Pen Pictures

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wdcav1952

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I think some of my pens are worthy of pictures, but my pictures are worthy of the trash bin. I used a borrowed digital camera, an expensive Olympus, but had focus problems. Any hints for a decent camera to buy and pointers to a tutourial on pen photography will be appreciated, and turn my :( into a :).

Thanks, William
 
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Daniel

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William,
If you can will you post one of your pictures. it is sometimes easier to try and identify what its wrong by looking at a photo.
Having said that and thinking on the focus issue this is what I woudl first alert you to.
If you are taking a picture of a small object (Pen) and trying to fill the viewfinder withthe object. your Camera must have a Macro setting and the camera must be set to it. otherwise you are likely to close for the cameras nearest focusing range. usually something like three feet or more depending on the lens you have on it. try backing way off like six feet or more and zoom in on the pen if you can. if the camera does not zoom then take the picture at 4 or five feet and then blow it up by cropping on your computer.
try to solve just the focus problem for now and then pick the next thing you want to look better about your photos.
Let me know if this helped any
 

wdcav1952

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Daniel, Thanks for the reply. The camera I borrowed was way smarter than I am. Focus was definitely the problem. Ernie of Beartoothwoods felt it was easier to control focus when aiming down at the pen instead of aiming almost horizontally as I was. When I tried to upload my pictures to this site, I got a message that the file was too large to load into the album. If you are still in the Yahoo group, I do have a few pictures in my album there, called William's World. I doubt I will try any more pictures until I buy my own camera. The Kodak DX6490 was recommended to me. It is 4 megapixels and 10X optical zoom as I like to take wildlife pix as well. Thanks for the input. William
 

Scott

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Hi William,

I saw a great deal on a camera the other day on Ableshoppers.com. It was a Nikon 4300 which is a 4 megapixl camera, for $177 after rebate:

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=541117

While I was checking there this morning, I say they have a special today on a Olympus D-540 for $199:

http://shop.pcconnection.com/web/Shopping/Product.htm?MSCSProfile=&NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fweb%2fshopping%2fproduct%2ehtm%3fproduct_id%3d4883488%26SourceID%3dk8433&SourceID=k8433&product_id=4883488&NRNODEGUID=%7bC03E868D-1CEF-4F98-8F00-45BF12FCEA4E%7d&NRQUERYTERMINATOR=1&cookie%5Ftest=1

Sorry about the length of that link! If you stick with a major brand name, you're usually OK. Good Luck!

Scott.
 

wayneis

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Scott and William,
I would suggest from my experence to get the Nikon 4300. I have the Nikon Coolpix 880. The 4300 looks very similar to it. I love it, if you go to the Yahoo site and look at my pics under Wayne's World they were all taken with my 880. I did NOT do any tinkering with the photos on my computer, they are right from the camera. Some were shot in full auto mode and some shot using macro. I take a lot of pictures and am very happy with it. I do a lot of macro shots in our flower garden, I like zooming down close to a flower with macro. I also have the extra lens, both wide angle and zoom for it and many of the digital cameras don't use extra lens. Photography is my second hobby after woodworking. You can't get the 880 anymore, I think that Nikon found out they were giving away to much with it but like I said earlier, the 4300 looks close.
If either of you have any more questions feel free to ask, it might be easier and quicker to e-mail me and it won't take up as much bandwith here.
For what its worth,
Wayne Swindlehurst
 

Daniel

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Originally posted by wdcav1952
<br />Daniel, Thanks for the reply. Focus was definitely the problem. When I tried to upload my pictures to this site, I got a message that the file was too large to load into the album. If you are still in the Yahoo group, I do have a few pictures in my album there, called William's World.
William, I am going to assume the yahoo photos you posted where the best out of the crop. the focus does not look that bad to me. the light adjustment looks to me to be the biggest problem. somewhere in all the control screens you should find something that has . Incondescent, florescent, outdoors, etc. these allow the camera to adjust for whatever type of light you are trying to shoot under. shooting under incondescent light withthe camera set to outdoors will cause this brown tent to the picture. a grey or blue background helps the camera out a bit also. cameras like grey.
I can see the grain in all the photos so the focus can't be that far off.
as for getting the photo posted here they need to be resized. yahoo does it for you. but they will be smaller than what you could get posted here. but that is anouther lesson. It will be much simpler on you to stick with getting a picture you are happy with then moving on to the next step. so if yahoo works for you then just stick with that for the time being. i won't be going anywhere soon. I don't take all the griping around yahoo to be at me personnaly as much as I see it the direction that group is sliding. that's anouther reason I am glad to see some fresh groups like this one starting up. new soil to till before we start planting a whole new crop of weeds [:)]
I have alot of patience with working through stuff like this with people so just keep you pics coming and eventually you will get just what you want. and remember just like your pens it's about getting the look you want. their really is no right and wrong.
 
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