I like using simple point-and-shoot cameras because they are so easy to throw in a pocket and head out the door. Hunting and fishing trips are some of my favorite times to have a camera out so I prefer their light and compact nature- really what else would you rather pack along on a canoe portage?

Anyways I am looking to purchase another camera in the next month or so and would like suggestions, considering a budget of about $200. I have previously used Nikon cameras and feel familiar with them, but am open to others. I am thinking about trying photos in RAW format and using a little more advanced photo editor too, so a camera that can do RAW is a plus. Most of the photos I took last year were with a Nikon L26, until it had a "lense error" and quit.

My main strategy is A. Keeping the camera out and B. Keeping the shutter moving. If I see something I like, I may end up shooting over a dozen repeat photos of that thing 'til I feel like I got it and hope it shows up on the computer later. Memory is free and doesn't wear out, right? I stuck to the auto and a handful of "scene" settings on these cameras and as a rule generally don't use the flash or zoom (seems they rarely help on these little cameras). Sometimes I have a $10 Gorillapod knock-off with me, otherwise I'll rest the camera against anything I can to get a steady photo and steady my breathing and pulse, not unlike shooting a rifle.

I take photos in .jpg format and just use Microsoft Picture Editor to edit them- just basic stuff like cropping, resizing, and adjusting the color saturation, contrast, and brightness if necessary. I usually don't adjust them more than 10 points in any way- I think if it wasn't good to begin with, that probably won't help.

I just started another thread on some "studio" photographs I attempted to take and Farbedo suggested I post more, so the following are what I consider to be the best photos I took in 2013 using point-and-shoot Nikons- an L26, S8000, and an old E4800 I used as a backup when the L26 when down. I took them mostly up and down Minnesota but also Iowa, Nebraska, and Montana.

Please critique away, I would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve on these photographs and you having read this far.

Thanks for looking!

The camera you will always have with you is the best camera. Great shots as well, I like them all. In the small cameras my Canon S95 has never disappointed me.

Thanks Wink, looks like the Canon S95 would easily fit my budget. I've heard good things about the Canon S110 too.

Evan,

Nice photos. I think that you have a good eye for composition, and your use of depth of field is great in several.

I like the cows the best (for no particular reason). #2 would be the dog coming toward you in the corn field. The landscapes are the tough ones. Bright sky and dark foreground make are hard to balance without filters or taking two photos and blending them in photoshop.

I agree with Wink on both counts. The Canon S series are all good cameras. If you don't have it with you, it does you no good.

Jeremy

quote:

Originally posted by farbedo:
Evan,

Nice photos. I think that you have a good eye for composition, and your use of depth of field is great in several.

I like the cows the best (for no particular reason). #2 would be the dog coming toward you in the corn field. The landscapes are the tough ones. Bright sky and dark foreground make are hard to balance without filters or taking two photos and blending them in photoshop.

I agree with Wink on both counts. The Canon S series are all good cameras. If you don't have it with you, it does you no good.

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy, I'll think I'll be looking at some of the S series cameras.

I agree some of those landscape shots were tough, I think the darker light worked well for the shot of the farmstead in the corn field but otherwise not so much. Overcast skies are not best with the small camera.

I'm glad you like the cow photo, I took it while hunting grouse and scouting some land for deer hunting and they were very curious. I like cows- my dad grew up on a dairy farm (where I learned to shoot), and my uncles/cousins still milk holsteins. Those four spontaneously lined up perfectly for the photo- I couldn't have posed them better. I like the rolling terrain and soft blue sky too, and the combination of birch and pine trees rimming the rocky, bright green pasture reminds me it was taken up North. It was my luck to have the camera out.

You might like this one too, taken about a minute after the first cow photo. It was Buck’s first encounter with bovines. Which were more curious?:



He behaved and stayed on our side of the fence, frozen in place except for the tip of his tail buzzing and sniffing excitedly until we moved on. He's fun to watch and photograph.

One thing that has puzzled me with the Nikon cameras is how sensitive they can be to yellow colors. If there is a lot of yellow to red hues in the frame, in certain lighting the color can end up super yellowish in the photograph.

This is a good example. The walls are off-white, tile is a light gray/tan. Add yellow lab, get yellow photo.



Another. This scenario here- taking photos while checkering, with lighting for checkering work and not photos- will produce yellow photos. I tried my best to correct the imbalance in this photo but you can still see it.



The solution I learned was to hold a standard 8.5x11" sheet of white printer paper under the stock for the photo. I think the camera sensed the white and it helped restore the color balance.



The side benefit is a clean background, the checkering diamonds look a lot sharper without stuff strewn all over my dirty workbench behind it.

This is the exact light setup as shown:

This is a better before/after, since you can directly compare the color of my hands in the photos.





On that note I am keenly aware those runovers need some work, I have much learning to do with checkering.

Anyways, what gives? Why do some photos show up super yellow when a slight change in light or color will produce photos that seem perfectly fine? The white paper does help, not always 100% perfect but much better than nothing. But I can't always carry a white backdrop with me.

I appreciate any comments or insights into this, and thanks for looking.

Indoors, in low light, is one of the hardest situations for cameras to correctly white balance. My D700, which is a little more expensive than a point-and-shoot, frequently gets it just as wrong as in your yellow shots. Each time you take a picture the camera is considering it has a new white balance problem to solve, so even a slight modification of light and color in the subject will result in a different white balance "solution".

If you don't want to use a flash (for which the camera should balance automatically), there aren't too many options. They are: 1) your camera lets you shoot RAW files and you correct white balance in post-processing, or 2) your camera can let you manually select the color temperature you want before taking a picture. In the latter case you can try out several color temperature settings until you get one you are happy with, and leave it there for all photos in that lighting environment.

When you are in mixed lighting, like a combination of natural light (through a window for example) and incandescent and fluorescent light, it's a real headache. Skin tones are the hardest to get right (at least for me) so I frequently use a gray card and make a white balance preset before taking the picture (since the D700 allows this) or I stick a WhiBal in one of the photos and correct for white balance in post-processing by choosing a tool (usually an eye-dropper icon) and click on the WhiBal.

I mention this approach here:

http://forums.accuratereloadin...8911043/m/9861033591

Wink is entirely correct Evan. The problem is in the color temperature of the light source. Tungston is 3200-3400 degrees kelvin where as daylight is 5000K. If your point and shoot has a setting for "K" set it to that but be sure to re-set it to daylight. If you don't have a K setting follow Wink"s advice and color correct post-proccessing...Dave

Great information fellas, thanks much for posting. Wink I remember seeing that post but the thought hadn't occured to me yet when I was taking those photos. Now that I think about it, I remember the same color happening with my dad's D5100 too.

I avoid using the flash on the point and shoots as much as possible (especially indoors) so I'll be taking both of your comments into consideration while camera shopping- RAW file capability and a K setting. Dave I kow my current camera does not have either capabilities. I see those WhiBal cards are only $20 or so too.

The yellow photos had puzzled me for a long time so I'm really happy to learn this. Thanks again.

*A little addition to this post, I just ordered a Canon S110 plus some cheap accessories (spare battery, case, tripod, etc) for $250 shipped. The wait begins!

quote:

Originally posted by Evan K.:

*A little addition to this post, I just ordered a Canon S110 plus some cheap accessories (spare battery, case, tripod, etc) for $250 shipped. The wait begins!

Excellent choice, in my opinion. It's got RAW, it's got manual focus (more useful than you may think) and manual white balance control. It may be the only camera you ever need.

Thanks Wink, I was sold on the RAW and manual controls (the auto focus on the Nikon can drive me crazy), plus I have used nothing but Nikons and wanted to try something different.

Any suggestions for cheap-to-free photo processing software?

It's not free, but Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 gets very good reviews. I think it costs around $70. It also has the advantage of being explained in dozens of "how-to" books, on-line tutorials, youtube courses and is sort of an industry standard.

It is not professional software, which is a whole lot more expensive and really does require a lot of time to learn to make it worth the investment. If you want to go a little more serious, and around $120, there is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5. I went a different route, since I shoot Nikon cameras, and use Nikon Capture NX2. I also sometimes use a specific RAW convertor called DxO Optics Pro Elite, which is expensive but has some specific tools I like to use.

Whatever software you buy, having a very good computer screen, preferably one you can calibrate, will help tremendously in working on photo files. Photo files are large, so a lot of RAM and some good speed on your CPU will make a big difference as well.

Evan, Your s110 will come with a disk from Canon that contains the software that allows you to control light temp, contrast and density amoung other things. See Digital Professional Photogragrapher, but you may have to call Canon for the free download to work raw. They can download it directly into your computer. Easy to use and free.

+1
The DPP software fore canon.
it´s free and very good and fart to convert raw .
hunt safe wisent

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely give the free Canon software a try. The Adobe software sounds like a good option if the free system becomes inadequate or I just don't like it.

Wink I just use an older, basic 15" screen laptop at home and that includes photo stuff. I just did a quick look at standalone computer monitors and there are way more options than I expected and lower cost too. Maybe another $50 would be better spent on a computer monitor than more advanced software? What do you think?

quote:

Originally posted by Evan K.:
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely give the free Canon software a try. The Adobe software sounds like a good option if the free system becomes inadequate or I just don't like it.

Wink I just use an older, basic 15" screen laptop at home and that includes photo stuff. I just did a quick look at standalone computer monitors and there are way more options than I expected and lower cost too. Maybe another $50 would be better spent on a computer monitor than more advanced software? What do you think?

It sounds like you will get software with the camera. If that's the case, probably the next most useful thing for photo post-processing is a big screen.

The Canon and gear arrived yesterday, I immediately got started charging the battery and installed the Digital Photo Professional and Photo Stitch software on my computer plus the user guide. This is the first electronic gadget I've bought where they put the guide on a CD rather than a 1/2" thick booklet, I like that.

My initial reaction, after poking around the camera controls and settings for awhile is WOW! This thing is awesome. It has the manual controls I wished my Nikon L26s had and the touchscreen auto-focus is fun. Most of the controls were easy enough to figure out before I looked at the manual. The camera tripod is very light (feels China cheap) but it should do for my basic use, and the monopod was a nice surprise. It seems sturdy yet light enough to be packed along.

Last night I had my dog run around the house some while I played with the shutter speed, focus, scenes, lights, stuff like that.

The video quality looks pretty good too, not super important to me but I have a Youtube account with a variety of hunting, shooting, etc. videos and the Nikon 4800 videos look awful compared to new HD quality video.

I figured out how to switch from .jpg files to RAW, so next I'd like to learn more about the Digital Photo Pro software and how to use it for my photos.

In the meantime I am going to be shooting lots of photos because it's been too long since I've had a newer camera, and haven't used manual controls like this yet. I'm keeping the trusty old Nikon 4800 as a backup, but am happy to put it on a shelf.

Thanks again Dave, Wink and Wisent- your advice is much appreciated.