I bought a Sony 5 MP camera and I'm not happy with the pictures, why?

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Preachers Sheets

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I just bought a Sony DSC-P92 5 MP camera, took me a few months to make up my mind and I thought I was getting one of the best units but I don't like the way the pictures are coming out.



I am resting the camera on a table to make sure the unit is as still as can be, the camera is taking pic's at 5 MP all the time but I don't feel they are as sharp/crisp as they ought to be. I even tried taking a picture of one item and trying all kinds of options on the camera, nothing helped. I am going to try to view the pictures is Adobe Photoshop and see if the veiwer I am using is junk.



My brother told me it may be because they are in .jpeg format, not the raw format in which the camera captures them.



Is there anything I can do or is a 5 MP camera only a wee bit better than the 3 MP units? I do know from 3 to 4 MP is barely anything, I thought 5 MP would be a huge jump.



Help me out guys I don't know what I should be expecting of this unit and what I can do within the camera to make the pictures better.
 
The difference I've seen in the higher MP cameras (I've only got a 2.1 MP camera myself) is the quality of image when you focus on an object that is really close. How does it do in that regard? I know mine is pretty crappy at focusing on objects really close to me. I've been impressed from time to time, but not nearly as often as the higher MP cameras. It works for my purposes though.
 
If you can take the pics in TIFF format, you will have the best resolution. The JPEG compression on the Sony cameras is pretty fierce.



I believe there is a way to adjust the level of JPEG compression on the newer cameras, but I'll have to ask my GF about it. She just got a DSC-V1... and I have to use my lowly DSC-S70 (3MP). My camera doesn't give the option to adjust the level other than a few modes :nixweiss



-Bob
 
If I want to blow the picture up the quality stays exactly the same, I can even zoom in on one part of the picture and it'll stay the same (quality wise).



Can I see some of your 2.1 MP pictures? I would like to compare them to my camera and see if just maybe I was expecting the world from this camera. Is my quality supposed to be the same as real film?
 
All of the pics in my gallery except for the floating Porsche badge one were taken with my 2.1. The pics in the link in my sig were with the 2.1 as well. There are a few in my gallery that are really close shots, like the one of my sideskirts with the carbon fiber vinyl on them, that turned out very well. Those are the times I'm surprised that it actually focused on what I wanted to take a picture of. lol I've been happy enough with my 2.1 that the cost for a 5 MP just doesn't do it for me. I've got some very nice film cameras that I use when I take serious photographs. The digicam is just for cars and things like that. I've been pleased.
 
I have 3 SONY digicams and love them all. My most recent is the DSC-F707, which took me a while to learn how to use. What I finally figured out is that I have to record at a lower resolution for close up work. This works for me, as I take a lot of close up pics that get cropped and sized down anyway.



When I'm taking car pics outside, I can crank up the resolution, make sure the shutter speed is right and set the light levels, then the pic come out looking crisp and clear.



db
 
dookiebob said:
If you can take the pics in TIFF format, you will have the best resolution. The JPEG compression on the Sony cameras is pretty fierce.



I believe there is a way to adjust the level of JPEG compression on the newer cameras, but I'll have to ask my GF about it. She just got a DSC-V1... and I have to use my lowly DSC-S70 (3MP). My camera doesn't give the option to adjust the level other than a few modes :nixweiss



-Bob
Click to expand...



Bob, I've got a Sony CD400 with 4 MP and it has the option to change through about 5 different formats and TIFF is one of them. I've never used it, but I can promise you it will be the first thing on my to do list tomorrow. Can you explain to me what the difference is from TIFF to JPEG and so on? Thanks a ton!





Joed, like I said above, I've got the CD400 that has 4MP. Here's a couple pictures I took recently of my car. If you want to see them in 1600x1200 resolution(which I recommend you do), just add ".orig.jpg" to the existing URL of the picture you want blown up.



http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/pf24d52e9792f6c49a0daef1b40273d52/fbed84f8.jpg



http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/p8c1e0b9a9c64407465158412282a810a/fbed84fe.jpg



fbed850a.jpg




Hope this helps.



Brandon



Edit: Pictures work now!
 
I bought the Sony DSC-F707 in December 2001. It is a great camera with a macro feature. I can get really close.



I shoot in .jpg standard 2560x1920. I get 85-90 pics on a 128MB Memory stick.



I love this camera at any focal length!



2406pigeon.jpg
 
Mmmph said:
I bought the Sony DSC-F707 in December 2001. It is a great camera with a macro feature. I can get really close.



I shoot in .jpg standard 2560x1920. I get 85-90 pics on a 128MB Memory stick.



I love this camera at any focal length!



2406pigeon.jpg
Click to expand...



Mmmph...



I love that pic :eek: ... but there is quite a bit of JPEG compression in the background. The clarity of the pigeon itself is pretty impressive though.



-Bob
 
Hey!

Sometimes the software that comes with the camera is not that great. Use Photoshop, and blow up the picture to its actual size. It should be very sharp! If not, do you have some type of manual settings that could be producing a blury image? Try and email Sony and ask. There is probably a button somewhere that is either engaged and shouldn't be or vice versa.



Here is a pic my wife took of her flowers off our deck. This was shot with a 4 Mp Canon G3:
 
dookiebob said:
Mmmph...



I love that pic :eek: ... but there is quite a bit of JPEG compression in the background. The clarity of the pigeon itself is pretty impressive though.



-Bob
Click to expand...



I checked the image of the pigeon and it has been resized to 800x600 image, quite a bit of downsizing and loss of background. I shoot everything in 2560x1920 fine with my F707.



Rex
 
The pigeon original was taken in .jpg standard mode. 2560x1920 and totalled 1,239KB. That was taken in Dec 2001 on 34th St. near Macy's a couple of blocks from the Empire State Building.



If I set it to .jpg fine mode, pics run 2200KB. If I set it to .tif, originals would be 11MB. I rarely do this. It's very sharp and lighter than the pic I posted. Autopia's gallery software darkens uploads.



I've printed 11x17 pictures taken with my DSC-F707.

Lossless and Incredible!
 
This thread just re-convinced me that I want a Canon G3... I would go for a sony, its just that I like having CompactFlash cards instead of memory sticks.
 
Hey Mmmph!!



I LOVE THAT PIC!!! :xyxthumbs Your talents in both photography and Photoshop manipulations (a la S100!!) are exceptional! Well done!!!



Tim
 
Mmmph said:
The pigeon original was taken in .jpg standard mode. 2560x1920 and totalled 1,239KB.

I've printed 11x17 pictures taken with my DSC-F707.

Lossless and Incredible!
Click to expand...



I've done 13x19 prints from my 707 on my Canon S9000. Nothing beats large format!!!:xyxthumbs



Rex
 
The G3 is by far one of the BEST values on the market today...hold off on it as the G5 will be (it might have been already) released...the price of the G3 should come down a lot....I LOVE my G3....almost as much as my PC 7424.....it really does live up to MOST of the hype
 
I think (macro) focusing is more important than just how many megapixels you have to work with. Take 3-4 pictures with different settings from every angle and you are bound to have a superb picture :D



Here's a few that I took with my Canon S30.

10757img_5f2605_copy.jpg




10757img_5f1907_5fdisp800.jpg




10757img_3727_copy.jpg
 
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