1st Camera - Dimage A1

[Secret]

Hello All! I'm new here and found this site while I was studying up on camera's.

I am by far no professional with a camera but have been interested in a nice one for some time. I am a diecast car collector and wanted the camera to take pics of my collection and make some posters.

I have never owned a digital camera before and have only had the cheap $30.00 35MM film cameras. But I wanted a really nice one with a lot of features to mess with...lol One that I could grow with and learn the tricks of the trade. I don't ever plan on doing anything more than Diecast car photos and maybe some vacation pics here and there.

I have used a Sony 1.3 MP for about a year, but boy do the pics stink. I decided on the AI after reading review after review on the A1, A2, & A200. I also read several forums and comments from people who actually own these cameras and found the A1 pretty much blows away the A2 and A200.

I will have my A1 in a couple days, and just thought I would chime in and see if I could pic up on a few helpful tips.
Of course I do have a couple questions being new to the whole camera scene:

1. What exactly does "Prosumer" mean?

2. I have heard you have to update the firmware for this A1 and its kinda difficult. What is firmware and is it something I can do myself?

Any and all comments and advise will be greatly apreciated!
Thanks!,
Sean---

[Secret]

WOW! this forum is kind of dead.

Let me try something -

HELLO - HELLo - HELlo - HEllo - Hello - hello

Yup quite an echo in here.

UPDATE:

Well I got my A1 and its awesome! I am reading through the manual and learning the basic functions of the A1. Have taken a couple shots - but I can't seem to get it to focus in on one of my cars Must be something I am doing wrong - back to the book!

[tcm]

Hi,

Yes these forums don't always get lots of attention. I have had my A1 for almost a year. I love it. Let's see if I can answer a few questions:

Firmware update - I only had to do this when I got the teleconverter lens. It was a breeze and all is good. The instructions that came with the lens were very clear and easy to follow. I have read some other things about formware upgrades and the story basically is if the camera is working, then don't mess with the firmware upgrade.

Now for the focus problem. Can you tell me more? For example, are you sure you aren't too close? Did you flip the Marco switch? Have you tried Manually focusing? With a little more info, maybe I can be of some help.

Chris

[Secret]

Hi Chris!,

Cool deal on that firmware. I wasn't to excited about that. The camera works great, so I won't mess with that firmware stuff.

I figured out about the macro switch and no I was not manually focusing the camera I was letting it do the focusing. I have noticed that the camera will auto focus awesome at times and then not at others - but - at the times it won't focus on its own I have easily set it to manual focus and got a extremely clear shot! THIS CAMERA IS AWESOME!

I'm still learning about apature and shutter speeds also. When I first decided to get this camera I knew nothing about photography - this is a great learning experience and I am enjoying it very much.

Here's one of my first pics I took with the camera after playing with the manual focus a little:

[tcm]

Sounds and looks! like you are on your way to being hooked on this photography thing like the rest of us.

Good job. I look forward to more of your posted images appearing.

[Secret]

Hey Chris!,

Maybe you could help me out here. I take a pic of one of my cars outside - everything turns out great. I try to take pics indoors using a 300WATT lamp and a 120WATT lamp and they turn out really super dark....any ideas?

Here is the two pics:

I have learned to focus a lot better now than in this pic.


And this one is lit up plenty but the camera takes the picture dark - the focus is great - but the background stinks.


Do I still need more lighting? Or is this something I am not doing right with camera settings maybe?

Thanks Chris for any advise!
Sean---

[tcm]

Hi Sean,

This can be a tough one and I certainly am no expert. It would be nice to know what your setting were on this indoor shot - did you shoot this with Automatic settings? It also looks like your white balance might be off a bit for the type of lighting you were using. Try chaning the white balance and see which setting gives you the most true colors. Aslo, the A1 does a good job with custom white balance - see maybe page 70.

Shinny black is hard to light and not get super hot spots from your lights. Where were your lights? Your key light looks to be 90 degress to the left. This may be why the front of the car is dark. Try it at 45 degrees and about 30 degrees up. You can suspend a paper towel in front of the light to diffuse it and maybe knock out some of the hot spots this will create.

What was your shutter and speed and appeture setting?

Chris

[Secret]

Chris,

My 300W light was to the left and above the level of the car pointing down at the front of the car. My 120W light was directly above the car about 3 feet pointing down on it.

I was on AWB and my apature setting was f11 and as far as I know the shutter speed was chosen by the camera...lol I hope!. I manually focused on the car myself.

I haven't tryed any of the custom WB stuff yet - I will look into that.

I guess what I would really like to know is - will the camera capture the photo as I see it? When I look at this car under these lights it looks really bright and clear, but then looking through the camera the picture I see is really dark. So what I mean is - is the camera capable of taking the pic as I see I just have to get the settings right? Or do I not have enough light for the camera to pic up on the car like I see it?

Sorry to bother you with these probs buddy, but any tips are greatly appreciated I can promise you that! THANKS CHRIS!
Sean---

[Secret]

Chris,

That custom WB helped a ton thanks bro!
I do need some better lights...lol But at least I got the background white. And right when I got the camera focused in on the car for a really good shot - my 300W lamp went kablewy! So I'll get some new bulbs and get ya a pic so you can see what I got rollin now.

Thanks for your help Chris I really appreciate it!

Sean---

[tcm]

Sorry I did not get back to you sooner, but I am glad things look to be working out better for you. Bummer on the light.

One other thought was unless you are going for something in particular, I might get that f-stop a little more open than f11. You might do some tests where you open up a stop or two and push the shutter speed faster. At f11 you have the least amount of light coming in that you can get on that camera.

Can't wait to see your new stuff.

Chris

[Secret]

Chris,

How do you open up a stop or two?

Anyways - heres a cool pick of a 68 Camaro SS that turned out pretty cool - what ya think?

[tcm]

These cars of yours are truly amazing - they are so detailed.

Your f-stop value is inversely proportional to the amount of light that the camera lets in. At f3.2 you are allowing the greatest amount of light in and at f11 you are letting the least amount in. When you take these close ups, your f-stop will also have an effect on the depth of field (DOF). So you have to play with the settings to find the mix that gives you what you are after. On your latest shot, the image is in focus right up front on the grill and then very quickly gets out of focus - in other words you have a shallow DOF. For this shot is might be better to have a longer DOF and let the image go out of foucs furhter back as the light gets darker.

Also, shinny stuff is really hard to shoot. In future shots you will probably want to try and reduce those really hots spots by forever messing around with your lights.

Keep shooting and experimenting! I hope I have helped in some way,
Chris

[Secret]

Hey Chris!,

I was messin around again. I think I like this black background stuff a lot...hehe

Heres one that turned out pretty decent:

[tcm]

Hi Sean,

Nice job - you are really getting some good shots. One suggestion, and I'm sure you caught it, is to now be careful about reflections. It looks like you might have caught a person there on the front of the driver side fender. Other than that, these are really looking good!

Chris

[Secret]

Chris,

LOL You know I never even noticed that. In that pic it looks exactly like one of my kids - but after I enlarged that pic about 10 times its actual size I realized its a white box and a shelf in the room I take the pics in. You know I probably would never even see that in the EVF. I will move them for future pics.

I just thought of something hilarious - You ever seen those websites were they believe in ghost's...LOL I bet you money I could get this posted on one.....Way to funny! The Diecast spirit...LOL - shows up in all my pics, but is never seen by the naked eye...LOL!

Thanks for the heads up buddy!
Sean---

PS - You got any favorites in the muscle car line Chris? Chances are I just might have one I could get a pic of for ya ;-)