Home Forums Gear Photography "Which Camera to Buy"- or - "How to Beat a Dead Horse"

I've scrolled down through the forum going back four or five pages, reading all the 'which camera to buy' posts I could see, and many point to the Canon S80 or the Olympus. Is that still the way to go? Anything else to hash out about it?

Going on our first elk hunt in Colorado this year, would like to take the photo everyone wants of a big 6x6 bull, but would settle for some good scenic pics <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. Currently use an older Nikon Coolpix (I believe just a 2.1MP) and looking to get some better pics. Would like something that would be condusive to some action photos on wild pheasants and quail, and the running dogs that go with that. My girlfriend has an older canon 4mp that made for some good photos showing the bird in the air with a haze of feathers around it and empty hull being ejected from the Beretta, so I know it can be done.

Thinking a good panoramic photo would be good too in the Colorado mountains. My roomie from college did a semester in Prague, took several pictures right next to each other of the city skyline, then stitched them together to make a picture about 8 inches high by 4 feet long or so, looks very awesome, I'm not into skylines, but a mountain valley would look just as good I believe. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What would you all recommend? Still the Cannon S80? Something else? Looking in the $400 range, plus/minus whatever needed within reason.

Stitching together panoramas can be partially done by some cameras but it's still a software game. This one I did with my Olympus C-750. I've also done some with Photoshop Elements with equally good results. The camera sets them up to fit together, but the software in the computer does the actual job. Either way, I've found that some color blending with Photoshop is necessary where the photos are stitched. They never seem to match exactly. It's particularly noticable in the blue sky. Taking photos for pans is tricky and best done with a tripod. You have to be very careful to keep the camera level. If you don't, when you crop the finished product to eliminate to blank space top and bottom, you end up having to crop off a lot of good stuff in other photos on either side. Originally, this pan was considerably taller, but when cropping I lost a lot of the picture at the bottom.

I've found the C-750 to be an excellent camera for hunting as long as you don't want to take action shots. The trigger & autofocus lag time is terrible. However, the 10x zoom is great. It's a 4mp and I've found it adequate for a point & shoot. They've upgraded since they made the 750. I don't know what the model # is on the latest version.

Many Olympus cameras use xD memory cards. They're only made by 2 companies, Olympus & Fuji. If you want to use the panorama feature in Olympus cameras, you must buy the Olympus card. Somehow, they're slightly different and the Fuji won't support pans. Fuji's will handle all other tasks, though. However, if you have good software like Photoshop, you can still make pans no matter what kind of card you have. The Olympus card simply allows the camera to do some preliminary setup that then works with the Olympusmaster software.

This is a pan of 6 shots.
Dick

Please feel free to give me a call to discuss different options that would be best for you

I have the Cannon S80 and I'm very happy. Still waiting for a full review on the Olympus but the initial user reviews are a bit of a mixed bag.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=oly_stylus720sw

www.stevesdigicams.com has a lot of reviews with different categories for searching. IE: $, zoom, etc. Great place to window shop. TK

$100.00 Canon rebate on the Rebel XT's till July 15!!!