I want a better photo solution!!! Any out there?

I have a nikon coolpics and I guess it works ok. However, frequently, I am taking photos, looking in the tiny LCD and trying to see how good the photo is, deleting, retaking, etc.

What I really want is a solution where I take the photo with the camera and it is immediently displayed on my computer monitor. So, obviously, the camera is connected to the computer while photo's are being taken. It would be great if I could also do some rudimentary photo editing (croping, sizing, etc) and then save the photo (compressed for the web) with a name that I give the file.

So, in summary, are their any photo taking solutions (combo hardware and software) out there that anyone know's of or can recommend.

Best Regards,
- Hal

 

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I am no photo expert, but I learned through trial and error. Here's some quick tips:

2 Lights (100 watt bulbs) at 45 degree angles about 18 inches from the shot, no flash, set camera to either type of household lightings (bulbs versus tubes)
....400 speed
....Macro setting...most important
....Tripod
....Black background (since black is absent of color, light is NOT reflected off of this "color".
...external drive (for your flash or media card)
...any type of photo software for croping, rotating, etc.

Here's a sample of a Lincoln taken on a black t-shirt (sold item, not for sale):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...6029&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT#ebayphotohosting

 

We use Microsoft Digital Image Pro 7.0 for resizing, cropping, etc. and we love it. We also save our pictures to match our auction file names. It makes organization a lot easier. If you upload to an image server, it also makes it much easier to organize the files there. We use Sparedollar. We don't compress our pictures. Our coin pictures average about 60k each as .jpg files. PM me if you are interested in Sparedollar and I'll send you the link.

 

We take most of our pictures on black also and they come out great. (Very nice picture BTW, Ed.)

 

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it.

Basically, what I do now is take the photos on my camera and remove the flash card when done and insert into my computer. Then, I use either Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (depending upon which computer) and run macros that create my thumbnails, large photos, compress for web and save with extentions that are used in the HTML of my auctions.

However, I would like a better solution where the camera is directly connected to the computer and I when I take the photo, it is right on the screen, ready for editing. Has anyone seen such a setup? I guess I have not. Maybe it does not exist. Who would want to lug around a computer to take digital photos - Hal

 

Our camera is not directly attached to the computer when we take our photos. There is a USB plug that we plug into the camera (and is always plugged into the computer) and the camera acts like a removable disc drive. Aside from a web cam, I don't know of any setup where the camera is continuously plugged into the computer. I think it would be a really awkward setup that way. Our photo studio is across the room from the computers.

 

I've seen computerized microscopes at coin shows which can double as cameras. They are quite expensive and take up a lot of desk space.

 

I have a zoom microscope, sony cybershot 5-mgpixel digital camera and tripod. I take my pics close enough to the computer that I can plug cam to the PC and photos will auto load in seconds. I can pull them up on Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9 which is all I need for cropping, etc my coin pics and repairing old family photos as well. Here's some examples:

http://home.insightbb.com/~murpht/18831.jpg

http://home.insightbb.com/~murpht/1972DRIPPED1.jpg

http://home.insightbb.com/~murpht/elphcentrev.jpg

Some close-ups:

http://home.insightbb.com/~murpht/18832.jpg

http://home.insightbb.com/~murpht/1970SSclose2.jpg

 

heheheh yeah murph I tend to use 1024x768 when I take a shot at 5.1 mp then I scale it down with photoshop... when I scan a coin I use 600 dpi

hhearst... have you tried scanning yet? you can get a good epson perfection at your local best buy... for cheap.. mine was around 200 for the top of the line at the time.. least to say its around a hundred now... and it comes with photoshop elements for quick resize and croping... not to mention tons of other goodies like 35mm negative holders and all kinds of neat stuff .. this will also go directly onto your computer... of course you wont beable to take it around everywere.. but of course that is what your camera is for

Mach

 

Sorry GD, it is very rare that I don't agree with you, but my paychecks come from my company (www.xrite.com) that manufactures instruments that measure and control color in a phases of manufacturing and color consistency.

These instruments are used in everything from matching paint at Home Depot, Loews and Ace, consistent color printing, to auto body shops where you want to make sure the color of your three-year old car has the same color from front panel to back (ever wonder how body shops match the paint perfectly?). Another example, Coca Cola owns the red color of their Coke, and use our instruments in manufacturing to make sure their red is well...THEIR red !

Natural or white light contains ALL of the visble light frequencies that you would see in a rainbow or prism (Issac Newton discovered this). Black from a color science application is sceintifically absent of color. That is, light energy from the sun or your home light is emitted and no frequency of color (sensation of color) is reflected from the black surface.

This is why you see football teams like the Dolphins force opponents like the Oakland Raiders to wear black jerseys in South Florida facing the afternoon sun. The Raiders, wearing black, are not reflecting any light energy and consequently since the energy of the sun is totally being absorbed, the Raiders are playing at higher temperatures than the Dolphins dressed in their white "home" jerseys. Hence the home field advantage.

The visible light spectrum is small, 380 nanometers to around 700 nanometes whereby the color green is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Since green is in the middle (photopic maximum), this is the reason why those older military night vision images were in green because at this color, the human brain can decipher contrast more so than any other color. Today, night vision technology combines both color and infra-red technology to provide the ultimate visible field for our fighting men and woman in the military. I call this stuff a I.B.U. (interesting, but unimportant)

So bottom line, white reflects ALL of the visible frequencies of color whereby black does not reflect any visible wavelengths. You need 3 things to have color: a light source, an object (coin) and a receiver/processor. Take one away, and you have NO color. The receiver/processor can be our eye/brain or the camera we use to receive and process the reflection of color from a light souce. It is this reason why coins that are photgraphed should be taken with a black background so that the immediate adjacent colors do not effect the coin's color wavelengths being reflected back into the camera lens. Also, consistent and color corrected lighting is vital too. The angle, the intensity of the light source and the distance should always be the same from object to object if you really want true color representation.

 

Ed, I was going to say that I wasn't sure you hadn't told me more than I wanted to know about the subject, but on mature consideration I realized you did.

 

hmmm SO THATS HOW YOU GET ALL THEM COINS.... heheheh I bet you make some big bucks working for them

Mach

 

How much is the zoom microscope?

Because I have tried to take photos of my coins, and I just got bad photos!

 

I think there was one in the $350-500 range at the Long Beach Show, but I can't remember the name of the outfit that had them. You might try searching for computer microscopes at Froogle

 

I do it a very cheap way. Works pretty good. Check out some of my posts with photos. Not to shabby for what I use.
I use a camcorder. Not digital either. All I had to do is buy a T.V. card for $40.00. Install it in the computer (real easy). Plug the camcorder into it and I can view the picture on the screen. Freeze the picture when I like what it looks like and then save it to file. Very cheap and easy way to take pretty good photos. Jim

 

I got my microscope, $135 at The Microscope Store of course.

http://www.microscope-store.com/pro...id=49&osCsid=7189b9fc5d59b29d54bad8f3bb966480