Tag: comparison

2008-12-30

The viewfinder is probably the most undervalued component of our cameras. It is the primary interface of the camera, yet most of us put up with a shrunken and dim viewfinder. The rest of the buttons and adjustments are secondary.

Recently, I was reading up a little on “bright” viewfinders to try to figure out what that was all about. I initially thought it had something to do with the percentage of coverage or the viewpoint, which spec sheets (sometimes) state, but I found out it does not. Once I figured things out a little, I decided to go and do some brightness tests on my own with some of the full-frame digital cameras out there (5D, a900, D700, 5DmII). Here is what I found.

2008-12-17

Should you set your camera to take the biggest photo size possible? Are more pixels better? You know, I would like to think people are actually asking themselves these questions, but somehow I seriously doubt it. Call me weird. If you are, though, maybe my experience recently in answering these questions for myself might help you toward find the best answer for you. I have even made up some example photos to compare the different image quality settings.

My wife recently bought a point-and-shoot for family use–honestly, it is mainly for videos. When I was setting everything up for her, one of the decisions I made was NOT to use the highest image quality setting. Call me crazy. A few factors came into play: image quality, file size, and how big the photos might be printed.