eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Hi,

In the past we took a sweeping look at digital cameras... (Gerry's Questions About Bird Photography, Digital Cameras, and the NovaBird, etc. (Part 1 of 2), Gerry's Questions About Bird Photography, Digital Cameras, and the NovaBird, etc. (Part 2 of 2))

Now, let's look at one in particular.

A couple of months ago, the wife and I picked up a Vivitar 8600s. It's a small camera, as the photo below clearly shows...



Understand, we did our research on Amazon.com. (Hint... Reread How Do I Become a Backyard Birder?) and found that it was a decent little package... 8.1 megapixels, 6X optical zoom...

Obviously, available space on this post prohibits me from exploring all the intricate features of this camera. (Though should you want all the details, I will happily "knuckle-drag" my way through them, just as I did for Gerry above.) Anyway, I'll just describe the camera in the "Auto", "Macro and Super Macro" and "Scn" modes. Let's take a look...

The following photo was taken at around 40 yds using the patio deck rail as a pseudo rest for the Vivitar set in the "Auto" mode.



That shot certainly is nothing to write home about, but it is good enough to serve as a pleasant reminder of a pleasant afternoon spent in the back yard.

Now let's take a quick look at the "Macro" and "Super Macro" modes. This is a photo of the top of a dime. Not bad at all...



To be honest, I can't remember which mode I used to get this next photograph, but no doubt that the quality of the camera (especially used at short distances) is quite apparent... Here are more details of that same dime...



Now we're getting somewhere... But what of the "Scn" mode? Well, the "Scene" mode offers presets (shutter speed, aperture, etc.) for 16 unique conditions such as sunrise, movement, night, etc. The following is an example of a photo using the "Black and White Scene" mode...



And here's a zoom shot of the computer screen in the photo above...



There are probably a few "bottom lines" that would concern the back yard birder interested in exploring photography with a small, relatively inexpensive digital camera...

• Today's small digital cameras are loaded with features. (I never even mentioned audio or video.)
• For close-up work, they can produce some very impressive results.
• Taking into account the small size of the lens, distance shots are always going to be a challenge.
• No doubt that given the same subject and the same camera, a professional photographer like California Kathryn would have made adjustments to the "f stop" the shutter speed, the focus, (and who knows what else!) And a far better series of photos would have emerged. Still, compact cameras are probably never going to be able to challenge Ansel Adams (regardless of how many megapixels they have), but they can at least hold their own.

Hope this helps,

CapeCodAlan