4 replies to this topic

[Luck1au]

Anyone out there with experience in picture quality, I am looking for digital camera either compact or SLR with the one criteria " pin sharp pictures " any suggestion or actual experience most welcome, maybe you could post or attach a picture that you have taken to show the actual result todate I have used;

Fuji Finepix A340 ( very good overal )
Fuji Finepix S 7000 ( dissapointing no better then the A 230 )
Fuji Finepix S550 ( the worst Fuji so far, very grainy pictures, aweful;)
Panasonic LMC 80 ( very dissapointing extremely poor pictures)
Olympus C 8080 ( best so far, but hoping for better & sharper pictures the color reproduction is not to my liking )
Canon A 85 ( not quite as sharp as the Olympus C 8080 but very good on price comparrison better then the Olympus in color reproduction)

Any suggestions to other models very welcome

Luck1au@yahoo.com.au

[markgoldstein]

If you're interested in pin-sharp images straight out of the camera, then don't look at a DSLR, as they mainly favour the soft approach to sharpening.

I always set the Sharepn setting to soft or off and do all my sharpening afterwards in Photoshop. That way you are controlling the process, rather than letting the camera work it out for you (and possibly being too aggressive).

[Herve]

The Oly C-8080 has a lot of fine settings like:

Sharpness: ± 5 steps - did you want more sharpness ?
Contrast: ± 5 steps - give more punch but you lose details
Hue: ± 5 steps - change the colour but how ?
Saturation: ± 5 steps - settle colour saturation

Did you try to change them to get a more "pleasant" picture right out of the box ?

[Luck1au]

If you're interested in pin-sharp images straight out of the camera, then don't look at a DSLR, as they mainly favour the soft approach to sharpening.

I always set the Sharepn setting to soft or off and do all my sharpening afterwards in Photoshop. That way you are controlling the process, rather than letting the camera work it out for you (and possibly being too aggressive).

[FONT=Times][COLOR=blue]

Thanks, I have done that as well, I simply wanted a Camera that allows me to send pictures on the net just about immediately after theyhave been taken, I take a lot of outdoor pictures of dogs at dogshows, so dont always have the time to edit them prior to forwarding them.

At them moment I am using the Nikon Coolpix 8800 I like the Zoom feature the pictures are better then with the Olympus 8080, the colors seem more vivid, set at the 8 Mil pixel setting the results are very good indeed, just take a long tme to send on the net, have tried the lowest setting on the highest quality but the pictures are not the same.

Have decided to go back to the SLR format, will get the Nikon D70 with two lenses will post result and hopefully soem pictures very soon.

Thanks to all for the advise

[Luck1au]

The Oly C-8080 has a lot of fine settings like:

Sharpness: ± 5 steps - did you want more sharpness ?
Contrast:    ± 5 steps - give more punch but you lose details
Hue:          ± 5 steps - change the colour but how ?
Saturation: ± 5 steps - settle colour saturation

Did you try to change them to get a more "pleasant" picture right out of the box ?

Thanks for the advise, yes I did go through all the settings, quite impressed with the 8080 actually, what I did not like was the color and as I said I did not consider the pictures sharp enough, I photograph mostly dogs at dog shows, so outdoor at various lighting situations, I found that the Olympus could not handle the light difference as well as the Canon or the Nikon, have just used the NIkon Coolpix 8800 quite impressed with the results like the zoom capabilities, my next camera this weekend will be the Nikon D70 with two special lenses, hope to post a few pictures very soon, you can see on the pictures what I am talking about, especially on portrait shots of dogs where the lighting situation is not 100% the Olympus was the worst at that situation.

Thanks for your advise