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Old June 27th 07, 05:02 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
5Z
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Posts: 405
Default Cockpit digital cameras?

A bit late to the thread, but I use a Kodak V570 dual lens camera -
see http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/v570.html for a
review. The cool part is that the wide angle lens is equivalent to a
23mm lens on a 35mm camera. Almost fisheye, so captures the cockpit
view very nicely. See a few posts to the SSA photo gallery I made
today at http://ssa.org/sport/PhotoGalleryMain.asp

One trick I've recently learned is to set the camera to underexpose
all my shots by a value of 1.0 on the exposure compensation built into
the cameras, then I use ACDSee photo software and with a single click,
bring out the shadows. That is how I get the nice colors without the
normal washout. The auto exposure of this and many other cameras
tends to over expose the image, and once that happens, you can't
darken it to look more natural. But an underexposed image still has
lots of detail hidden in the dark areas, so software can pull it out.

It also takes pretty good videos.

But - I have not had good luck with the telephoto for inflight
pictures. They typically turn out 'dirty' looking with everything a
bit out of focus. On the ground, the zoom takes very nice photos, so
I don't know what the dynamics are, but this camera will not take good
close ups of other aircraft or ground features. But to pass along the
feel of what it's like to be in the cockpit, I think it's great.

-Tom