Digital Cameras

Moved from Bakers Dozen

By Gerard (Gerard) on Monday, May 01, 2000 - 07:32 am: Edit

Is anyone using one yet?
I'm thinking of getting one to make updating my website easier, I've changed my product line over and having digital pics would make it a lot easier to upload pics.
I wanna spend $5-600, I have a couple of food shows coming , a cake auction for charity or something and don't see the sense in doing good work if I can't get pictures.

Has anyone got pics of their work online?
why not!

Cheers, Gerard.

By momoreg on Monday, May 01, 2000 - 08:47 am: Edit

Yes, and the owner of the company was all set to start a website, then her GM quit after 17 years in the company, and she lost all enthusiasm to move the business forward. In the meantime, I have a small portfolio of digitals, and I have to say, they don't do my work justice the way real photos do.

By Panini (Panini) on Monday, May 01, 2000 - 03:09 pm: Edit

Gerard,
I'm doing that as we speak. We are redoing the site to accomidate the new retail location. We have regular pictures scaned now, but have had a friend come in a take digital pic of the shop and some new cakes. I have seen one new page and I can't really tell if the digital is any better.Of course its on the program and not the site.
The guy who took my pictures has done some really neat grafics[I think] and says the pictures have to be digital. www.abacus-restaurant.com
have fun

By Kris_b (Kris_b) on Monday, May 01, 2000 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Gerard,
A temporary measure til you get a digital camera is to shoot print film and ask for a 'Kodak picture disk' when you get it developed. Cost varies...I've paid about $9 a roll for both the prints and the disk. You get back a 3.5" floppy disk with your prints. For a little more money, (about $14 dollars a roll), you can get the prints plus a CD (little better quality).

By chris on Tuesday, May 02, 2000 - 03:59 pm: Edit

You may be an excellent chef but trying to photograph your creations is very hard. If you want them to look good on film, the only way to do your dishes justice is to hire a professional photographer, one that specializes in food, and have he or she transfer those to disc. Don't waste the money on a digital camera.

By Mikeh (Mikeh) on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 12:26 am: Edit

I use a Ricoh digital camera (cost me about $450 a year ago) and I get the same quality pictures that I did with my film camera. Since it doesn't cost me anything to take pictures I take a lot more than I used to. Now I can take several of the same shot with different settings and delete everything I don't like. I take the camera with me every day to school to take shots of what I am producing along with anything else of interest. If you're not looking for shots for marketing collateral, I would recommend a digital camera. Also, there is lots of photo-editing software available that is simple to use for correcting colors, red-eye, shadows, etc. The caveat to all this is that I agree with Chris; I'm not a very good photographer so the digital suits my purposes and I would definitely use a pro for any marketable shots.

A good friend of mine is a photographer who has done some food shots. Sometimes when I get a new cookbook she will sit down with me and go through the photos with her critique and an explanation of why they did what they did and how they did it. This has improved my pictures a little bit, while it has greatly increased my respect for pros.

Cheers, Mike

By W.DeBord on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 06:46 am: Edit

I'm not so sure just hiring a pro is that simple. I have hired (many) pro photographers before (art background) and sometimes their just a technican. I've studied their portfolios to ascertain their quality and that doesn't guarantee your shots will look anything like their "best work" in their portfolio!

Most of them don't take a better photo than your capable of. Take a classes if you don't know the basics. It's the number of photos that you take that seperates the pro from the amuetur. Pro.'s don't try to get anything in one shot, take a dozen or more of each shot your looking for.

If your going to hire someone buy the best only.

By Gerard (Gerard) on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 07:22 am: Edit

I've worked with good photographers, if we did a newspaper article I'd approach the photographer and we'd do some work on the side, never had to pay. I have done just as well on my own after watching how they compose (3 hrs for one shot), my only question then is in being new to digitals.
All too often I look in books and find the photographer is better than the subject being shot. The best trick I learned for pastry pics is just put it on the floor, stand over it and shoot almost vertically, also shoot by bouncing the flashoff an alum sheetpan which is held just out of the picture, makes for snazzy backlighting.
A good telephoto lense for detail work and a tripod. I'm looking at the sony Mavica because the pics are stored on floppies which are a lot cheaper than flash memory cards.

By Mike McCaffrey on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Just a thought but colleges (in Canada they're called community colleges) are graduating people with these sorts of skills by the barrel load. Why not find one of them )preferrably a good one who wishes to build their portfolio) at a fraction of the cost

By momoreg on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 03:52 pm: Edit

Gerard,
I use the Sony Mavica at work. I find that the pictures aren't nearly as good as a regular camera.

By Chef Mars on Wednesday, May 03, 2000 - 07:33 pm: Edit

I have used several and without a doubt the best is the Nikon Coolpix 950. Great software comes with it, fair documentation but supurb photos. It is a few dollars more than your $600 ceiling but will pay you off in time saved and top shelf quality images. You should be able to get one for about $750 now.

Culinarily Yours,
Chef Mars

By Gerard (Gerard) on Friday, May 05, 2000 - 03:45 am: Edit

Momoreg,

That seems to be the case with most digital cameras, the best aren't nearly as good as the cheapest SLR film camera.
I'm researching ....
Epsom 850Z $576
Canon Pro 70 $598. Both seem good.

By Gerard (Gerard) on Friday, May 05, 2000 - 03:53 am: Edit

Chef Mars,

The Nikon 950 is $555 now.
http://www.theweb-shop.com/main/results_desc.asp?List1=C2700&List2=M6100&SKU=6102703

Looks like a good machine but I'm adverse to its shape, I want something that looks like a camera.
Pretty dumb criteria huh!

Epsom 850Z. I can get this for $575.
http://www.theweb-shop.com/main/Results_desc.asp?List1=C2700&List2=M3400&SKU=3402707

How does the Epsom look, I like the USB feature because I have a USB port right on the front of my Etower 466.

By Chef Mars on Saturday, May 06, 2000 - 07:51 pm: Edit

I would say that when looking and analyzing digital cameras you give up the ghost of a "standard" 35mm or such camera. The techniques shared between the 2 platfroms (film-analog and ccd-digital) are distant cousins and the media much more distant. In my experience flash cards are much more flexible than any kind of USB downloading connection. The Coolpix 950 hit the market near $1,000 and does offer lens interchanging flexibility. Mount the camera on a tripod, flip down the "lens" or sighting section, configure your settings or just leave it on automatic and you will get images that, if you manage and edit them correctly, will have 98% of the people who see tham asking you "what kind of camera did you use and what settings". Over the last year I have taken 100's of shots with the Coolpix, and almost all of them are great and just need croping with a small percentage requiring a bit of light Photoshop touching up in the contrast and brightness area.

By Kris_b (Kris_b) on Monday, May 08, 2000 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Gerard,
In your price range, the Canon S10 and the Kodak 280 are both excellent cameras. They both capture 2.1 MB pixels per picture which can be saved as JPEG files. The Canon looks like a silver pack of cigarettes, while the Kodak looks like a regular point & shoot camera. Both have USB connections and zoom lenses. Try the website, photo.askey.net for comparative info.

By Webchef (Webchef) on Saturday, June 08, 2002 - 11:02 am: Edit

Hi all - my first post here.

I've been shooting food and other subjects for about 3 years now with a variety of sub-$1000 cameras. The pixel depth is the greatest consideration. Right now I'm using a FinePix4800Zoom by Fuji. It cost about $500 six months ago. The pictures are fine and for web work are at least as good or better than print shots that have been scanned. Of course, you need to make sure you are using the finer resolution settings, larger file sizes, and use a tripod or something to steady each shot. I wouldn't recommend them for fine photography, but for the web were 78 dpi is about maximum they are ok. It doesn't quite look like a "regular" camera though.

I've got some of my pictures at Chef On The Edge. They are not my greatest shots though - I try to avoid putting 700K shots on the web. What goes there I usually compress enough to make downloads quicker. I do a lot of pictures for animations and graphic arts and for that it's perfect.

In short there's some great cameras out there but in my experience the sub-$1000 ones should be limited to subject matter intended for the web. Hope that helps. That, and TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES! I mean dozens and dozens of the same subject matter. In that heap you will almost be guaranteed to pull out something you will be satisfied with!

Later (and keep on eating).

The SoupNazi @ http://www.ChefOnTheEdge.com

By Pastrycrew (Pastrycrew) on Tuesday, June 11, 2002 - 02:08 am: Edit

I have had a HP315 digital camera for 2 years now. It's 2.1 megapixel and at that time cost me 200bucks (169 now). I fell in love with it and stopped using my Canon 35mm. I've compared it to others but for what you get, I think it's the most bang for your buck.

The lowest resolution will still print out a nice picture for recipes at 4 x 6.

At high resolution I can print out a 8.5 x 11" photo on my printer that looks professional.

With the flashcard it's so easy. Take pictures at work, pull the card, download the photos. Ready to go.

Well that's my 2 cents.

I have some low resolution pics on a site I just started:
http://communities.msn.com/Pastrykid

Later,

bt