Let's Get Nerdy/ Digital Cameras

[Hammerhead Herb]

Has anyone started to use digital cameras for taking fishing photos? I'm thinking of buying one for a Canadian flyin trip (no electricity to charge batteries) and wondering how much power they take? Any recommendations as to type of camera?

[FireTiger]

yep I got one, love it,just pick up a extra battery and you won't have any trouble, the best feature is that you can see the pic's so if its not centered you can delete it and take another,not to metion that you can load it to your hard drive and e-mail the pic's all over, good luck and good fishing

[ezmarc]

I would suggest you get a camera with at least 2 megapixel resolution for good quality, an LCD viewfinder you can turn off to save power, a memory card reader(if you have a mapping GPS try to get a camera that will use the same kind of card), and an extra memory card(16MB or larger). Try to find a camera with optional lens kits for faraway shots and closeups. Only use flash when necessary for extra battery savings, they take great pictures in low light.

There are also convenient DC to AC power converters to plug into your boat or auto to recharge batteries and the like. Take plenty of batteries if you have no way of recharging them.

[Raybob]

I agree with everything Marc said. I've had a Polaroid PDC 700 for the last 2-3 years & have really enjoyed it .. But like Marc said "Take plenty of batteries if you have no way of recharging them"! Tip .. Don't let the Gkids or others review the photos till you've got it downloaded or plugged in to a external source - Luvs to eats batteries!

[Hans]

I have an Olympus D-460 Zoom which does a pretty good job.

It's a midrange (pricewise) camera, costing about $400 if you watch the sales at Target, etc.

Comes with a small memory card (4 Meg I think) and you can buy
additional cards. I bought a 16 Meg card (about $60.00) which will hold about 75 pictures at reasonable quality level. Note that you can immediately delete any picture you don't like, so the pictures in memory are only those "keepers" that you like, sort of like culling your livewell. Naturally you can carry more than one memory card with you on a trip if you anticipate a *lot* of pictures.

This camera can be used by a complete novice as a "point and shoot", but also has additional features like zoom, manual focus, macro (extreme close-ups), etc. It has a built in screen to view your photos. You can also use that screen in place of the viewfinder, but it consumes a fair amount of battery power. There is a built-in flash for when you need that.

Runs on 4 "AA" batteries. I bought a small charger and 8 NiCads, so I always have a hot spare set..... a set seems to last for about 150 shots (depending on if you use the flash, or the viewing screen more or less). In any case, if you're going to be away from electric power, you can just pick up some regular "AA" Duracell alkalines, or whatever.

You can, of course, spend a lot more and get a better camera, but this one gives me all the features I need for a fishing camera, and is a nice pocket-size compact unit.

Hans

[Homer]

I love my digital camera, especially after having botched numerous trophy photos with my old film camera. You can't beat having immediate feedback showing you whether the picture turned out OK.

There's no "one size fits all" digital camera, the best camera for you will depend on how you want to use it. If you're serious, here is a Web site that helped me a lot in choosing my camera:

http://www.dcresource.com/

[ezmarc]

Here's a site for checking prices and features. There is a huge range of prices on these cameras.

http://www.zdnet.com/computershopper/

Good luck, When you get back from your fishing trip, post some pics somewhere, and let us see how they came out.

Marc

[Carl]

I have a Olympus C-3000 Zoom / 3.1 Megapixel resolution. Love the camera - shooting photos at the highest JPEG resolution the photos are about 1.5 meg in size with exceptional quality. Comes shipped with 8 meg memory card but you will need at least a 32 meg (which holds about 17 photos at best JPEG resolution). Battery life (4- 2AA - Nickel-Metal Hydride) is exceptional - can shoot approximately 64 - 100 photos before recharge or changing the batteries (I carry an extra set with me). Check out the photo at:

http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~csrld1/Fishing/s4271214.jpg

This was taken with the C-3000 Zoom. I then resized the photo to put on the internet. Good luck

Drop me an e-mail and I'll give you some information on how and where to purchase a digital camera that will save you some money.

[Carl`]

correcting email address

csrld1@advant.com

[Bart]

I also like the way the lense is covered when not in use.

[Bottomfeeder]

My wife bought me a Sony DSC50 Cybershot for Christmas last year and I have found a few major problems with this one for fishing.

1. The Sony only has a LCR display, no small viewfinder to look through. When you go to take a picture in sunlight, you can barely see the picture in the LCR viewfinder. This viewfinder also does not work well at night.

2. The pictures that the Sony take are always very dark. I have to go into my Adobe software and adjust the brightness levels to get the picture to come out very well.

3. If you ever get a Sony, don't ever hit the button that says "format". This reformats the memory chip and erases everything on the chip with out any little pop up box that asks "are you sure you want to do this??". Lost some great pictures because of this.


The Idea of a digital camera is great. I can email great brag pictures to my buddies. Maybe I just got the wrong one.

I hope you need to take lots of lunker pictures.

Bottomfeeder

[eyedoktr]

Digital is a great way to go. Other than fishing, photography is my passion. I own numerous 35mm SLR's but when I go fishing, I carry one of my digital cameras. I agree with the post about buying at least a 2mp camera. If you can afford 3mp, all the better. Other things to look for, optical zoom, do not use digital zoom, it just crops your image and lowers the quality; AA batteries, they can be purchased almost anywhere in the world; optical viewfinder, the LCD screen just loves to eat batteries. I would go with Kodak, Nikon, or Olympus. I'm partial to Kodak because of the accurate color reproduction but all three companies make fine equipment. Another important thing, always...always, shoot at the highest possible resolution (quality) setting. You get fewer images on a storage card but you will be able to make quality prints and you can always resize the image for the internet. It's easier to go smaller than it is bigger. Good luck and take lots of pics.

[Box]

I have a Canon PowerShot10. I love it. It is small and has a metal case, bot to mention takes great shots. There is a PowerShot100 now, alos called the Digital Elph - it is really tiny but works great! I can fit mine in my pants pocket, and the S100 is even smaller. About $500 at Target, but much, much cheaper online. It uses a special recharcable battery that lasts quite long for simply taking pictures. I take two rechargable batteries with me, and have used it on many fishing trips and hunting trips and two batteries last a long time. Depends on how much viewer usage you do. You can turn viewer off and keep battery to a minimum.

There are lots of good cameras out there.

One thing to check, is what type of memory to use (I prefer the Compact Flash card myself). Right now you can get 64MB Compact Flash for $50. check here for the ultimate best prices on computer/camera/etc.
http://www.pricewatch.com

Also, do yourself a favor and get a Scandisk Flash Card reader (or whatever memory you choose) from Best Buy for about $30. It makes transferring pics just like using a floppy disk.

Good luck - you will love the digital cameras!

Box

[Rob L]

We've got two Fuji's that are fantastic. Go to cnet.com for actual user reviews on digital cameras. This is a great resource for deciding on features and brands. They also have lists of vendors for mailorder purchase. Good luck!

[Riceburner]

You mentioned using the high resolution..We have an Olympus D-400 that uses Camedia software. When we transfer the picture to the computer, or attach it to an e-mail, the picture is large, and can only be seen by moving the cursor around, so far. Pls explain to me how to save the pics smaller when they are attached to an e-mail, if you are familiar with this camera. I follow that the high res helps for quality--but the large pic drives everyone nuts....THX

[Carl]

Riceburner - I have the Olympus 3.1 megapixel C3000-Z digital camera and I use the Camedia software. The high resolution JPEG photos that I take are 2048 pixels X 1536 pixels which is very large and takes up about 2 computer screens to view. To resize them for your monitor, to post them on the internet or to send via email try the following:

1)download your photos from your camera to the computer via the Camedia software

2)Access the photo that you want to resize

3)Go to the toolbar on top - IMAGE then RESIZE - you should have a particular size 2048 Pixels X 1536 Pixels (example) - Change this to 600 Pixels X 450 Pixels (the bottom pixel figure should change automatically as it will keep the same pixel ratio. Then SAVE AS a new file name.

I usually never destroy or overright the original photo - when I tweek my photos or change them in anyway I always use the SAVE AS command so I do not over write the original.

This should resize the photo for easy travel over the internet without losing any resolution and quality.

Hope this helps - Carl

[Raybob]

Besides the software that came with your camera .. Try MS Photo Editor, it is simple to use & allows you to do most basic Editing - (Resize by % & etc).