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The Dark Room -- Photo Editing and Picture Taking. Advice, tutorials, questions on all things photoshop, photo editing, and taking pictures of beads or glass.

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  #1  
Old 2006-01-20, 8:03am
burntfingers's Avatar
burntfingers burntfingers is offline
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Default Digital Camera ... help me decide ...

I was trying to decide between the Nikon 950 and the 990, when I went back to my earlier post about digital cameras and re-read everything that was there. I settled on the Nikon CoolPix 4300, because I was impressed with the shots that someone else had taken with theirs. Well, I went on ebay and I snagged one ... for about $100. (I hope that's a good price).

Anyway, now my question is this ...

Now that I have the camera, am I going to need a telephoto lense for it, or is it okay as-is?

Last edited by burntfingers; 2006-01-20 at 4:04pm.
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  #2  
Old 2006-01-20, 8:10am
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Cosmo Cosmo is offline
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You don't need macro. You will get better results setting up your camera farther away and zooming in. I take all of my pictures with my camera about 12" away from the subject. I would get whichever one has more optical zoom.

Fact is, the metering system in most cameras doesn't function well on macro settings in artificial light. In the field, as in taking pictures of flowers, insects, or whatever, there is plentiful ambient light, which works fine. In a studio situation with light coming from a couple sources a foot or two away, the sensor doesn't function correctly. I have noticed that most of the people that are having problems getting their pictures to come out correctly are using the macro setting.
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  #3  
Old 2006-01-20, 10:57am
SteveWright SteveWright is offline
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I like my 950. The differences are few, the macro and zoom capabilities are the same. There is no cable release feature with the 950, but I work around that by using the self-timer. The 990 will be a year newer and 50% more pixels.

Both models have had problems with the Off-Auto-Manual switch, but I have not had that crop up with mine.

It looks like the 990 has been selling for about twice the price of the 950, which would lean me toward the 950.

Steve
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  #4  
Old 2006-01-20, 12:33pm
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burntfingers burntfingers is offline
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Thanks Steve ... I'm still leaning towards the 990 ... I don't know why, but just having something be a year newer comforts me. I've read reviews at Amazon for both cameras (all seem to be good reviews). It's nice to know about the switch problem though ...
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  #5  
Old 2006-01-21, 11:08am
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My thoughts...

The good news is, once you get the camera, you will only change it because you've outgrown it, which will be more about how *you* use it. It might be the perfect camera for you for 5 years.

However, digital cameras go out of date about every 6-9 months. So I would suggest not worrying too much about how *new* the model is, and only purchasing the newer more expensive model if there is a particular function (focus, image size/resolution) that you believe you need today. If you are mostly taking the pictures for the web, I would say you don't need the larger number of pixels. However, if you want to print out 8x10s then you might.

As for the telephoto question, you would only need that if you wanted to take pictures from far away (wild animals and surfing shots are two applications where people have *huge* telephotos, for example). For beads and the like you just need a normal or macro focusing. Many of the digital cameras also have super macro, which is probably more than you need.

Does any of that help?
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  #6  
Old 2006-01-23, 6:45am
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burntfingers burntfingers is offline
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Hi Parisgal ... that helped me tons! I know that cameras are changing all the time, so I expect to upgrade again in a year or so, but I wanted to get something now and cheap (I'm horrible with patience). This camera fit both of those priorities and I was impressed with the pictures another person was taking of their beads - so I know it can be done. LOL!

Thanks also for the tip on the telephoto stuff - I knew that it handled far away shots, I just didn't know if I would need it for being up close too.
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  #7  
Old 2006-01-23, 11:56am
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parisgal parisgal is offline
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Glad to help. It's always nice to share that collections of slightly useful facts
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