Digital photography

Hello, hopefully somebody can help me out.

My mate wants a new compact camera to take traveling, he'd also like to take some pics of the stars, long exposure type of thing for a cool swirly night sky. Can anyone make a recommendation? I think his budget is less than £150, I spotted a sony at Argos for £120 but how can I find out the max exposure time? Do compacts at that price offer exposure time choice?

Sorry for sounding like a n00b, Any help would be much appreciated, cheers

Thats going to be a really hard criterior to satisfy with a compact. Anything that cheap will be extremely noisy at the ISOs required for star trails. Maybe a second hand canon s100 could get something resembling acceptable at smaller sizes.
For space stuff you really need ultra wide angle, fast aperture lenses in front of a big sensor beyond Iso 3200.

you also need manual control to keep the shutter open for longer than the usual 30-60sec.

Someone managed this with an S100. Looks like lots of photos comped as they arent smooth lines.

Nice.

Straighten it, and maybe take the line right to the bottom left corner? You can always move the moon to the right a little.

Practice your panning. The jiggly text on the front of the bus is distracting. I'd crop the top a little to get rid of that small band of white. I like how the bus looks like it's taking off!

Great. Good juxtaposition of textures between the shadows and the sand.

Crop this to more of a 16:9 shape, i.e. panorama. It's good, but that sky is just dead space. I'd clone out the aircraft (?) lights too.

Hope that helps. You in Edinburgh?

Cheers Photoben, I'm actually in Newport, south of Dundee. I couldn't work out what the lights in the last shot were but I think you're right they're a plane. I don't feel bad about cropping them out now.

Still getting to grips with shooting RAW and developing in Lightroom, really enjoying the control the GX1 gives over the old compact camera.

I appreciate the feedback :)

Thanks for the cheap compact feedback guys, I'll keep looking then. Sony seem to be making big noises about their new sensors and some mega ISO of 12300, does this sound like marketing guff or is it useable?

for trails you want low ISO but a long exposure time. Look for a Bulb feature or support for an external
shutter release.

m17rennie, regarding those phantom lights on the bridge shot. It's called "ghosting." Happens with digi cameras for some reason when you have bright lights within the shot. The source of this one are the bright lights by the 4th bridge support.
Nice shots btw

Happens when light repeatedly reflects off the surface of the lens

..fixed. Ghosting has nothing to do with digital or analog.

Thats going to be a really hard criterior to satisfy with a compact. Anything that cheap will be extremely noisy at the ISOs required for star trails. Maybe a second hand canon s100 could get something resembling acceptable at smaller sizes.
For space stuff you really need ultra wide angle, fast aperture lenses in front of a big sensor beyond Iso 3200.

What? It's the complete opposite. Low speed and smaller aperture for best results. Wide angle would be helpful for sure. All you technically need is a B mode.

Crop this to more of a 16:9 shape, i.e. panorama. It's good, but that sky is just dead space. I'd clone out the aircraft (?) lights too.

Yea and cut off the bottom third too, the water is just dead space as well.
Actuallly darken the whole thing so it's almost black, keeping the light trail in the middle.

Just kiding; I like it how it is.
I'm a friend of "dead space" if it makes sense, it allows breathing. It's a nice sky as well.
Would stamp out the ghost though.

What? It's the complete opposite. Low speed and smaller aperture for best results. Wide angle would be helpful for sure. All you technically need is a B mode.

So, are there sensibly priced compacts with a bulb mode?

I think if budget was tight, personally I would check out the shot with any crappy digital camera, not caring about how shit the high iso looks,
then actually shoot my picture(s) with a cheap but great analog SLR in bulb.
Pretty much all compacts have tiny sensors that look bad both with hight iso as well as long exposures...

Does such software exist where you can automate the process of tagging images using facial recognition or something? I'm thinking for use with grip and grin event photography and the like...

..reminded me of this...

^^^ Snapsort is a quick and dirty comparator.

What? It's the complete opposite. Low speed and smaller aperture for best results. Wide angle would be helpful for sure. All you technically need is a B mode.

I suppose for star trails that's right. I'm confusing it with astrophotography where you don't want trails...

..fixed. Ghosting has nothing to do with digital or analog.

Interesting. I never had this prob with analogue but possibly I was being more "creative" with digi.
I shall look into this moar

What photo editing software would you guys recommend?

I love taking pictures but the editing becomes a little tiresome for me. I'd like something simple that I can keep all my pictures iPhone/ Sigma dp1 and DSLR in and do a little editing when needed.

Tagging would help.

Also another question...

In terms of sharing pictures what are the best options? Flickr, tumblr? Something else... I thought I read somewhere flickr image rights were a little questionable.

Light room is bar far the most popular for good reason but picassa would probably do. As for flickr, Theres nothing sinister in their T&Cs and you choose the licence for your photos. They also don't compress or sharpen anything you upload (at least the option to view/download original is there). Tumblr is more involved and is just a blog service but is good for alternative viewing, if you want you pictures massive etc.

PicMonkey is a very useful free editing service. Well, the basic stuff is free, you can pay $3 a month and get the whole lot if you like. It's easy to use and very quick for adjusting contrast, exposure, shadows, saturation and so on.

Yea and cut off the bottom third too, the water is just dead space as well.
Actuallly darken the whole thing so it's almost black, keeping the light trail in the middle.

Just kiding; I like it how it is.
I'm a friend of "dead space" if it makes sense, it allows breathing. It's a nice sky as well.
Would stamp out the ghost though.

Haha, cheers. Hope you don't mind if I clog the thread...

Yeah, both are good.
Doggie looks reflective - lost a bone recently?

Yeah, both are good.
Doggie looks reflective - lost a bone recently?

She looks like that because it's raining and she hates getting wet....also we did lose the dog recently, she went after a deer and didn't come back for 9.5 hours. Worrying times!!

Loving playing with the DOF, all new to me coming from a compact but makes composing a shot far more interesting.

Another +1 for Lightroom. Only for editing though. For sorting and filing photos Photo Mechanic is incredible. So fast.

Another +1 for Lightroom. Only for editing though. For sorting and filing photos Photo Mechanic is incredible. So fast.

Gotta try that. So far I go opposite. Lightroom has always been brilliant as an organizer and minor editing. Nothing matches Photoshop for pure editing power though.