Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got my second new camera in the last week or so and I have to say that the Canon Powershot A60 is exactly what I was looking for.

I orginally went all out and bought a Nikon Coolpix 4300, but the automatic settings on the Coolpix were terrible (everything came out overexposed with terrible coloration), which required me to tinker with the manual settings to get decent pictures. These settings had to be adjusted as the lighting changed throughout the day, a huge hassle for a digital camera newbie like me.

Now I'm sure that is no big deal for all you photography people out there, but I just wanted a camera that I could click the button and take great pics. Also, the files sizes were HUGE with the Coolpix. Even when the pictures were taken with the lowest quality setting and cropped/sized down the file sizes were enormous... the 4.0 megapixels are just more than I need. The load time on my available page with dailup would have been 10 minutes.

The Canon A60 cost me a couple hundred dollars less, and is taking great pictures right out of the box (even at night using the flash!). It is "only" 2.0 megapixels, but so far that seems to be plenty, as it is taking great quality pictures and the file sizes are very managable. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a camera with the intent of posting pictures on the web. The A60 also has 3x optical zoom and plenty of options and scene modes, which is pretty good for it's price range.

Just thought I would share my experiences, and possibly save you guys some of the headaches I went through.
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-Ross Payan - www.LeosAnonymous.com

Leos Anonymous

Ball Pythons, Red Striped Leos, W.Hognose and Screaming AFT's

Hi Ross,

Would you post a few pics that you've taken with it? I'm on the lookout for a new digicam, and I'd like to see what it can do. Maybe you'll give us all a treat and snap a few of that gorgeous red stripe male !

Andrea

The following pictures were taken with my Olympus D-40 camera. It is 4 megapixels and has a 3x Optical zoom. I bought it refurbished from buydig.com for $260. It is an awesome camera with plenty of features. It can record movies, audio, take panoramic pictures, etc.

This picture was originally only a small part of the huge picture, but because of this cameras awesome resolution, I was able to crop this out without losing any quality.

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The Hypo Gecko

How are the file sizes?

The huge files sizes of the Nikon was the real killer... the load time on my available page was huge, even with thumbnails. I've got to watch out for the dailup users out there, lol =)
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-Ross Payan - www.LeosAnonymous.com

Leos Anonymous

Ball Pythons, Red Striped Leos, W.Hognose and Screaming AFT's

What I do is take my pictures on the highest setting. This makes the image sizes about 1 mb each. I then shrink down my images to 640 x 480 or crop out my subject to 640 x 480 if there is too much background. My 640 x 480 images are rarely over 250kb. I then take my 640 x 480 images and shrink them down to make my thumbnails, which have a small file size.
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The Hypo Gecko

Sounds about the same as the Nikon... I couldn't get my thumbnails under 40kb each, which really adds up if you have lots on the page.

What range are you thumbs in?
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-Ross Payan - www.LeosAnonymous.com

Leos Anonymous

Ball Pythons, Red Striped Leos, W.Hognose and Screaming AFT's

I'm starting to use thumbnails which are 200 x 150 pixels. They are all under 30kb each. My old thumbnails were 100 x 75 pixels and were all under 10kb each.
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The Hypo Gecko

That is the first leo, other than patternless, that I have seen with kink tail. How did that come about with this animal?
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Steven
Royal Gold Reptiles
Offspring available now from LV Patternless Albino stock for '03 and '04.
Working towards Bell Patternless Albinos for '05.

How do you post pics inside your post? I went to the posting instructions on the forum & it only said to post in the gallery or put in a hyperlink.
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0.3.0 leos, Geo, Tang, Ginger
0.1.1 frogs Buffy the Cricket Slayer, Butrose Butrose Froggy
0.0.5 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Juice Newton & Olivia Newton John
1.1.0 cats Gus & Mena

I bought that gecko from another breeder, he is het for patternless, so I guess that explains that.
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The Hypo Gecko

I hope not.
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

I originally bought him to breed, but I have been thinking more about it lately now that his kink is more noticeable than when he was a hatchling. I don't know much about kinked tails, but what are the problems with breeding geckos with kinked tails? Thanks.
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The Hypo Gecko

The problem with breeding with a kinked tail is that it is an undesirable genetic defect, and it is unethical according to universal cross-species standards to breed any animal with an undesireable genetic defect (assuming there are plenty of animals to perpetuate the species that do not have that defect). The goal of captive/selective breeding is to breed the best and strongest examples of a species. While taste in patterns and colors vary, a kinked tail is always considered undesireable. Even if some of the offspring do not show that trait, they will likely be carrying it, and passing it on to unsuspecting future generations. To a responsible breeder, an animal with a kinked tail is useless for breeding purposes...though they can make perfectly fine pets.

It's too bad about the kinked tail, otherwise looks like a very fine animal, but breeding it would be unethical and ruin your reputation, were it known that you were breeding it or selling offspring of such a crossing.
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

Thanks for explaining it to me. That was a lot better than other places I've come across on the web that just say, "Don't breed geckos with kinked tails, it's bad." I think I made up my mind now. I'm going to get a patternless albino male so I don't have to breed my kinked tail male and so I have a better chance to produce more patternless albinos than with het to het breedings. He's such a good looking male though and his colors keep getting more and more vibrant
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The Hypo Gecko

Good to hear about your plans. Glad the explanation helped. I know, it sucks when you have a nice looking animal you can't breed for one reason or another, but that is part of breeding, it comes with the territory. There are lots of reasons breeders can't breed an animal they would otherwise like to- a small defect, maybe it is too small, maybe it has coccidia, maybe it has a history of eggbinding, maybe it looks okay but produces geckos with kinked tails...

Of course you can still post lots of pics of him and we'll all admire him!
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

I think Olympus cameras are the BEST!

(The fact that I work for them has nothing to do with my opinion)....LOL
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Jeanne Leary

Lol!
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-Ross Payan - www.LeosAnonymous.com

Leos Anonymous

Ball Pythons, Red Striped Leos, W.Hognose and Screaming AFT's

I have an Oly C-700. I do not think it is "the best" but it is a decent camera that exceeds my expectations periodically.

I LOVE the 10X optical zoom too!
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Steven
Royal Gold Reptiles
Offspring available now from LV Patternless Albino stock for '03 and '04.
Working towards Bell Patternless Albinos for '05.

I had the Olympus Stylus 300. It took good pictures, but you really had to work at the focus. I now have the Olympus C-5050, automatic zoom is great! The picture quality is pretty good too. I am probably the world’s worst photographer and my pictures come out have decent so I am happy.

Thanks
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Jeanne Leary

It takes pretty good pics for the price, only thing I'd like to have is optical zoom.
A friend of mine just bought a D-390, pretty much the same with a new case but the price is coming down fast.
I think he paid 189 Cdn or something like that, it was super cheap anyways.

no problems with mine, I use it daily!

maybe you could find it in your heart to hook me up with the newest most expensive olympus camera they're working on, you know I could test it and stuff. I'd do it for free
lol
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4.5 Leopard Geckos
1.0 Marbled Gecko
1.1 Red Eared Sliders
0.2 Siamese Mice

I had the XQ5-17 Kodak Instamatic wind up disposable model that was awesome!
The only thing I didn't like about it was I had to keep buying new cameras all the time! LOL

I have a Canon powershot s110 which I really like except it is not so good on super-closups, or maybe I just don't know how to use it that well. I just descovered the close-up button a few months ago!
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos