Question for all you digital camera user's

[SkiWhiz]

I just bought a used Sony Cyber Shot DSC-P1 camera for my wife from eBay. She is getting into selling stuff on eBay and wanted a camera that was rechargeale. When new the DSC-P1 sold for $700.00 - $800.00 I bought it for $55.00 (still waiting to receive it).
My question is - my old camera is a 2.0 megapixel and the Sony I am getting is 3.3 megapixel, will the little bit of difference in megapixels make for a better picture. I realize in today's market even 3.3 megapixels isn't very much but even my old camera has pretty good pictures. Thanks! Steve.

[bobbulge]

Its a good camera, but I think for that price I hope it arrives and that you weren't scammed...

[Harley-Dog]

You should see a difference in sharpness with the 3.3. The more megapixels, the higher resolution your photo will be. For $55, if the camera is in good working order, then you got a bargain. That type of camera will work fine for Ebay.

Harley-Dog

[booker]

The 3.3 pix will do find. Unless you are blowing up pics to huge size you cant tell the difference in pixels. Even then I have seen some 3 pix blown up that came out great

[SkiWhiz]

Originally Posted by bobbulge

Its a good camera, but I think for that price I hope it arrives and that you weren't scammed...

I don't think it is a scam, I have received a few emails from the seller & he sent me a tracking number. This is his first eBay sale, but my way of thinking is everyone has to start somewhere & I believe in giving someone a chance.
These camera's are 6 or 7 years old now and they go for about 50 - 80 dollars on eBay all the time.

[MaxBaer]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your comments on the Hobbie thread. I don't know if it helps any, the first pic was taken with a 2.1 MP Sony camera. A few years back...the second and 3rd pic were taken with a Nikon 10.2 MP this Summer. I have found that your monitor and lense, seem to have more effect on display on a computer, then MP. Now if you were to "Print" hardcopy the same pic's, the detail and clearity and even colour are much better as the MP gets higher. For use on the computer for things like eBay our just sharing pic's with folks...the 3 MP camera will do a great job. Sony makes good stuff, too. You can't go wrong for that price...IMHO. I also use a Kodak 5MP for fast pic's too and it works really well.

MaxBaer

[hoser]

My Fuji is only a 3mp, and I love it. Practice up on doing your macros as you will want to show closeups of some of your finds. Took me a while to get it down to the point where the pics were not all fuzzy looking.

[billiard rich]

3.3 is plenty of mega-pixels. I shoot most of my shots with a 4mp Nikon. When I shoot pool tournaments, I use a 12mp Fuji. That allows me to crop 80% of a shot and still get a nice print.

Most of the shots I upload here are shot with either a 2mp or 4mp camera. Then I crop it, and compress it by 60% before I upload it. (The compression makes the prints upload and download faster, but it does degrade the picture quality.)

Try to keep your ebay pics around 100 - 200 Kb. A lot of ebayers have dial-up lines and some don't feel like waiting for a large jpg file to down-load. They'll back-out and go to the next auction instead.

[SkiWhiz]

Thanks for your replies folks. Will let you know how the camera works when I get it. Maybe I might get myself a great find with my little Tesoro Silver uMax that I can post a picture of . Steve.

[Ed in KC]

The DSC-P1 was my first digital camera, and I think it took excellent pictures. I used it mainly as a work documentation camera, and it lasted for three or four years, which is pretty good. Sony recalled this camera because of a problem with the battery "time remaining" feature, which would sometimes go from tens of minutes to zero minutes instantly, shutting the camera down, so if yours has this problem, I'd go to the Sony website and check it out. It's a great camera, here's a couple pics I took with mine.

[SkiWhiz]

Thanks for the heads up on the battery Ed, I have read several reviews on the camera & seems everyone is happy with the camera's performance but there are alot of people that had the bad battery situation. The seller I am getting my camera from says it holds a charge fine. We will see. Thanks! Steve.

[hoser]

Cool pics Ed, but being an electrician myself I had to look twice at those pics. Seeing circuit breakers in one photo and (I know they were welding) and arcing in the second made me think to myself"OH OH, this just can't be good

[Ed in KC]

Originally Posted by hoser

Cool pics Ed, but being an electrician myself I had to look twice at those pics. Seeing circuit breakers in one photo and (I know they were welding) and arcing in the second made me think to myself"OH OH, this just can't be good

Thanks Hoser! The first picture is inside a new streetlight controller--the wire with the blue crimp connector shouldn't have been there, and would have caused a phase to phase short when the controller was energized; there really would have been a fire

In the second picture, we were cad-welding a ground wire to the pole, and I was lucky enough to snap the picture just as the initial charge went off--one of my favorite work pics.

[SkiWhiz]

Recived my camera today, everything works great & all the goodies were included with it. Here is a picture of inside our barn I took with it. There are different adjustments to the size of the pictures the camera can take and I don't know which one I should use. Steve.

[Ed in KC]

Originally Posted by SkiWhiz

Recived my camera today, everything works great & all the goodies were included with it. Here is a picture of inside our barn I took with it. There are different adjustments to the size of the pictures the camera can take and I don't know which one I should use. Steve.

Use the largest, which I believe is the 3.3 setting.

[SkiWhiz]

My choices are:
2048 x 1536
2048 (3:2) *
1600 x 1200
1280 x 960
640 x 480

* The image is recorded in 3:2 (horizontal:vertical) size to match the printing paper size ratio of 3:2

I guess I have alot to learn when it comes to using camera's. Thanks! Steve.

[billiard rich]

Cameras are like detectors. You've got to experiment with them. Try taking the same picture with each setting. You'll see the difference in size, quality, JPG size, and the length of time it takes to record in the camera. You might find that for ebay applications, the 640 x 480 setting might be the most practicle size.

If you get into it and begin wondering about photo editing software, two of the best and easiest packages are PhotoImpact by Ulead, and Corel Paint Shop Pro. Both run around $100. There is also PhotoShop, but I found that very complex, expensive, and hard to figure-out.

[hobbes_lives]

2048 x 1536 will give you the most detail, however, as billiard rich wrote, 640 x 480 is fine for eBay. I always take pictures in the largest size that my camera will allow, then scale them down as necessary.

I have an addition to the list of image editing software, Gimp. It's free and very powerful. You can get it here... http://www.gimp.org/