We bought a digital camera yesterday!

[TimNDansMom]

It's twice as much money as I wanted to spend but Dh "explained" why this would be the better camera for me (meaning him ) It's the Canon G2. We have wanted to get one for about a month now, but I kept putting it off. He said "in a round about way" that I would have lots of time to learn how to use it before going to Disney in the fall!

 

[DisneyLisa]

That sounds promising Julie...looks like you're heading to WDW in the fall

Plus: you can be the "official photographer" for our DIS Babes trip - you will be responsible for capturing all of our magical (& not so magical ) moments at WDW

 

[CdnDisneyNut]

Congrats Julie on your new purchase
I too have just purchased a new digit camera. I too spent more money than origainally planned. I got a Nikon Coolix 2100. Hope I get the hang of before my trip to Europe in little over a month.

 

[TimNDansMom]

Congrats on your new digital camera too, Mike! There ARE a lot of features to learn on these things isn't there! Have fun on your Europe trip with it!

 

[Snowwark]

Excellent news, Julie!! I will be hoping to see lots of ..flowery..pics...lol..

Keep it close by on your DIS Babes trip...a little digital blackmail could bring in some major Disney dollars!!

You're on your way to Europe next month, Mike, very nice!! Whereabouts are you going? Maybe I should let YOU start a thread about it...lol...

 

[DSNY FN]

Hey julie I have the same camera it is very nice just be sure to get atleast an extra 128 or 256 compact flash card for it and a spare battery. BTW where did you get it and how much was it? I just took a job at Best Buy in London and we are having a friends and family day e mail me and I will let you know about it darrenlisa@rogers.com. Anyone interested in a slightly used Canon G2 3 batteries and 2 32 meg CF cards 600 or best offer the camera is a 4 megapixel and is fully loaded

 

[bunnyfoo]

That's great Julie! Digi cams are so much fun I love seeing the pictures immediately after taking it. Make sure you get some photo editing software!

Another Disney trip huh? You'll have to keep us posted

 

[CdnDisneyNut]

You're on your way to Europe next month, Mike, very nice!! Whereabouts are you going? Maybe I should let YOU start a thread about it...lol... [/B]

England
Begium
Holland
Germany
Switzerland
France

 

[Snowwark]

That sounds great, Mike! How long are you going for? We'll be looking forward to lots of digital pics!

My brother and his wife bought a house in the south of France earlier this year. Hopefully (lol..), I'll be invited over to check it out next summer, and of course, that means......Disneyland Paris!!!!!

 

[Timon]

Woo hooo! Congrats! We bought one about 2 months ago and I absolutely love it!!!! I have already taken a zillion pictures and deleted even more LOL

I am looking forward to using it on our trip in October, we have a 256 MB card and we will be buying at least another 256 and a spare battery before we leave!

Since I am a scrapbooker, it took hubby over a year to talk me into it! I asked the salesman to take our picture with the camera and print it out before I bought it and I was surprised, it was very good quality! I also printed a few pics on my printer and was even more impressed!!!

I am still learning about using it and playing around with it so I am prepared for our trip cus I take a zillion pictures on vacation!

Next week I will be doing another test: I will take the same picture in all 4 sizes available on my camera (L1 L2 etc) and will take them to both Costco ($.30 for each print) and send them online to Future Shop ($.50 for each print) and see the difference in both the sizes and the quality of prints!

I need to know cus I will have both those flashcards full when we return from our trip and will be printing out a LOT of them

I posted lots of digital pics already in my online photo albums if ya wanna see them. Second link in my signature.

Have fun with your new camera!!!

 

[TimNDansMom]

My Dh just LOVES this camera!!! He is learning how to use it first and has been taking pictures and has figured out how to download them onto the computer. He said he can't get over the quality of the pics. I hope I get a chance to use it sometime too as he's been taking it to work. He has always been "into" cameras so this is a new "toy" for him. I wonder if he'll be taking it with him to the golf course, next.

Cass, I have seen your gorgeous pics of your scrapbooking and refer to it as I buy supplies to start one myself. I hope I can learn enough about how to use this camera because I want to use it for a trip to WDW in the fall.

Darren, we bought it on sale at Future Shop and they threw in a 256MB card with the deal. We were originally going to buy an "open box" one at a further discount but discovered an anomaly in the view finder and then the camera wouldn't even turn on. The sales guy went off to talk to his manager and came back to offer us the 256 card with a brand new (on sale) camera. I am happier with a brand new camera anyway.

 

[DisneyLisa]

Cass: Be sure to let us know how the two places compare...I've been thinking about doing the same "test" with my pics. So far I haven't had any printed...just did a few samples on my printer...but want to get some done of our family reunion from 2001 (I took over 1000 digital pics so won't be printing them all).

 

[jjohns]

Before out Oct/02 trip.

I absolutely love the freedom to just take picture after picture after picture. After all, its only memory (until you print it! LOL).

However, now that we've got all of those images, here's the problem... Putting them together and sending them out to family.

Ideally, I would like to burn them onto CD in an electronic album format, with some background Disney music. I've got some computer luddites in my family, though, so it needs to be a simple thing for them to pop the CD in and watch. I would also like the actual files to be on the CD so they can take it to their local store and get prints of whatever they want.

Anyone know of some easy-to-use software that fits that bill?

TIA, Jeff

 

[jjohns]

Originally posted by Timon
Next week I will be doing another test: I will take the same picture in all 4 sizes available on my camera (L1 L2 etc) and will take them to both Costco ($.30 for each print) and send them online to Future Shop ($.50 for each print) and see the difference in both the sizes and the quality of prints!

Timon,

What was the result of your comparison? Both on picture quality with the different resolutions on the camera and between Costco and Future Shop?

I, too, have 100's of digital pictures - many waiting to be printed.

Have you played around with any of the photo editting software? If so, which do you prefer?

TIA, Jeff

 

[bunnyfoo]

I had a bad experience with Future Shop so I (personally) won't be taking pictures back to them. Last year, I sent them a bunch of my Disney trip pictures and agreed to pick them up in the store. When I got to the store and opened up the envelope, I found someone else's pictures ... The technicians searched for more than an hour but they couldn't find my pictures and they couldn't figure out whose pictures I had. Luckily, they still had my pictures on their computers and offered to reprint them... I complained to the manager and he gave me the prints for free.

I've had good experiences with Japan Camera, Black's and Photolab (Loblaws). Loblaws has the best prices but they don't colour correct or adjust your photos (which I like because I do my own).

 

[abbyndrewmom]

I have had my digital camera for almost 2 years and love it!!! The absolute best place to have your pictures printed is blacks. I have tried everywhere else and the quality from Blacks is outstanding. You pay $35.00 and get a card with 100 pictures on it. Each time you print pictures they electronically debit your card. The stores have a computer station in them that you can use either your smart media or a CD to access your pictures. You then can zoom, crop fix red eye, etc with the pics then choose the ones you want printed. The computer prints you a receipt that you take to the counter and then pick your pictures up 48 hrs later. When you pick up your pictures they debit your card. I have been so happy with the quality of the pics from them that I don't even bother trying anywhere else.



Allison

 

[Snowwark]

I think Julie has a flair for photography, just take a peek at the pics she took at the RBG.

Right Here!

 

[TimNDansMom]

Now that wouldn't be a shameless plug for the Flower and Garden Board would it, Kim? LOL (But I'll take the compliment anyway! Thank you! )

 

[Snowwark]

Would I do that, Julie?

 

[Timon]

Hey guys,

sorry...I totally forgot about this thread

I've only taken my pics to Future Shop so far. I was NOT impressed! It was super easy to do however, since you don't even have to go to the store, you just upload them onto their server and then they send the order to your store of choice. They were ready the next day, which was nice but the quality of the paper they used was so poor! It had these divots all over the photograph...hard to describe and I don't think that a picture would do it justice but it was almost as if I took a knife or fork or something and just poked at the picture. It's not noticeable when you look directly over the photo but on any kind of angle you can totally see it!

There was however, surprisingly, quite a bit of difference in the photos as far as the size of the picture that I used. I took the same picture 4 times on 4 different size settings. The smallest 640 x 480(SMALL) pixels came out quite blurry. I would never have used it in a scrapbook. The second size 1024 x 768 (M1)pixels was a lot clearer! And the next two sizes 1600 x 1200(M2) and 2272 x 1704(L) pixels came out great, the larger one being the best quality but not too much of a difference between the two.

I took two sets of photos

A- hubby and dog in bright sunshine with bright green grass in the background. There was a HUGE difference between SMALL and M1 and the next two. The M2 size was great when viewed on it's own but when compared to L, you could tell that it wasn't perfect quality.

B - close-up of hubby, just face and shoulders in the shade with grey/white background. S was the same, not as blurry as first set of photos but still not great quality. M1 and M2 were pretty good quality. M2 had great quality for his face but his sweater and the background, when compared to L was noticeably not as sharp and vivid as the L.


So, I guess basically what I am saying is that I will keep my settings on L. I was VERY impressed with the quality of the photo, even though the paper they used was not great.

I also printed some photos out on my HP Deskjet 960 C printer and was very impressed with the results!

Today, I am going to take those same photos in to Costco as well as some test shots using different compression settings, just to see the results. (Fine, Superfine etc.)

I will let you guys know in a few days how they turned out!