On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Peter Alefounder wrote:
> Another thing never mentioned in reviews is the field of view. I
> can't tell from a review how far away I would need to be to get all
> of an A3 document in view. A record office would not be happy for
> people to put items on the floor to photograph. Is there some
> standard meaning for "wide-angle lens"?
Another good set of reasons for going to try one out.
My local Jessops ordered in the camera I wanted to try and I was able to
prove that is did what I wanted. I gave them the custom, though their
proces are usually pretty competitive anyway.
I've photographed pictures around A2 from about 1m away. I could pobably
go in closer than that, but the wide-angle distortions start to show too
much for my purposes.
Generally on 35mm film, wide-angle is anything shorter than around 50mm
and telephonto is anything longer than around 80mm. The trouble with
that is it only works when the image inside the camera is 25mm filem
sized, Most digitals have a smaller internal image, so that "50mm
equivalent" is, for example, perhaps 20mm on the digital lens. It's that
small image size that allows the compacts to have such impressive
wide-tele zooms in such a small package, but it's also the reason the
pixel size is limited. Quarts and pint pots!
BTW if extra light is a problem, put the camera on a tripod use a long
exposure instead. You may have to tweak the colour rendition, though.
FWIW, I set up a tripod for most documents I photograph, so that I can
do the tweaking without changing anything else. When photographing
text-on-white, most compacts get the colours wrong as they 'see' too
much white, so I usually have to set up the exposure, colour balance and
so on. Having a PC nearby helps to prove the images. Once you have a
good setup, you may be able to save it as a 'personal' setup.
> Does anyone know the lifetime of Li-ion batteries (how often they
> can be recharged)?
Li-ions are better than most as they don't suffer the 'memory' problems
of NiCd and possibly NiMH. Personally I'd get the Li-ions is they're
available, for the convenience and non-memory. They can be quite
pricy, though.
ATB,
Gordon.
--
Gordon Scott http://www.gscott.co.uk
Haiku: Tragic Irony
Imagined Life Without Walls
Windows Crash to Floor.
Linux ... Because I like to *get* there today.
