Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Trying to choose between Nikon 5700 or Olympus C-730. Anyone use either of these camera's? The close up head photos of corns that I have seen in this forum are amazing. Also, both of these camera's have nice optical zoom for some great distance shots. What camera recommendations do you all have for me?

I bought my first digital over 2 years ago; an Olympus (1.3 Megapixel), it's an antique now LOL. I am buying a new Olympus next month (5.0 Megapixel) and I am going to stick with an Olympus, not because it is a better camera (it might be) but because I am already familiar with Olympus and it's functions. But I am still going to go to Best Buy for example and play with their cameras to compare HANDS ON! There are a lot of nice Digitals out there, shop around.........

Kerby...

Right on!

Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and Minolta are all good brands, though that's not an exhaustive list. It's basically a matter of selecting the features you want, making a list of the cameras with those features, and finding out which fits your hands and budget the best.

I'm planning on getting a digital myself, probably along about September, after the new models are out. The reviews at http://www.dpreview.com have helped me narrow the field a lot.

Paul Hollander

I guess it depends on what you are doing. The Nikon is 5 megapixels, which is overkill unless you want really large prints (a 3mp can do 8x10s fine) or if you want to crop photos and make them seem 'closer'...it's also 2x the price of the 3 mp Olympus. We have a Nikon SLR camera, no complaints. Also had an Olympus digital camera, but the model was years and years old, so it's not really relevant now. If I had the money, I would buy the Nikon (they usually have great macro capabilities)

Something to know about high zoom, though. The higher the zoom, the more prone the image is to blurring from camera shake. I have a 10x optical zoom digital camera (Canon pro90 IS), and it's great. However, it does incorporate image-stabilization...here's an example...

Here's with the image stabilization...

Here's without...

These are just crops of the full picture, no resizing. The quality's a bit low, because the pics were too dark and I had to lighten them a little. But you get the picture.

Here's some headshots I took:

^Just resized. The only problem I have with my camera is that there is no built-in macro function. The above shots were taken with the optional close-up lens.
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-audri
Webpage/Pics

You're right, of course. But I really want the ultra zoom feature. I have a Canon S10 and it takes OK shots. But I really want to take pics from "across the lake" and "up into the trees". Of course, the main object is to be able to get head shots of these fantastic corns. I guess I have decided upon the Olympus. I have two weeks to play with and check it out. If it doesn't satisfy I'm going to return and get the Nikon.

here's one with the coolpix 4500............great macro.........CHRIS' COLUBRIDS

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