Some feedback/questions on Olympus C-2040 - my 1st DC

[janzguy]

Feedback:
Bought this camera a couple of days ago. I would rate it slightly above average.

Night shoots are pretty good. Don't quite understand why the picture captured is pretty bright even in low light conditions and w/o flash. Good in a way though, but it may seems artificial. To add, there may be the presence of noise at times.

Somehow I feel that the colour of the pictures aren't as crisp and rich as those I've seen posted in this forum. But as a whole, most pictures are clear and bright. Maybe it's because of its limited 2.1 Megapixels....

Macro shooting is range-limited - 30 cm min. if i'm not wrong.

Flash is bright and effective for short range shooting.

Manual features capability - thumbs up! Pretty much to play with.

Size - Pretty bulky but "mai hiam buey pai".

Software: Acceptable. Not many features to manipulate the photos. Any recommendations of any gd ones?

Questions:
What is...
1) ISO
2) Shutter speed

 

[fcpga]

this camera no noise reduction, definately noisy. you need to remove noise in PS

 

[kahheng]

ISO in this case of a digital camera is the sensitivity of the CCD to light. It's just like "film speed". Bear in mind that for all digicams, the higher the ISO, the greater the noise level.

The shutter is like the 'door' in the lens/camera body. How quickly it opens and close partly determines the quantity of light hitting the film/CCD. The other parameter that determines the quantity of light hitting the sensor is the lens aperture (the size of the diaphragm opening in the lens).

Effectively speaking, apart from being a determinant of exposure, the biggest thing that shutter speed influences is the representation of MOTION. Fast shutter speed freezes, slow ones shows motion blur in scenes with action/movement.

Your 2040 is a nice camera at a very good price these days. For digicams without built in noise reduction, if you're planning on long exposure night shots, you could try dark frame subtraction methods to reduce the visible noise/hot pixels in your picture.

 

[cutter]

the 2xxx Oly series has a tendency to overexpose low-light exposures... I prefer to set around a -1.0 compensation for a more natural night picture.

 

[Blitz]

Macro Range: 20cm (Can be up to 6cm via a trick)

Night Shot: Do not try to trust the LCD screen too much, I have to tone down the contrast of the LCD screen in order to get almost the exact brightness/contrast that I see on my monitor. Reason that the image u see on the LCD screen will be brighter by A LOT than what you see on the PC monitor if u're using the default contrast settings. This is one thing I've realised.

Colour Richness: I've agree on ur point. The colour is not that sharp and rich when compare say, a Fujifilm 2800Z. I was taking one of my colleages with highlighted hair with red colours and the result was much poorer compare to wat was taken using a Fujifilm 2800 even after I've tried manual W/B. I'm still finding a way to resolve this but dunno what to do

Manual Controls: Yep, it's a lot fun playing with manual controls. I've learn pretty much with this camera and from this forum as well

Overall, definately a very good digicam IMO for that kinda price. Never regretted it

Have fun!