Walking Forum
Main Boards => Gear => Topic started by: pleb on 10:47:33, 18/02/19
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Who has a sony cybershot or similar? Toying with buying a camera with more zoom, a light one for carrying. Nowt wrong with me (old, 2nd hand, free) samsung bar it struggles to zoom on wildlife.
Thanks.
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I have a Sony cybershot RX100 (the first). Really happy about it. Bought it in 2015 so there are some new models (I think they're already at V or VI). It's a wonderful and powerful camera and ideal for those who love both photography and hiking (ideal weight)
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We have the RX100 Mk3, it gives excellent results for its size and it superseded our old Canon DSLR + L lens. The optical zoom range is quite good. The tiny size and buttons take some getting used to, it's so easy to press one accidentally whilst trying to hold it steady.
Our only criticism really is featureitis, the plague of so many modern electronic devices. It's far too complicated (for us) with far too many menus and submenus with innumerable permutations of settings and actions. Much better to do fewer things and do them well with simplicity.
Edit: The Mk3 has an electronic viewfinder, much better than relying on the LCD screen that's often hard to see clearly.
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I also have an RX 100 MK1, I love it - great camera. But, it's not going to cut it for wildlife close ups. I think the zoom range is around 28 - 100. Fantastic for landscape and architecture though, which is why I bought it. The Canon was getting a bit much on day hikes.
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I have a Sony DSC HX90V. Cracking camera with an electronic view finder, huge zoom. Highly recommend it, though there may be even better upgrades by now!
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Me and Ape both have the Sony DSC HX60V
Great cameras O0
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Me and Ape both have the Sony DSC HX60V
Great cameras O0
I had one of those until I broke it :( - loved it.
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Why not have a look at a second hand Olympus Stylus 1 or 1s..I have two. They remind me of a mini slr and up to 300mm zoom. It is small and will go in a coat pocket or small over shoulder bag easily.I hike with one over my shoulder all day as it is very light & versatile plus gives nice results in daylight.The one in the link seems a bit pricey. I bought mine for around £250 each..If you are not in a rush you can pick one up cheaper on E Bay or Amazon eventually..
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-Stylus-1s-Digital-Compact/dp/B00OZ8HP2E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1550499580&sr=8-4&keywords=stylus+1s (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-Stylus-1s-Digital-Compact/dp/B00OZ8HP2E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1550499580&sr=8-4&keywords=stylus+1s)
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Frankly I'm quite disappointed with my Sony Cybershot DSC-WX60, bought on Amazon for £110 in August 2016.
Colours are dull and washed-out - greens in particular are a greyish-green, while browns are a greyish sandy. Even after giving my images a quick-fix edit they are still mediocre, they really lack the bright colours produced by the Ricoh CX6 that it replaced (ruined by rain). (I also own a dslr that I can compare results with.)
The difference in finger pressure required for focussing and shooting is minimal, so I'm forever unintentionally taking pictures before they're focussed; to try and redress that I spend so long making sure it has focussed before I press harder that I miss the moment. The zoom is terrible to set, instead of operating smoothly it jumps in or out in big increments.
The options and choices are all over the place instead of being easy to find in one menu. After two+ years I still struggle to find what I'm looking for. The in-camera Help files are just a series of hyperlinks that lead you to pages with more links, and so on; sometimes you find yourself going round in circles. The pdf manual found online is a bit better but still not simple to navigate.
The camera's main advantage for hiking etc. is that it is tiny and light, it has reasonably good close-up and telephoto capabilities, it has a self-timer and it can shoot HD videos.
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Deleted by poster. I presed Quote instead of Modify.
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Fernman, It sounds like you might be shooting in RAW format rather than JPEG??
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Fernman, It sounds like you might be shooting in RAW format rather than JPEG??
You got me wondering there, but after failing to find a mention in the awful pdf manual (if only it had an index!), a couple of online spec lists confirm that the WX-60 does not have RAW capability.
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I have a Sony DSC HX90V. Cracking camera with an electronic view finder, huge zoom. Highly recommend it, though there may be even better upgrades by now!
Another vote for the HX90V. Nothing better in its class, at least there wasn't last time I checked.
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Me and Ape both have the Sony DSC HX60V
Great cameras O0
Bought one from Currys yesterday. My card from the samsung works in it, good news.
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I hope you are happy with it, I do like mine. :)
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Bought one from Currys yesterday. My card from the samsung works in it, good news.
Just looked at my personal bank balance (separate from the joint, household one). Car insurance, breakdown cover and residents parking permit all coming up for renewal very soon. Sigh! :'(
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I hope you are happy with it, I do like mine. :)
It wont "crop" images!
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I used to have a Cybershot. Had it for ages and was generally happy with the results. Unfortunately, during the last year of it's life, it was held together with tape after I dropped it on a hard surfaced path! :o
I was shocked that it still worked at all!lol
I had a Canon summat-or-other a couple of years ago (Can't remember without looking). Great zoom when I can't get near enough to the subject (birds, especially).
Mostly happy with the results, although I don't tend to fiddle with the settings when I should. For ease, I leave it on the auto mode all the time :-[
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Enjoy the camera Pleb - its great having new toys!
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It wont "crop" images!
I've never tried to do that on the camera. If you download the Play Memories software you can edit your pics on a pc. Or a tablet, I used to use my tablet a few years ago.
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I've never tried to do that on the camera. If you download the Play Memories software you can edit your pics on a pc. Or a tablet, I used to use my tablet a few years ago.
Sony PlayMemories is a pain! The wretched camera won't let me download my photos without it installed on the computer! I hate being forced to install software I don't want. For cropping, etc., I prefer Pickpic freeware.
I've found a solution for the wishy-washy photos produced by my Sony WX60, as I detailed in post #8 on this thread on 18 Feb.
I searched online for free photo enhancement software. I don't want to use an online one, and more importantly for me it had to be a one-click tool, something like you get in Microsoft Office Picture Manager, because I don't want to be fiddling about setting sliders for all sorts of different things.
What I eventually found was PhotoCleaner http://www.photocleaner.com/download.html (http://www.photocleaner.com/download.html)
You open the software, browse in it for one of your folders of photos, select a picture and open it, which the program then displays almost full screen.
Next you simply click on a button 'Enhance Picture', and you see your photo change before your eyes in a couple of seconds.
There are buttons at the top to toggle between 'Original' and 'Result', then you can decide if you want to save the result or not. You can change the file name or you can leave it as it is which will overwrite the original.
I am very pleased with the results, it really sharpens my pictures up, removes the dull cloudiness from them and strengthens the colours. Greens are perhaps a little bit too garish, but I will try adjusting the sliders later. You can only do one photo at a time, and the window of your folder contents is small so with a big folder you have to scroll down each time you select another photo. There are shortcuts such as ctrl+O and ctrl+S which help speed things a little.
I hope this might be of interest to some people.
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Sony PlayMemories is a pain! The wretched camera won't let me download my photos without it installed on the computer! I hate being forced to install software I don't want. For cropping, etc., I prefer Pickpic freeware.
I haven't had any problems using the Play Memories software, I can also use the software that came with the pc if I want (can't think of the name of it!).
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Sony PlayMemories is a pain! The wretched camera won't let me download my photos without it installed on the computer! I hate being forced to install software I don't want.
I don't quite understand: with my Sony RX100 Mk3 I just connect it to the PC USB port and it appears as a mass storage device. I just copy the photos directly to the PC and use whatever graphics editor I choose.
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I don't quite understand: with my Sony RX100 Mk3 I just connect it to the PC USB port and it appears as a mass storage device. I just copy the photos directly to the PC and use whatever graphics editor I choose.
What he said O0
I just started using a W830, a nice little camera however I don't really like the buttons on top to switch on or take a photo, I find they are too flush with the camera body meaning it's harder to work, especially wearing gloves as you need to be able to press the small button down.
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I don't quite understand: with my Sony RX100 Mk3 I just connect it to the PC USB port and it appears as a mass storage device. I just copy the photos directly to the PC and use whatever graphics editor I choose.
Slight memory lapse on my part, though I am adament that when I first had the camera there was no way I could get my photos off it without installing PlayMemories. I have since uninstalled that.
What happens now when I connect the camera to the pc is that I get 3 additional drives, (F:), (G:) and (H:).
(F:) contains 5 folders and a file, (G:) contains 1 folder and 3 files, and (H:) which is named PMHOME, contains 2 folders and 2 shortcuts.
My photos are in a folder DCIM in (G:), although there is another folder DCIM in (F:).
When I have finished and want to disconnect the camera safely, all 3 folders are listed, though just clicking on (F:) only is sufficient to eject.
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It could be that one of the Drive's is the cameras actual memory and another Drive could be what's on the memory card inside the camera, or at least that's the way my Garmin works when plugged in O0
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Frankly I'm quite disappointed with my Sony Cybershot DSC-WX60, bought on Amazon for £110 in August 2016.
Colours are dull and washed-out - greens in particular are a greyish-green, while browns are a greyish sandy. Even after giving my images a quick-fix edit they are still mediocre, they really lack the bright colours produced by the Ricoh CX6 that it replaced (ruined by rain). (I also own a dslr that I can compare results with.)
I used my Cybershot WX-60 again yesterday, and one thing I was reminded of that I should have mentioned in my earlier post is that most of the time, as soon as I turn the camera on to take a picture the colours look very washed out on the lcd screen, and that is how the resulting shots look too.
Does that signify anything particular to the experts out there?
An example follows, a picture "straight off the camera" and the same shot after editing:
(https://i.postimg.cc/k56wh3LL/DSC00769a.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/gk2VTbZ4/DSC00769a.jpg)
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Can you alter the white balance? If you can you might get better colour balance by trying some of the other settings.
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Thanks for the suggestion. There are different WB settings according to the manual, and I'll experiment with them in due course. I vaguely recall the camera is currently set on Auto WB.
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Thanks for the suggestion. There are different WB settings according to the manual, and I'll experiment with them in due course. I vaguely recall the camera is currently set on Auto WB.
I auto WB the camera will try to counteract what it sees as a colour cast. If the picture is predominantly green, then auto WB will tend to cut out the green. Using a daylight WB setting would be better.
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There are white balance settings for sun, cloud, shade and others I can't remember without checking on the camera. They make a difference on my Sony HX90V.
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I have to admit I never fiddle with any of the settings on my Sony. I have it on the gold coloured auto setting and +1 on the exposure dial all the time. The pics on the camera screen are more or less the same when I upload them to my pc before any editing. Sorry I'm not an expert with cameras, I tend to lose concentration after 10 seconds if I look at the camera manual :-[
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The problem with auto WB is that the camera is looking for a balanced colour approximating to its internal standard for white. If the picture is dominated by a colour, the auto WB setting will interpret this as an unwanted colour cast and try to remove it. A green colour cast is quite common under fluorescent lighting. Cloudy and shade settings will tend to make the resultant photo redder than it would have otherwise been to compensate for the loss of red tones in these situations. Selecting one of these is useful for enhancing sunsets and sunrises. Our brains have built in auto WB, so we often don’t notice the colour casts and paper will appear white to us under fluorescent light. This also m Ames us tend to remember sunsets as more vivid than the camera captures.
Auto settings can help at the beginning, but they often reduce the quality of the photo, as the camera just follows pre-programmed rules and doesn’t know what you are trying to achieve.
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I have to admit I never fiddle with any of the settings on my Sony. I have it on the gold coloured auto setting and +1 on the exposure dial all the time. The pics on the camera screen are more or less the same when I upload them to my pc before any editing. Sorry I'm not an expert with cameras, I tend to lose concentration after 10 seconds if I look at the camera manual :-[
I was the same, April, and got some ok results. Then I started my night school photography course and now I rarely use auto - I use aperture, shutter priority and full manual options. Of course my photos are now, virtually without exception, cr@p. >:( ;D
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When I did evening classes in photography for beginners we were given an assignment to take shots of reflections. So I went to Wembley Park where just down the road from the station there was a big modern office block made with reflective glass.
I set my tripod up and zoomed in and out getting reflections of the trees on the glass, and the next thing I knew I was grabbed by three security guards.
Now I knew that technically there's nothing to stop you photographing anything you want, but it seemed that this building was the HQ of a company called BASF and they had some pretty high security stuff in there, so they didn't like people setting up cameras and taking pictures of their windows!
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I used my Cybershot WX-60 again yesterday, and one thing I was reminded of that I should have mentioned in my earlier post is that most of the time, as soon as I turn the camera on to take a picture the colours look very washed out on the lcd screen, and that is how the resulting shots look too.
Does that signify anything particular to the experts out there?
An example follows, a picture "straight off the camera" and the same shot after editing:
(https://i.postimg.cc/k56wh3LL/DSC00769a.jpg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/gk2VTbZ4/DSC00769a.jpg)
Problem seems to me to be lack of contrast, rather than incorrect white balance. By any chance is the lens clean?
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Do I need to bother with the sony play memories thing? Havent downloaded it, camera takes pics ok without it.
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When I did evening classes in photography for beginners we were given an assignment to take shots of reflections. So I went to Wembley Park where just down the road from the station there was a big modern office block made with reflective glass.
I set my tripod up and zoomed in and out getting reflections of the trees on the glass, and the next thing I knew I was grabbed by three security guards.
Now I knew that technically there's nothing to stop you photographing anything you want, but it seemed that this building was the HQ of a company called BASF and they had some pretty high security stuff in there, so they didn't like people setting up cameras and taking pictures of their windows!
I was outside the Cube building in Birmingham taking photos of it, and a security guy came and told me I cannot take photos. I told him I can take photos anywhere in a public area of anything that is in public view. That is the law. I did grant him the possibility I might be standing on private ground which was very close to the building, so I moved back a tad, & it helped him save face which personally I think helps...however I never take pics anywhere near children so as not to create any false ideas. Even at my daughters school I always leave it to my wife to take shots. I get paranoid otherwise.
I used my Cybershot WX-60 again yesterday, and one thing I was reminded of that I should have mentioned in my earlier post is that most of the time, as soon as I turn the camera on to take a picture the colours look very washed out on the lcd screen, and that is how the resulting shots look too.
Does that signify anything particular to the experts out there?
An example follows, a picture "straight off the camera" and the same shot after editing:
It might need contrast increasing in camera with the settings but those two photos look like they were taken on a cloudy day?..and the type of light when taking photos is one of the most important things to consider...I love taking photos on a sunny day when the sky is blue...the blue to my mind always looks good and the sunlight creates more contrast...(within reason) I might also turn the exposure down a tad, so as not to over expose pics though...
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Do I need to bother with the sony play memories thing? Havent downloaded it, camera takes pics ok without it.
No you don’t have to O0
I did though
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Thanks to everyone who provided suggestions regarding the problems with my Cybershot WX-60, which I've only just caught up with (or for Ninthace's benefit, up with which I've only just caught). Somehow I missed seeing the more recent posts until now.
For the time being I am making do with my Photo Cleaner freeware, but I have copied every idea onto a note and when I have the time I will have a good old fiddle with the camera.