Digital Camera for lighting work

[peter]

Can someone recommend a good digital camera for lighting work? Ideally it would run on SD cards, but any standard will do. Needs to be fairly high quality, and have shutter speed changing. I've just taken some photos of my current production, and my camera really isnt up to it. Birthday looming (donations to my birthday drinks fund at the ABTT meet greatfully recieved, btw :() so I thought I'd ask around. Max price is around £400, but less would be good.

 

P

[computer]

I have a nikon coolpix and a tiny tripod that captures lighting quite well - not sure of the model number right now though...

[the kid]

I would use a combonation of advice from here and then useKelkoo which is a database of all the cheapest good's you can buy both on and off the net.

 

Then again you could just use that and type in digital cameras.

[paulears]

I've found that a cheapish DV camera is more useful than a stills camera. I've been using one (a JVC cost about 500 a year ago).

 

the best bit is you just let it run, then capture a frame at just the right bit. certainly for capturing moving beams this seems a good way to do it. The single frame capture feature on the camera I don't use at all - seems a bit pointless. Apart from being able to get stills from it you also get normal video for 'free' if you see what I mean.

[Brian]

The only problem in using a single frame from a DV is lack of resolution. DV is a max of 720x576, my little £250 canon IXUS does 2272x1704 capturing 9 times more pixels. I guess it depends on what you want to do. If it's only ever for online viewing then DV will be fine, if you ever want to print it, then current wisdom is at least 200 pixels/inch, preferably 300.

[Neil Frazer]

I used to use a fuji finepix s502 before it got nicked (the buggers just stole my PS2 as well!) that was very good if a little expensive. Ive got a cannon Ixus I now which is great if you don't mind not having a zoom. It as all the manual functions you could want.

[paulears]

brian - I must admit I didn't realise resolutions were creeping up that high! for info, what file size is a single 2272x1704 frame?

[Brian]

From the manual, a 2272x1704 image in superfine resolution (jpg) will be around 2MB, fine res (jpg) 1.2MB. It's only a little 4 megapixel job.

 

I've got an Ixus 400. 4:1 optical zoom, but it takes CF cards. Manual override on most things, although not true shutter speed variation (you do it by overriding the ASA) and it will do movies at 320x240 resolution.

 

When I was looking I found Digital Camera Review very useful for good unbiased tests.

[Stu]

I use a Olympus C750 which is a fantastic little camera. It runs on XD (ok expensive, but getting cheaper), has a 10x optical zoom (useful for stage work), has selectable ISO rating (50-400), you can select the shutter speed from 16s to 1/1000s as well as full control over the various functions.

 

It should be less than £400 now, it is a year old or so.

 

All my pics from August 2003 are taken on it. Also got a little tripod so I can take stage shots without bluring.

 

HTH

Stu

[peter]

although not true shutter speed variation (you do it by overriding the ASA)

Excuse my noviceness, but what is ASA?

 

I'm currently looking at the IXUS 500 which looks like a good buy.

 

Any more for any more? Also, does anyone have any recommendations for tripods?

[Kevin Robertson]

If I had to choose. (I am also looking for a new digital...)

Without looking at dSLR

 

Fujifilm s5000 (about £240)

this would leave some money left for a couple of cards, a tripod and a filter or two.

 

Good luck.

 

I'm dropping hints all over the place about how my camera needs replaced, and how all the other kids have better ones than me etc. etc. :(

[Pete McCrea]

The general view on using DV cameras for stills is that they maybe ok, but the quality won't beat that of a Digital Camera. I've got a high quality DV camera, and while frame grabs are ok for the web, they aren't great. Get a proper digital camera for good pics.

[Brian]

although not true shutter speed variation (you do it by overriding the ASA)

Excuse my noviceness, but what is ASA?

 

I'm currently looking at the IXUS 500 which looks like a good buy.

As you probably know in a film camera you can get films of different 'speeds' or sensitivities, the rating being given by the ASA number of the film. Higher number= more sensitive film.

 

So by tweaking the 'ASA' number on a digital camera you can fool the camera into selecting a different shutter speed. On my Ixus 400 I can select speeds of 50,100,200 and 400 ASA. So, if conditions warranted a shutter speed of 100th of a second at 100 ASA I could fool the camera into selecting 200th of a second by setting the ASA to 200 which makes the camera twice as sensitive or 50th of a second by setting it to 50 ASA which makes it half as sensitive.

 

The downside to this is the same as with real film. Higher speed films have more visible grain, higher speed settings on a digital camera introduce more noise.

[peter]

Fujifilm s5000 (about £240)

this would leave some money left for a couple of cards, a tripod and a filter or two.

Incredibly, I've managed to find the S5000 for just £189! True, its only 3megapixels, but it has a 10x optical zoom which is rather nice. And it looks really professional too :(

 

I did look at the S7000, but that comes in at around £350 - 12 megapixels simulated though!

[Pete McCrea]

Must admit I was really rather tempted by that one too. Or £225 with batteries and recharger. Think I'll run it past the Lady to see what she reckons.....