How is the new camera working?

Some folks were shopping for a new camera, and I know at least a couple did get them before heading for Portsmouth. (Grace, Pixie, not sure if Steph ended up with a new camera). How about a report and some pictures from your new cameras??? I know Grace probably doesn't have too many from Saturday and Pixie had to ask LI Bob for some help with hers, but you hopefully still got at least a few pictures.

Dave, I didn't go to Tidewater but I did get the Panasonic a while back. Have posted a few photos of flowers and the camera works great! Thanks for recommending it (a long time ago).

But here's a question - for whoever can answer it.

When I took pictures with it at 6 meg and resized them as I did with my old camera for posting they turned out worse than those from the old camera which was less than 2 meg.

Next I just didn't use the camera for a while. Then I got thinking that maybe the problem was that the amount of reduction with the new camera was so much greater than with the old one. So I tried the same shot at all the various settings, from 6 meg all the way down to .3 meg. When I downloaded them they looked equally good and the .3 meg didn't need resizing and looks fine when posted.

So, I guess if I only want the photos for web purposes, I just take them at the .3 setting but if I want prints I want one at 6 meg. In many cases I should just take one of each. I think I can copy a photo and then change from 6 meg to .3 meg right in the camera but I haven't tried that yet. Amazing what these cameras allow you to do.

So I don't know if my reasoning is correct but at least I've solved my problem. I just couldn't image for a while there why a better camera wouldn't display a better image.

Mombo -

Where are you comparing the quality of the images? On your computer monitor?

Most likely the highest resolution it is capable of displaying is 72 dpi. If you allow the image to be viewed at 'actual pixels', the higher 8 Meg pictures will fit way beyond the screen size and you'll see much detail in them. The same shot at a lower resolution will not fill the screen -- and if you enlarge it by zooming in, you'll see the loss of detail.

If you have 11 x 14" prints made from an 8 MB image and another 11 x 14" print from the .3 MB, you'll see the difference.

Sure, you can squeeze a lot more pictures on your memory card if you opt for the smaller size pictures. But if you offload those cards periodically, you'll always have a high quality image to fall back on.

But, you are correct. If all you want is to display some 500 pixel x 500 pixel images on the internet, most any setting will do.

Right, I get all you say John. For now I'm mostly taking "throw away" type photos so the mg setting doesn't matter. But yes if I went say to Tidewater or some such place where I might want prints to look at later I'd take them at a higher resolution.

But I guess the question remains - am I losing more quality when reducing from 6mg than I did from <2 mg because the amount of reduction is greater?

That's a question for Paul, I think. I imagine it depends on what program you are using to reduce the image size and quality.

When you're reducing the size with 3rd party software(Photoshop) Sue, still save it at the highest quality. Even though you reduced the size from 6 meg to .333 meg, you save it at maximum quality 10, and progressive sweeps 3. This will give you a very acceptible web photo.

Bob