1. Vulcan500Rider's Avatar
    I was just at a community Christmas party and played Santa. I took some pictures before the Santa part and my son took pictures for a while. All the pictures turned out either dark, fuzzy or both. Also the picture quality wasn't the best. Below is a CaptureIt screen shot of my settings. Can anyone recommend different settings for me?



    Here's an example of one:

    12-20-08 12:27 PM
  2. ryanbg's Avatar
    You could change your picture quality settings.
    12-20-08 12:31 PM
  3. Vulcan500Rider's Avatar
    You could change your picture quality settings.
    To what though? Thats the sort of advice I need.
    12-20-08 12:48 PM
  4. DCoy82's Avatar
    To what though? Thats the sort of advice I need.
    Change picture quality to Superfine and it'll look better.
    12-20-08 12:49 PM
  5. Gameking72's Avatar
    Change the quality to Superfine
    12-20-08 01:00 PM
  6. MrJodie's Avatar
    My quality is set to Superfine. Here is a recent pic taken from the 9th floor of a downtown building:


    12-20-08 01:01 PM
  7. Vulcan500Rider's Avatar
    I changed to the superfine setting and took some nice pictures after your suggestions. Thanks! The photo is taken at Ichiban tonight:



    Taken at Wilhelm Winery north of Pittsburgh this afternoon:



    I guess inside pictures just aren't that great for this camera
    Last edited by Vulcan500Rider; 12-20-08 at 05:46 PM.
    12-20-08 05:41 PM
  8. armedtank's Avatar
    I manually set the flash and white balance, auto makes the pictures very grainy especially in low light.

    12-20-08 06:15 PM
  9. castlerock611's Avatar
    Thanks,those settings helped me too.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    12-20-08 06:20 PM
  10. Raydee32's Avatar
    Yeah Light is any Camera's friend. I find even with the flash the pics don't compare to outside, natural light pics.
    12-20-08 06:23 PM
  11. armedtank's Avatar
    Yeah Light is any Camera's friend. I find even with the flash the pics don't compare to outside, natural light pics.
    The storm is definitely better outside, and I am alot happier with the picture quality compared to my 1st storm, but there is a sort of dimness for lack of a better word, to all of the pictures I take with the storm, not sure how to explain it.
    12-20-08 06:40 PM
  12. cray1000's Avatar
    yeah the phone is way better outdoors

    All camera phones are like this though for one simple reason.

    no matter how many mega pixels the CCD is, the size of the lens is just too small. The smaller the lens, the less light let in, the grainier the picture.

    Its just like with scopes on my rifles. Ones with very small objective (front) lenses dont produce the same kind of clear picture as a scope with the same zoom but with a much larger objective lens.

    One other amera quesition, the geo tagging stores the gps coords in exif data i know. but if you have gps off, will it store the agps coords similiar to how google maps works with an approximate locaiton?
    12-20-08 07:15 PM
  13. EnergyPlus's Avatar
    yeah the phone is way better outdoors

    All camera phones are like this though for one simple reason.

    no matter how many mega pixels the CCD is, the size of the lens is just too small. The smaller the lens, the less light let in, the grainier the picture.
    I'd like to modify your answer to the photo quality on camera phones. As a professional photographer with VERY high end equipment, I'm often confronted by clients asking about camera info/megapixel, etc. The problem is all in the marketing hype.

    Not all megapixels are the same. My high=end Nikon camera that I use for all of my shoots, is 12.4 megapixels. Today, there are point and shoot (read: cheap) cameras that are very close to this (I think there are several consumer grade cameras that are in the 10 MP range...you have to DOUBLE MPs to realize any difference). So, are the 10 MP point and shoot as good as my 12.4? The answer is, "not even close." Technology advances allow manufacturers to add more MPs to a camera, but on consumer level and especially camera phones, on much smaller electronics. The lenses on the light receptors (not the camera lens) are smaller. Thus, they produce lower quality images than with larger lenses, even when MPs are equal (or close to equal).

    My 12.4 MP camera can produce excelltent images when blown up. I had one shot made into a billboard on the side of a building that was 5 feet tall and was TACK SHARP!

    I've not yet played wtih my Storm camera phone other than some snap shots of friends, taken indoors and a couple of outdoor shots. It's clear that the indoor quality is sub-par, but the outdoor shots have been reasonably good. I need to get out on a sunny day and take some photos and then put them into Photoshop and see what the results are.

    The bottom line here is, to remember that it's more than just megapixels that make the image, it's all the electronics that process the image and also the size of the lenses on the individual receptors.

    If you want some good info on cameras, Megapixels, etc., hop over to dpreview.com and peruse the site. It's the BEST camera review site anywhere on the net, been reading it for years and years!
    01-04-09 06:38 PM
  14. ajohnson30's Avatar
    I'll second the recommendation for dpreview.com. Also, here's a good site explaining the "myth" that more megapixels = better:

    6mpixel.org/en/?page_id=32

    (oops, cant post urls here yet copy/paste that into your browser with http : // in front :/)

    Also, if you like, google for reviews of the Canon 50D. There's a reason I'm not dumping my 10megapixel 40D for the 15megapixel 50D...
    01-04-09 06:51 PM
  15. CrackberryMike's Avatar
    Another site for all you budding photophiles can be found here:
    KenRockwell.com
    01-04-09 09:15 PM
  16. CrackberryMike's Avatar
    btw proud owner of the Nikon D300, D200, and D70 dslrs :-)
    01-04-09 09:18 PM
  17. bananatree's Avatar
    My high=end Nikon camera that I use for all of my shoots, is 12.4 megapixels.
    What do you shoot EnergyPlus? D3? D300? D700?

    D300 (previously) D70 myself =)

    Also, the reason almost all camera phone photos are poor in low light is the size of the sensor itself. Even point and shoot cameras have sensors that are several times larger in area. DSLRs sensors are probably about 100x larger than cell phone camera sensors. Generally, the bigger the sensor, the better the low light capability. Megapixels make a [very] minor difference in quality the vast majority of the time. Combine that with a small lens and thin phone body, and you have sad, sad pictures.

    In plenty of light however, most cameras of any size or type can take good looking photos.
    01-04-09 11:02 PM
  18. stogey23's Avatar
    Since we are a little offtopic already, what do you photographers think of the Canon XSI? I got one for the wife for xmas (she got me the Storm!), and she's already taken some amazing photos.

    So did I make a good purchase? She's not a pro by any means, but definitely a budding enthusiast.

    Thanks!
    01-05-09 02:30 AM
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