Is there a point-and-shoot camera that takes wide-angle pictures without special lenses?
I take pictures sometimes for a real estate agent, and it is hard to get pictures of smaller rooms. I don't want to lug around a heavy camera/lenses, etc and I don't know enough about cameras to find what I think I want. Suggestions? Deals?
by
sand4me
asked 6 months ago
There are a lot of point-and-shoot cameras that bill themselves as having wide-angle lenses: http://amzn.to/tiJm28
So I guess to some extent it depends on how wide you want to go. This Macworld article discusses what spec to look at to determine if a camera lens can be considered "ultra wide-angle," and what that means: http://www.macworld.com/article/153707/2010/08/wideangle_pointandshoot.html
I own this one, it can take entire house shots from across the street, but it's best to look around and check out reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-ELPH-300-HS/dp/B004J41T7Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1321809033&sr=1-1
@rainbowshark: thanks for the article - I've read through part of it and will finish it later but wanted to say thanks. I recently tried to get a good shot of a living room and had to take three pics it was not satisfactory. One of my co-workers takes great pictures but has a $1000+ camera with a selection of lenses that makes me crazy. Not interested in that route.
@xdavex: Thanks! I've looked at it and read the reviews. If you take pictures of a room on the wide angle settings, how close to 180 degrees of view do you get?
After reviewing the MacWorld article, I am guessing that I need a digital photography tutorial as well.
@sand4me: Yes, you do need more information.
It sounds like you want a super-wide angle lens. There are a few cameras that do that but they are usually a bit more extensive. There are some new models that offer "super-wide" angle shots, but that is still limiting and can add distortion.
In your case I would take a look at some photo editing software that supports "photo-stitching". Instead of a wide angle lens, take a tripod. Take a shot and swivel the camera 30-45 degrees and take an overlapping image. You then use the software to "align" the images and join them into a single, super-wide image you can crop as needed.
Cost? Maybe $50? I use Corel Paint Shop Pro to do this, but there are many other programs that let you do this. (See http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4130078 for details)
You can take a look at an example at Autostitch.
http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/brown/autostitch/autostitch.html
I have looked at some of the pictures that other agents produce for the multiple listing service and picked out three that look like what I want to be able to produce. I will ask those agents what they are using and if anyone is interested, hopefully I will post their answers tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestions/help.
So, I purchased a Canon Powershot ELPH 300HS, on sale, and it included a 4GB SDHC card and a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable. Talked to two photographers who take great pictures, and they both gave this one a thumbs up and it is tiny - just under 5 ounces!! Looking forward to getting it next week! Thanks for everyone's input.
@xdavex: See my previous post - this was the most recommended by the people I talked to about my needs. And it was a great sale. $149.00
9 Answers answer
Sort By: