C750 questions

SteveB · Jan 4, 2004

This could be my next camera but the reviews never tell you what you want to know, so.......

1. Does the exposure compensation have to be set for every shot or can you adjust it to a particular setting and use it for a series of shots.

2. The low light focusing seems to be a weak point but is it likely to be better than my old Casio QV3000 which is OK ish indoors under low tungsten lighting but can rarely focus under night time street lighting? If it is it will do for me.

3. Does the noise reduction ON/OFF option actually disable all noise reduction at all shutter speeds? I would occasionally like the option of Neat Image having uncorrupted noise to work on.

4. Does the lens cap stop the lens carriage being jarred if the camera gets a minor knock in the lens area.

5. I think I know the answer to this but extra confirmation would be nice. Does the hot shoe work OK with an ordinary auto flash like the Vivitar 283 with the camera in manual mode and the external flash in auto mode?

caterpillar · Jan 4, 2004

SteveB said:
This could be my next camera but the reviews never tell you what
you want to know, so.......

1. Does the exposure compensation have to be set for every shot or
can you adjust it to a particular setting and use it for a series
of shots.

It's settings is retained till you readjust it again. It's easy to do it too.

Member said:
2. The low light focusing seems to be a weak point but is it
likely to be better than my old Casio QV3000 which is OK ish
indoors under low tungsten lighting but can rarely focus under
night time street lighting? If it is it will do for me.

Don't have your Casio, but I switch to manual focusing and use the hyperfocal distance. You don't even have to try to focus. It will be in focus from 3ft to infinity. Other zoom ranges will give you less, but if you stick to below 100mm (in 135mm terms), you can have 8-26ft in sharp focus.

Member said:
3. Does the noise reduction ON/OFF option actually disable all
noise reduction at all shutter speeds? I would occasionally like
the option of Neat Image having uncorrupted noise to work on.

I don't think so. But believe me, even with neat image, your uncorrupted image is really going to be bad that the software will not just work harder, but you end up a too soft/plasticky image. The noise reduction is essence a black masking thing to remove hot spots. Best to keep it on on slow shutter speeds, so that neat image will do a better cleaning.

Member said:
4. Does the lens cap stop the lens carriage being jarred if the
camera gets a minor knock in the lens area.

I don't think so. But you won't have the lens cap on if the camera is powered on anyway. If it is powered off, it's neatly tucked in, so it does not matter.

Member said:
5. I think I know the answer to this but extra confirmation would
be nice. Does the hot shoe work OK with an ordinary auto flash
like the Vivitar 283 with the camera in manual mode and the
external flash in auto mode?

Yes. but you have to go manual mode to trigger it. the external flash is on auto of course. Just set you aperture and ISO as per recommendations of the flash. It works fine really.

--
---------------------

Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

EKirst · Jan 4, 2004

Are you actually using a vivitar 283 on the C-750. Much has been written about the high trigger voltage of this and other external flash. If you are using it, have you used it for a long time? Lots of shots?
Thanks,
Ed

caterpillar said:
SteveB said:

This could be my next camera but the reviews never tell you what
you want to know, so.......

1. Does the exposure compensation have to be set for every shot or
can you adjust it to a particular setting and use it for a series
of shots.

Click to expand...

It's settings is retained till you readjust it again. It's easy to
do it too.

caterpillar said:

2. The low light focusing seems to be a weak point but is it
likely to be better than my old Casio QV3000 which is OK ish
indoors under low tungsten lighting but can rarely focus under
night time street lighting? If it is it will do for me.

Click to expand...

Don't have your Casio, but I switch to manual focusing and use the
hyperfocal distance. You don't even have to try to focus. It will
be in focus from 3ft to infinity. Other zoom ranges will give you
less, but if you stick to below 100mm (in 135mm terms), you can
have 8-26ft in sharp focus.

caterpillar said:

3. Does the noise reduction ON/OFF option actually disable all
noise reduction at all shutter speeds? I would occasionally like
the option of Neat Image having uncorrupted noise to work on.

Click to expand...

I don't think so. But believe me, even with neat image, your
uncorrupted image is really going to be bad that the software will
not just work harder, but you end up a too soft/plasticky image.
The noise reduction is essence a black masking thing to remove hot
spots. Best to keep it on on slow shutter speeds, so that neat
image will do a better cleaning.

caterpillar said:

4. Does the lens cap stop the lens carriage being jarred if the
camera gets a minor knock in the lens area.

Click to expand...

I don't think so. But you won't have the lens cap on if the camera
is powered on anyway. If it is powered off, it's neatly tucked in,
so it does not matter.

caterpillar said:

5. I think I know the answer to this but extra confirmation would
be nice. Does the hot shoe work OK with an ordinary auto flash
like the Vivitar 283 with the camera in manual mode and the
external flash in auto mode?

Click to expand...

Yes. but you have to go manual mode to trigger it. the external
flash is on auto of course. Just set you aperture and ISO as per
recommendations of the flash. It works fine really.

--
---------------------

Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

caterpillar · Jan 4, 2004

EKirst said:
Are you actually using a vivitar 283 on the C-750. Much has been
written about the high trigger voltage of this and other external
flash. If you are using it, have you used it for a long time?
Lots of shots?
Thanks,
Ed

Errr, I am not using a 283 with the c-750. I use a Nikon sb-16b or Olympus 444d. They are both below 6 volts. I believe the original poster is the one using the vivitar.

---------------------

Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

EKirst · Jan 4, 2004

Yea, that's why I bring that up. He is asking whether he can use a Vivitar 283 with this camera. Answer is that there are a lot of us that wouldn't use it, cause the trigger voltage is hundreds of volts instead of 5 or 10 volts on many other models.

Ed

caterpillar said:
EKirst said:

Are you actually using a vivitar 283 on the C-750. Much has been
written about the high trigger voltage of this and other external
flash. If you are using it, have you used it for a long time?
Lots of shots?
Thanks,
Ed

Click to expand...

Errr, I am not using a 283 with the c-750. I use a Nikon sb-16b or
Olympus 444d. They are both below 6 volts. I believe the original
poster is the one using the vivitar.

---------------------

Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

SteveB · Jan 5, 2004

Sorry, I only mentioned the Vivitar 283 because I know it's a commonly used flash, I didn't realise it was a high voltage trigger, and I didn't think anyone would know anything about my Nissin 360TW which has 10v trigger voltage and hardly any current (measured it) so there's no way it could damage anything. Thanks for all the info though, I'm still thinking about whether to get a C750 or go for a less capable but more pocket size camera. Decisions, decisions.

EKirst said:
Ed

caterpillar said:

EKirst said:

Are you actually using a vivitar 283 on the C-750. Much has been
written about the high trigger voltage of this and other external
flash. If you are using it, have you used it for a long time?
Lots of shots?
Thanks,
Ed

Click to expand...

Errr, I am not using a 283 with the c-750. I use a Nikon sb-16b or
Olympus 444d. They are both below 6 volts. I believe the original
poster is the one using the vivitar.

---------------------

Caterpillar

'Always in the process of changing, growing, and transforming.'

Click to expand...

Guy Parsons · Jan 5, 2004

SteveB said:
Thanks
for all the info though, I'm still thinking about whether to get a
C750 or go for a less capable but more pocket size camera.
Decisions, decisions.

When looking at pocket size cameras....

The one that may satisfy after browsing at the relatively chunky C-750 is the Pentax Optio 555 (we have the earlier 450 model). I say that because the 555 is the only pocketable camera with a 5x optical zoom. If printing to postcard size then reasonably high quality can be maintained even when doing a 2x digital zoom later in the photo editor so yielding an effective max tele of 187.5 x 2 = 375mm, quite close to the native optical zoom of the Oly 750. ALWAYS ignore in-camera digital zoom feature, or at very most only use it very sparingly. Remember that quality falls off at the rate of the square of the digital zoom ratio.

The Pentax is also nice to drive with an easier menu arrangement and a fast acting 8x zoom on review of the image to see if the focus was OK. All the usual Aperture Priority and Manual modes are there plus a mess of extremely useful scene modes that actually work OK. I definitely prefer the Pentax manual focus operation. Uses SD cards which are cheaper than xD cards. Battery is special Li-Ion but battery life is very, very good.

Regards......... Guy (Oly C-730 user, wife = Pentax Optio 450 user)

David Suther · Jan 5, 2004

Re the manual focusing , Caterpillar said he put his C750 into hyperfocus mode and always has a crisp image if the zoom is at 100mm or less. Would he be good enough to explain hyperfocus .... thanks
David

Andymid · Jan 5, 2004

David Suther said:
Would he be good enough to explain hyperfocus ....
thanks

The following link explains depth of field and at the bottom of the page you can read about the concept of hyperfocus:

http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/dof/#TABLES

The tables provided don't cover the C750 but the author gives the formula for calculating hyperfocal length. Can't remember how I figured it out but I calculated the "Circle of Confusion" for the C750 as .00511 (but somebody else might have a more accurate figure)

Andymid · Jan 5, 2004

The following forum append:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=7161829

mentions another site which helps you calculate DoF and hyperfocal distance:

http://dfleming.ameranet.com/dofjs.html

Diego F. · Jan 7, 2004

Can you explain more this? How do I use the hyperfocal distance?

Regards,

Diego F.

caterpillar said:
Don't have your Casio, but I switch to manual focusing and use the
hyperfocal distance. You don't even have to try to focus. It will
be in focus from 3ft to infinity. Other zoom ranges will give you
less, but if you stick to below 100mm (in 135mm terms), you can
have 8-26ft in sharp focus.

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