Richard Avedon (and Olivia) are correct. A camera with umpteen megapickles and all the bells and whistles, will not produce more than snapshots with someone who has no eye. (And yes, that eye can be taught!)

One thing about Brad's camera Denise. The problem isn't the bells and whistles as Brad shows, but believe it or not, it is about megapickles too...or it is with the first digitals. Most cameras will now take 6+ megapickle pictures now. That wasn't the case with old cameras. Many of the older cameras would only take pictures with 1-3 megapickles, meaning if you wanted to blow it up alot you might lose some sharpness.

For example, the maximum size for a 1.3 megapixel camera doing a standard print (not a high resolution print) is 6" x 8". For most of us that's good enough. However, for those wishing to have an art print for their walls, the same 1.3 megapickles would only yield a print 3" x 4".

Compare that to todays point and shoots that have 7.1 megapickles:
A standard print size would be 15" x 20" or for maximum resolution the size would be 8" x 10".

Now for most of us, art prints are not necessary. And anyway if you want to get a great art print, then you'd use an digital SLR camera as those give the finest resolution. For most of us getting a nice size digital print for our own enjoyment is more than enough which is why you would probably prefer a camera with a minimum of 4 megapickles (which would yield a standard print size of 10" x 16"). Why do I say 4? Just in case you do shoot that fabulous shot and want to blow it up!

Yes, Olivia - good quote. The eye is the most important tool. When we did the New England Cruise and we were in Halifax, Frank packed my camera for the excursion and the battery remained in the charger in the cabin. I had to buy a disposable at Peggy's Cove but those pictures ended up being just wonderful and they are in my gallery on the wall at home.

Denise's suggestion to go to a good camera store for help is excellent. Not everyone's hand can hold some of the smaller cameras steady. You need to try them on for fit. They don't have width to hold them so they can result in blurry pix or your finger can get in the way of the lens.. You really need to know what you want as a result from your pictures. If you tell them you only want to take photos of people, but then you travel and will want photos of various sites you visit, you could be very disappointed with your new camera. Also, if you only want 4x6 prints vs 11x14 that will also impact your decision. And not all megapixels are created equal - they are actually little containers for color - some are bigger than others without getting too technical. That's why it's best to stick to some of the more popular brands - their image quality is better.

All of this camera discussion has reminded me. Kathy, have you decided not to show us your SAND pictures, other than the lens try-out and the rainbow? If so, I'm awfully disappointed.

Hi Pam,

That was all I pretty much took on SAND...we missed the Rainforest excursion we planned in San Juan because of the timing into port, It rained in St. Thomas - hence the rainbow, I didn't get off the ship in Grand Turk otherwise I'd have missed my spa appointment, and Princess Cays was cancelled due to weather. I was disappointed too. I think there is a new photo I put up of a Stingray at Atlantis and something I played with of Debbie and Russ in Black and White. www.pbase.com/chatkat/

Oh, I'm so sorry! You were SO looking forward to your excursion in St. Thomas. Bad weather sucks.

Yes, it was POURING! Good weather for jewelery shopping. Wasn't all bad! It was a great cruise - lot's of fun. I have alot of photo stuff planned this year and alot of new gear. I am doing a wedding and a bar mitzvah this year, a few family portrait sittings and some fun shots of singles who are dating, plus I have a trip to Santa Fe for a workshop, a trip to Las Vegas for a photographer's conference, and three cruises planned -One to Vancouver, one to Greece and Turkey and CROSS so my camera and lenses will be busy.

I picked up the Canon G7 a couple of weeks ago. So far so good. It's quite small considering it's capabilities. I don't know that I would recommend it for someone who just wants to turn it on and point and shoot. There are lower costing cameras that do that better. They tried to make is easy, but over did it. There are like a dozen "easy modes". They work well, but you still have to set it for that particular situation. So here's my take.

Pros:
Light weight.
Big LCD.
Built in flash works well (you can set the intensity manually).
Very nice macro mode.
Controls are easy to use. Easy to change. shutter speed, aperture, etc.
IS is a godsend. Hard to stabalize the carmera otherwise.
External flash mount. Although it better be a small one.
ND filter works very well.
Variety of white balance presets including underwater.

Cons:
Don't even try ISO > 400.
No RAW images.
Batteries go in a hurry, especially with flash.
Viewfinder is worthless which forces use of the LCD. Difficult in bright sun.

Here was my dilemma. I needed something underwater and an underwater case for my Canon D20 weighs 8 pounds and costs about $1800. So for a little less money and a lot less weight, I got the G7 with an underwater housing. Should work well for that as long as I don't have to use the flash too much. It sounds like that won't be a problem snorkeling in Tahiti :D .

The other thing I noticed that bothered me, was the lens only stops down to f8. Kind of a narrow range when trying to bracket, especially when zoomed. It also doesn't quite cut it for infinite depth of field. But then again, it's not an SLR.

F8? Only? What about for Sunny 16 shots?

I am a wide open kinda girl so for me 2.8 is the opening for me! Actually, I just bought the 50 1.2 for my 5D in December. My point and shoot is a SD 800 and it won't shoot RAW either. I am sorry I gave the kids my G2 - which did but was only 4 megapixels.

With the G7, no sunny 16's. Sometimes when I'm shooting a landscape, I like the background to be in sharp focus. Especially when it's not very busy and the forground is very dominant.

It's pretty nit picky since I'll have my SLR most of the time anyway.

Whoo Hoo. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I am interviewing with a top wedding and event photographer next week to be the assistant photographer for his shoots.

Good luck, Kathy!

Masaki

Have any of you photo junkies tried out Adobe Photoshop Lightroom yet? http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

We're getting a lot of early orders for it at work and would love to get some feedback.

Also would love to hear from anyone who has beta tested Photoshop CS3. An official launch date will be announced later this month with an April release. There seems to be a lot of buzz about this release!

I tried the Beta test of Lightroom, and it didn't seem to do anything for me. I watched a Demo at the Photo Expo last year & asked myself "Is That All There Is?" I find that the free program Picasa does a very fine job of allowing me to organize my photos. And now that CS2 7 CS3 come with Bridge, and that takes care of RAW conversion, batch processing, etc., I'm not really sure of the need for Lightroom.

I am using the Beta CS3. When I switched from windows to Mac I only had WIndows CS2, so I downloaded the Beta for my Mac. The Beta version has one big flaw - the Brushes do not show - all that shows on a brush are the crosshairs. Adobe indicated that it will be fixed in the commercial release due out this spring.

Since I only have used CS2 on a slow Windows machine & CS3 on the speedy Mac, I really cannot do a comparison. But I can say that I am happy with CS3, and I plan to upgrade my CS2 to CS3 when it is released.

John,


Everyone over on my pro photo boards are loving CS3. I am still using CS2. It's release date is March 27th.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you Kathy! Good luck!

So what does an assistant wedding photographer do?

Take pictures the 1st photographer doesn't want to take. Usually, cake and tables, the kids in the bridal party, the groomsmen, some times the bridesmaids and family members. They want the visibility - I just want to take the photos. I need to do a few weddings for the experience before I go out and do too many as a first on my own. I have a wedding booked (for a friend) already and a bas mitzvah as well. The good part of this kind of business is it compatible with accounting since bridal season is after tax season. More money for TRAVEL and cruising!

You will be great, Kathy. You are a natural at taking "people" pictures.

Thanks, Mitch for the encouragement. I just keep snapping away and studying more and more. I will know more on Wednesday - or not!

Kathy, we're waiting anxiously to hear how it goes today. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Well, I am certainly in the running. It went really, really well. I just have to take some photos at a wedding and submit them to them.

Outstanding Kathy! I'm sure your enthusiasm as well as your talent will take you far.

Dave

Hello all,
I know its been a while since I posted but I have a new job at work and have been been real busy.
I also have tried CS3, after utilizing CS2 for a while. I recently upgraded to the new IMAC 24 (Intel) from the IMAC 20 (Power PC).
CS3 does load a litter faster on the Intel than before, however the cross-hair issue on all the brushes made it useless for me. Everything that I do relies on a lot of masking and I need the brush sizes to be precise. Other than that i do like some of the changes.
If you do upgrade and have filters make sure you download the updates for each one. A lot of them don't work with CS3.

I use IPhoto for many of my projects, I like the organization and the batch processing. It has some pretty decent editing especially if you know the "secret commands" for the changing the brush sizes. Iphoto can also utilize Photoshop or any other program for editing. While in IPhoto it will open the program and then save it when you are done, and you never have to leave IPhoto. Its also great for movies and slideshows.
John

John,

Since you use Canon, you might look at Digital Photo Professional and ZoomBrowserEX. I met with a rep from Canon and their RAW converter is meant to work with the camera specifically and the adjustments that you can make to your RAW images are just as if you were adjusting your camera. It is an amazing program. Lots of the pros are using them if they shoot Canon.

Kathy - Hadn't heard from you in a while. How's the wedding photo gig going?

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for asking. If I weren't in the heat of tax season, I'd be out marketing and getting my website up. But I have to earn my keep and pay for this year's travels. But I am to totally having fun with this. I forgot how exciting it is to start a business of my own.

I have a portrait shoot on Monday. A portrait I did a couple weeks ago was used for an ad, so I am now published. Got to go to a Wedding Photographer's convention two weeks ago and there were 10,000 photographers there. I went to 7 classes in 3 days, met with a couple of seasoned pros who told me that I should not go looking at shooting for other photographers - just do it on my own. And at the trade show par there were hundreds of vendors with any possible kind of merchandise either to use (Props, albums, software, CD's of educational things, and Camera Gear, lights, you name it!) or work into things to sell. I now have a full set of things to use to do commerical shooting in a studio. I am setting up a room in my office to be a full time studio.

Wow Kathy, that's GREAT! How exciting. You've been very busy in the last few weeks. Good luck and keep us posted.

Dave