Who uses what....To take piccies ?

[Techno]

Your phone......or a 'proper' camera ?

I'm beginning to think I've wasted an awful lot of dosh on the camera I've now got, if folk can take a far 'crisper' piccy with their phone, than I can with my all singing, all dancing 'Canon'.
I have to admit, I get very envious of some of the photo's that you sods post  ....Because without doing all the 'right things'.....Tripod/check light meter, work out aperture, now work out the exposure time...blah, blah blah.....I just can't get close to the quality that's posted here.

Cheers - Someone who's supposed to be an ex professional photographer.

[Leman]

Proper camera because cannot download from my phone even though pictures are sharper..

[Ithoriel]

I don't so much have a phone with a camera as I have a camera that does phone calls and texts! Nothing fancy, just a Samsung J3.

My old phone and camera packed up about the same time. Phones had better cameras than the compact cameras that I could afford and besides it was just one thing to carry, not two.

It struggles a bit in poor light but does all I need.

[Techno]

Proper camera because cannot download from my phone even though pictures are sharper..

I think your piccies are absolutely fine, Andy......Better than the 'snaps' I send to Leon (or whoever) to ask..."Does this look like what you wanted ?"

Cheers - Phil

[Orcs]

I have a Panasonic Compact that is quite good on most things but crap at taking good pictures of little men.

However Mrs Orcs bough  really nice Nikon DS5300 and was learning to use it on holiday, so I started playing with mine, and got some good shots.  I have yest to try this with Little men.

I also found out that you can buy a "Lens Reverser" that turns a normal Lense into a macro Lense, so I think I need to look into that and borrow the Nikon

[Steve J]

A simple point and shoot camera that I now put on auto settings. Great for most shots, but hard to get good close ups of 10mm figures, probably due to lack of experience/knowledge on my part.  I've seen very good 'photos taken with an i-phone too and so easy to see what your taking due to the large screen.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Fuji sell reconditioned cameras, hidden on their site, often press cameras, but now they have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi!
https://shop.fujifilm.co.uk/digital-cameras/refurbished-digital-cameras

[Ithoriel]

Fuji sell reconditioned cameras, hidden on their site, often press cameras, but now they have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi!
https://shop.fujifilm.co.uk/digital-cameras/refurbished-digital-cameras

Reduced from extortionate to merely stupidly expensive as far as my budget goes

[Westmarcher]

My phone - a Samsung - takes far better photos than my 'proper' digital camera.

[Glorfindel]

I use an old Canon A320 but have learned that, for me, the key to
taking better pics has been good lighting.

Other than this, a tripod helps with shaky hands syndrome and finally
remember to use the macro settiing.

Works for me most of the time.



Phil

[Norm]

Proper jobbie, but that's more because I have one, if it were to break, I think I would go for a much cheaper option rather than replace my kit.

Really for t'internet, I reduce the size down so much for easy upload / download, that it rather makes a farce of the size of file that the camera produces ..... but, all said, it does take nice pictures .... most of the time!

[Techno]

I use an old Canon A320 but have learned that, for me, the key to taking better pics has been good lighting.
Other than this, a tripod helps with shaky hands syndrome and finally
remember to use the macro settiing.
Works for me most of the time.
Phil

Proper jobbie, but that's more because I have one, if it were to break, I think I would go for a much cheaper option rather than replace my kit.
Really for t'internet, I reduce the size down so much for easy upload / download, that it rather makes a farce of the size of file that the camera produces ..... but, all said, it does take nice pictures .... most of the time!

Phil/Norm.....You both make very good points !

I'm still of the opinion that I used to get 'better' piccies from my old 'compact' digital Pentax .......Good grief....It's so old...(But almost state of the art when I bought it) the resolution is poop by today's standards , ..But I'll swear that if I used that to send pics to Leon.....They'd be clearer/sharper for him to see.

Stroll on......I've got a load of 'semi-pro' lighting/flash heads in one of the sheds.
I wouldn't dare use those now.

One......Because I haven't got enough room to use them... and....
Two.... They're probably really dangerous, from the point of view that I'd get a fatal 'electrical belt', because they'd be so corroded.

Cheers -  Phil (Who, when he had a chat with one of the chaps in Tesco's in Cardigan, this morning...Was told.... Do you know you're hand's bleeding ?.....Do you need a plaster ?...Hey Ho !  )

[fred.]

I take most of my figure or game photos with my iPhone now an XR but until recently a 6s. It seems to work well at fairly close up shots of figures, and does ok with big game shots often under fairly poor light.

I do have a proper DSLR and tripod and lenses. But very rarely use them now. The main thing the proper camera setup is good for is getting a good deep depth of field.

A few tips
Good light. A handy thing with figures can be to put a reflector in front, just a piece of white card and this will bounce light onto the front of the figures that otherwise can be in shadow.

Crop the image - as noted above most cameras have a huge number of pixels available so you can go back a bit which gives the camera more chance to focus and gives more depth of  field. Then crop the resulting image down to the size you need on the web

Be aware of the minimal focal distance of the camera, or more precisely the lense. If you get within this the camera can't focus.

Orcs - a proper macro lense is no good for photographing figures. They are for extreme close up shots, think the detail on a coin. On point and shoot cameras macro is often used to mean close up

[Raider4]

I don't so much have a phone with a camera as I have a camera that does phone calls and texts!

Yes, it's interesting that most (all?) TV adverts for phones seem to concentrate exclusively on how good the camera is.

And I'm increasingly seeing ads for cars that only plug how well the car connects with the phone?

Cheers, M.
--

[paulr]

Camera on a tripod, set the aperture for lots of depth of field, camera sorts the shutter speed

Set up next to two large windows at right time of day so there is lots of indirect sunlight