Coolpix 4500 how many shots?

[Ragna]

When using a Coolpix 4500 on fine image, size 2274 x 1704, the manual states approximately 66 images on 128 MB card. When taking photos on my camera of ducks and gulls etc I got over 100 shots and regularly get 90+ before my card is full, over 50% more than the manual states. Is this unusual? Is it likely to be a fault on the camera? How many shots do other users get when using these settings? Thanks for your help.

[T0ny]

I would imagine that it is because wildlife photos do not generally have either a wide colour range or a wide contrast range, hence there is less electronic information needed per shot. Providing the images meet your requirements, I should accept it as a valuable bonus !

Tony

[Andy Bright]

The file size is determined by the detail in the shot... lots of sky, snow or water will mean a small file size. Noise in the pic will also make the file size larger..take a shot on iso200/400 or 800 and you'll see what I mean.
On average my cp4500 images are about 1.2- 1.3mb.
Andy

[Ragna]

Tony & Andy thanks for your replies. Andy my images were about
1.1-1.2 similiar to yours youve put my mind at rest thanks all ive got to do now is the hard part getting the images sharp

[IanF]

Graham,

I've only just got my 4500 and I thought I was having the same problem. I use Thumbs Plus 4 to catalogue my shots, which on opening are very large file sizes. I found if resized to 1600x1200 or 800x600 they actually look a lot sharper and can be sharpened quite considerably giving very acceptable results.
I found scanning in a 35 mm shot actually looks a lot worse at the same resolution!
I'm sure there will be a technical explanation for this.

[Ragna]

Ian
Sorry for the delay in replying to your post.
When you resize to 1600 x 1200, is this in the camera or on your computer? I also looked at your shots of Mallard/Tufted Duck etc. They looked really sharp - excellent in fact. I am using a TSN3 + 30 x but still cannot get my shots sharp enough. I have tried manual focus, close focus, infinity, time exposure and speeds up to 1/250, so I don't think it is camera shake, so I will keep trying. Thanks for your reply.

[IanF]

I was struggling for sharpness at first but found two of Andy's tips very helpful.
Firstly using the five zone focus areas on close up setting, the camera only tries to refocus when you press the shutter halfway.
Secondly on pressing the shutter half way, then refocus using the scope focus wheel and take half a dozen shots in continuous mode and another sequence having just varied the focus slightly.
1/250th is pretty good, I don't think that I have managed to get above 1/125th !
I just leave the camera in 'A' mode rather than full manual as at present there is enough to think about with everything else.

The other thing is that I tend to crop to 1600x1200 and then resize to 800x600 as I use my shots mainly for web use. I then sharpen twice and 'slightly blur' once - just using Thumbsplus. If I get something decent I may try out PS which is more versatile, but I'm still just practising at the moment and hoping for a sunny day !

[Ragna]

Ian
that was a quick reply . ill try refocusing the scope and continuos shooting mode thanks