Just go a CyberShot F828! Woot!

DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
edited July 9, 2004 in Cameras
Well, comments? Laments? Pointers? Love? Hate?

TIA
He who throws dirt, loses ground...

Comments

  • txhptrooptxhptroop Registered Users Posts: 3 Beginner grinner
    edited June 7, 2004
    Congrats, A friend of mine recently made the same purchase. It's a great camera and there are many things you can do with it. Enjoy, and let us see some photos.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited June 7, 2004
    Well, comments? Laments? Pointers? Love? Hate?

    TIA

    i've been shooting with the f828 since december of 2003. i love it. i also have a canon dslr, i shoot with both cameras.

    holler if you have questions
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 8, 2004
    Well, Ive been getting incredible shots, and after learning the camera via trial-and-error/the freakin manual, I know my way around the thing preeeety nicely now! I have the manual settings down pat, and Ive been taking some snazzy pictures, switching from different modes. For instance, Ill take a picture once with a fatty-wide aperture and faster shutter speed and auto-WB and AF, and then a smaller aperture andlonger shutter timing. Now, though, I think Ive found the G-spot at about a 4.0 f-stop and a shutter speed of about 1/80 of a second for most pics, but that g-spot is massaged. Often. Veeeerrryy often... nod.gif

    Well, Im in no position to post pics right now, as Im still in Italy, and things are a tad behind here... If I get the opportunity, though, I shalt certainly leap, whilst looking sufficiently! Beware fat file sizes, though; 8 megapixels of tasty (digital)zoominess, even in regular JPEG! I wanna learn how to use the RAW mode, though, as I still dont quite understand what RAW is, what it does, or what the consequences are of using said mode... I know theyre better, though! A lot better (so Im told)!

    Well, thanks for the congrats and offers for info, guys! Ill be getting back to you guys on (insert topic here) in the near future! Right now, though, Im gonna go get me a pizza! In L"Acquila! (Damn Italian keyboards!)

    Ciao For now!
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited June 8, 2004
    A brief explanation of RAW, 'cause that's all I'm capable of. (I've only just started messing with it.) RAW is an uncompressed file, unlike JPEG, which has some compression and therefore loses some information. RAW is unprocessed. This measn the camera has not imposed a white balance, color saturation, etc on it.

    Which means, and this is the beauty of it, that you can use special software to change the white balance, the exposure level (by about two stops, I believe), the contrast, the color saturation while it's still an uncompressed file.

    The idea is that shooting in RAW lets you fix mistakes made while you were shooting. There are downsides, however. RAW files are much bigger, because they're uncompressed TIFF files, and so use up a lot of memory. Your cards won't hold as many shots. And also, RAW forces you to tinker with special software before you can use the shot and compress it to a jpeg.

    How'd I do, folks? :D
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
  • pathfinderpathfinder Super Moderators Posts: 14,708 moderator
    edited June 8, 2004
    wxwax wrote:
    A brief explanation of RAW, 'cause that's all I'm capable of. (I've only just started messing with it.) RAW is an uncompressed file, unlike JPEG, which has some compression and therefore loses some information. RAW is unprocessed. This measn the camera has not imposed a white balance, color saturation, etc on it.

    Which means, and this is the beauty of it, that you can use special software to change the white balance, the exposure level (by about two stops, I believe), the contrast, the color saturation while it's still an uncompressed file.

    The idea is that shooting in RAW lets you fix mistakes made while you were shooting. There are downsides, however. RAW files are much bigger, because they're uncompressed TIFF files, and so use up a lot of memory. Your cards won't hold as many shots. And also, RAW forces you to tinker with special software before you can use the shot and compress it to a jpeg.

    How'd I do, folks? :D
    Thats just about it waxyLaughing.gif
    Pathfinder - www.pathfinder.smugmug.com

    Moderator of the Technique Forum and Finishing School on Dgrin
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited June 8, 2004
    sony f828 sweet spot
    info and findings courtesy of shay stephens. i concur fully with them, btw.

    My testing has shown that f/4 continues to be the sweet spot for ultrafine details such as may be encountered in landscapes. If you are not shooting for ultrafine details, then all the apertures are pleasing and don't suffer from large differences. I feel very comfortable using any of the apertures of the 828.

    The differences I see are really only evident in 100% to 200% magnification or greater. At wide apertures (f/2.8) of course there is more aberrations (PF for example and slightly less fine detail, though better than at f/8) at f/8 the contrast tends to be a tad less and diffraction effects begin to show resulting in less fine detail. The fine detail loss is the greatest at f/8, but not to the point where the typical viewer would notice. Only in comparing between the same shot done at f/4 and f/8 would the difference been seen. Of course at f/8 the PF is less evident. So some may have to pick their poison as to which aperture to use ;-)

    If you are going to print at 8x10 or smaller, I really don't think the aperture will make any difference in the print. If you plan on printing larger than that and want the finest detail possible, then f/4 will give you the most bang for the buck.

    But even a 16x20 shot at f/2.8 looks amazingly sharp.
  • SeamaidenSeamaiden Registered Users Posts: 339 Major grins
    edited June 14, 2004
    Woot le woot, you cad... Dewr, THIEF! You stole Budo's avatar.. mwink.gif (It lacks the animation.) May we blame that on the Italian kb's?

    When will be posting fishy piccies? And where for art thou en Italia?
    Youth and Enthusiasm
    Are No Match For
    Age and Treachery
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 16, 2004
    Thanks guys! Thats just info I needed! No Bull, no hour-long monlogues on the merits of blah; perfect! I wish all information was as compressed; of course, greater detail being incredibly easily accessed and catelogued regarding relevance...

    Blast! Seamaiden! Youve smoked out my ruse! I confess... I have stolen another's trademark! I am a boring ninny and un-original as it may be! I cant find a good avater these days! Where does one find cool animated avatars and stuff?! I guess its gonna be another Inu one if you want me to change it... *Sheepishness*

    Ill change it if you want, but I dont know what an Italian KB is... Im back here in Cali, now; arrived at 12AM last night (realizes the incongruency of terms used. shut up. tired. sleep. *drools*...). I traveled around a bit with my whole family.... My mom is a third generation Italian, Brazilian by birth by Brazilian parents, Italian Grandparents... Shes never been to Italy, and has been dying to go... I graduated from highschool on the 1st, was on a plane within the next 12 hours for Calgary, Canada, for a 5 hour lay-over. Yeah. Thats how bad she wanted to go... So we went and tried to sniff out some relatives and distant connections. We found a fairly distant cousin in a tiny village in the mountains of the Molise area, called Acquaviva Collecroce. Near Termoli and Campobasso. From there, it was a place called L'acquila ("the eagle, or something...), where supposedly my grandmother's parents came from (more like the surrounding region). Thats was a bit of a wild-goose-chase, until we were tooling around a city called Montereal, WAY up in the mountains (L'acquila is pretty freaking high up; on the shoulders of the Grand Sasso!), when on our way out we spied a WWI monument that had my mother's family name on it (Persechillo or something like that). We'd always wondered how two Italian families could possibly know each other enough to setup an arranged marriage in Brazil (my mom's parent's wedding was forced), and where the connection had been... It seemed like we'd stumbled onto something there... Anyway, thats another trip... After all that, it was on to Firenze (Florence). We stayed in an "agro-tourism" place; essentially an apartment on a farm outside of town. What was most interesting was that we stayed incredibly close to where Machiavelli was banished from florence to! We ate dinner in a restaurant that used to be an adjacent building (essentially the same structure) to the house he stayed in! Crazy! I got photos of the view of Florence that Machiavelli stared at for years! I even bought some Machiavelli Chianti (the restaurant had a winery somehwere else where they made the stuff using the local vinters). I drank it in the restaurant, and decided it was worth bringing back...
    Well, that was the trip in a nutshell (like a freaking giant nut!); Ill post pics to illustrate in another thread. Or maybe I should do it in this one to maintain the relevance and info...?

    Guess I broke what I said in the beginning of this post over my knee! *sigh*...11doh.gif
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • cmr164cmr164 Registered Users Posts: 1,542 Major grins
    edited June 16, 2004
    wxwax wrote:
    ... RAW files are much bigger, because they're uncompressed TIFF files...
    Raw and TIFF are usually very different. (maybe only the pro Kodak cameras encapsulate compressed raw into tiffs) Raw usually is the raw 12bit digitized sensor output prior to being turned into RGB with a beyer mask. That is why you can change the white balance or the exposure +/- 2ev. Raw is almost always compressed with a lossless compression algorithm.
    And also, RAW forces you to tinker with special software before you can use the shot and compress it to a jpeg.

    How'd I do, folks? :D
    That part is right as is the bit about files being larger.
    Charles Richmond IT & Security Consultant
    Operating System Design, Drivers, Software
    Villa Del Rio II, Talamban, Pit-os, Cebu, Ph
  • SeamaidenSeamaiden Registered Users Posts: 339 Major grins
    edited June 17, 2004
    Oh? I have TIFF format on my Oly C-740, thought it was essentially an uncompressed, zero-loss format as well. Too big for the cards I have, so I've never used it, been happy with the SHQ jpeg format.

    DG, Italy sounds like a blast. My mother's grandmother was Italian.. I have no idea from where. The Sambolin surname, which I thought seemed odd for Spaniards, is actually an Italian surname. We seem to have the Sicilian blood on my father's side, but ending up in New Orleans ultimately corrupted our blood with all SORTS of stuff. I don't think Budo would have a problem with you nicking the av, he's taking a break from all things "net".

    Now you're obliged to get us some piccies of fishies.
    Youth and Enthusiasm
    Are No Match For
    Age and Treachery
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 17, 2004
    Fish pics are coming, dont worry! Now that I have my disks cleared up, Ill take a few RAW pics, use the software that Sony gave me with the camera to view them and perhaps make some adjustments, and then Ill work on making them net- and 56k-friendly... Although, I think the sizes of the pics Ill be posting will ultimately be non-56K-friendly anyway... *whew* Good thing I have broadband!
    My tank is just now recovering from wild ups and downs that I find hard to explain, as Ive made several changes to the setup over the past few weeks... My green hair algae, which I had come to see as an enchanted, never-ending forest of nastyness (actually, I kinda lent a different look to the rocks, and I cant say that my hermits didnt enjoy hiding it it!), has almost up and vanished over about a weeks time! I really cant explain it... Things are looking a bit scragely right now, and I still hace some remedial work to do on the tank after the trip, but overall, everybody's looking happy--except my rBTA! Its starting to loose some of its colors! AARRGGHH!!! And the stupid clown is sort of [email="half-@ssed"]half-@ssed[/email] hosting in my Torch! I say [email="half-@ssed"]half-@ssed[/email] because she only really puts her tail into it, and does a bit of a swish....

    Well, I think Ill go work my tank now then!
    Tchau for now thumb.gif
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 18, 2004
    Ummm, how do I post a pic here?ne_nau.gif
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 18, 2004
    Hows this, seamaiden?
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 18, 2004
    My three legged kitty...
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 18, 2004
    Well, heres one that I played with A LOT, but to almost no avail! This camera's coolness is starting to fade in my eyes....
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • SeamaidenSeamaiden Registered Users Posts: 339 Major grins
    edited June 18, 2004
    Nice shot of the clown goby. Just practice, while I don't really know my arse from a hole in the ground when it comes to photography in practice, I am of the opinion that it's not as much the equipment as it is the person operating it.

    Clean your glass! Nice blue mushies, too.

    Actually, now that I look more closely at the shot of the sixline, it's actually your Trachphyllia that appears to be at best focus, shallow depth of field thing going on there, yeah?
    Youth and Enthusiasm
    Are No Match For
    Age and Treachery
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 19, 2004
    Alright, heres the deal; F-stop: 2.2 or 2.0, shutter at like 1/30 or 1/40... Of course I have shallow depth of field! Those are the minimum settings/speeds I need just capture light on this damn thing! I dont get it; on my old film SLR, I was taking vibrant pics at f: 5.6 or so and a shutter of 1/125! Its like this thing cant sense light or something... I guess I need to play with that exposure feature (you know, that weird thing that says like + or - .7EV or some crap like that that I still dont understand in despite of the stupid, under-informative manual!!!!) and see what that does... I mean, even with the ISO setting set to auto, the ISO the damn thing chooses is always 64! ITs gotta be that weird-ass "exposure" thing...

    Hey, you know how hard it was just to get the glass that clean?!?! I have this sort of brown coralline which I suspect really isnt a true coralline, as I can remove it with my fingernails and it feels kinda soft thereafter... When I got back from Italy, I could not see anything in my tank!!!

    Actually, in person those shrooms are actually more green than blue!

    I still call my brain a Wellsophylia! Neener!
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 19, 2004
    And actually, seamaiden, its the shrooms that are most in focus in that shot! Neener again!
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • SeamaidenSeamaiden Registered Users Posts: 339 Major grins
    edited June 20, 2004
    Don't be a ninny, DG, I betcha can't beat my 20/13 vision.
    Youth and Enthusiasm
    Are No Match For
    Age and Treachery
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 21, 2004
    seamaiden, you offend me! I am no simple ninny! Im a neenering ninny! And, when I had my band with the Canadian bassist, they all called me the needler (I played lead guitar, and Page was my idol then, so nyah to them!)!

    Ive always wished I knew what the 20/20 designation ment... For some reason or another, Ive just never know what that means!

    Also, and I know it seems weird after mention of eyesight values, but whats with the boldwhen you write other people's names?! I asked you in another thread, but I dont believe you got it...
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited June 26, 2004
    Ummm, andy? Do you have any idea why this camera seems to only choose an ISO of 64 in auto mode? I realize now that this machine has a very "grainy" ISO difference/effect when its moved up manually for low light conditions, and I realize how nice pictures are with the lower ISO settings, but 64 is just way low for what Ive been doing lately, and Ive had to set it manually to like 200 or 400, just to get some decent captures!

    Any ideas?

    TIA... (I hope)
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • DewrGleisionDewrGleision Registered Users Posts: 159 Major grins
    edited July 8, 2004
    TIA... (I hope)
    Guess I was wrong...
    He who throws dirt, loses ground...
  • cmr164cmr164 Registered Users Posts: 1,542 Major grins
    edited July 9, 2004
    Ummm, andy? Do you have any idea why this camera seems to only choose an ISO of 64 in auto mode? I realize now that this machine has a very "grainy" ISO difference/effect when its moved up manually for low light conditions, and I realize how nice pictures are with the lower ISO settings, but 64 is just way low for what Ive been doing lately, and Ive had to set it manually to like 200 or 400, just to get some decent captures!

    Any ideas?

    TIA... (I hope)
    By packing 8mp into a small imager, they have made to area of each pixel smaller and it collects substantially less photons and ithus has a much worse signal/noise ratio. It needs the lower ISO to collect enough photons to overcome the reduced pixel size.
    Charles Richmond IT & Security Consultant
    Operating System Design, Drivers, Software
    Villa Del Rio II, Talamban, Pit-os, Cebu, Ph
Sign In or Register to comment.