Premier DS-5080

[ggreig]

...otherwise known as a very cheap digital camera.

I've never been a great photographer, and so I've steered clear of splashing out any significant mazuma on a digital camera up until now. And in fact, I've still avoided it.

A 5 megapixel camera for under £40 sounds too good to be true, but I've had it for four days now and it hasn't fallen apart, exploded, caught fire, or run off with the silver yet. As I'm about the last person in the world to succumb to the digital photography revolution (apart from my parents) and everyone who has deliberately spent money will have a better model anyway, I won't recommend that you rush to Tesco to buy one.

However, I'm quite pleased. Although some day I may pay real money for a camera that will be capable of taking macro pictures of miniatures (that sounds wrong!), I don't want to spend megabucks on a good camera when my 35mm still has a film in it that I inserted in 1988.

In four days, I have taken more pictures than I took in the whole of the nineties - literally dozen! Yes, I've burst through the barrier into double figures.

Just to show how mad I've gone, I took some pictures in the dark and fog on my way home from work. I present you with the TARDIS landing (36kb) in the square at Kingsbarns. Other pictures came out in interesting colours - red or green fog, depending on where I was in relation to the streetlights - but as it was after dark and below zero, they suffer rather from camera shake.

Comments

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I still haven't gone digital either, re: cameras.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

One reason I went digital was because I too used to end up with films sitting in cameras for years in which I was then very disappointed because they looked awful when I finally got the film processed. The idiot-proof (self-focussing, self-timing) digital has encouraged me to take far more photos that I ever used to.

This works in several ways. I can take lots and lots in the hope that some will be decent and I can just delete the others. I can take only a couple and not have to wait months/years before I get to see them. I can edit and keep the photos on my computer rather than having boxes full of photos gathering dust.

So welcome to the new age of simple image capture. I love the TARDIS in Kingsbarns, BTW.
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[ggreig]

Your usage pattern is how I hope it works out for me; and if it's a success, I may consider a more capable model. However, the one I have is already a considerable advance on my old 35mm in most respects. I can even fiddle with the settings to a reasonable degree, although I expect I will mostly stick to point and click.

The main thing it lacks is an optical zoom and although it does have a "macro mode" I can't really get very close to anything small.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

I use macro mode for photographing embroidery details and the occasional miniatures and it is really useful.

Like you, I started with a very simple Kodak point and click and then graduated to something bigger and more complex... which I still use as point and click. :) One day I'll work out the settings so that I can photograph aurorae with it.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I may pick up one of those in addition to our moderately expensive home digital camera, to have one I can shove in my work bag, to take pictures of wounds and skin lumps and things!

A picture is worth a thousand words (or more accurately, a good picture will get a couple of thousand words published....)

[myceliumme.livejournal.com]

pictures of wounds and skin lumps and things
This bozo is scared and glad he's in England!

[ggreig]

This bozo is scared and glad he's in England!

Mmmm, yes, but hobbitomm is just across the border from you in Wales (despite what it says about Cupar in his user info). :-)

He may have some excuse, being a surgeon by profession.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

What....? What...?

It's not like I _make_ the wounds....