty (same as on a new camera). In the printing department: online photo printing services sometimes have "default" settings that can enhance your photos before printing. This won't turn a fuzzy print into an award-winner, but it tends to punch up the colors in digital photos. If you do a great deal of Photoshop or Picasa manipulation to your ph...

Here are two reviews of two current digital cameras that are both going for around $170: TrustedReviews.com gave a lukewarm review of the Kodak Z8612 IS camera. This is a 12X "superzoom" camera that won't fit in your pocket, but will get you pretty decent photos from over 100 feet away. CNET.com had kinder remarks about the Kodak M1033 camera , a personal favorite of mine. This is a very compact pocket model with a typical 35-105mm lens, and a bigger-than-usual 3-inch LCD screen. CNET liked its image quality; in addition, I like how it's insanely light and compact. So how do you choose? If you shoot lots of photos from the bleachers at a football game, the Z8612 is a pretty decent value. But I've always believed that you'll get the best photos from the camera you keep with you. A pocket camera fits better in my sport jacket than a bulky superzoom. Thus, I pack the M1033 for casual shooting, and use a DSLR when photography is the main reason I'm headed out...

Here are a few tips to get the most out of your digital camera, no matter what brand you purchased or how experienced you are: First, attach and use the wrist strap (or neck strap) that came with your camera. Even if your camera has a rugged metal body, it's really just a tiny computer and sensor. Dropped from eye-level, it can become an expensive paperweight. That wrist strap can prevent you from turning your camera into a doorstop. Stabilize your camera. Most people hold their camera like a pair of binoculars, but out at arm's length. This invites camera shake. Instead, do this: make your left hand into the shape of a pistol (thumb up, index finger out). Point your hand to the right. Place the camera firmly in the corner where thumb and index finger meet. This helps support the camera better, and leaves your right hand free to press the zoom and shutter button. Zoom with your feet. Almost every digital camera has a built-in zoom. But the longer your lens, the further light ne...