Digital Pix look like crap on monitor and on paper

[lemastre]

Got a Fuji FinePix E510 (5.2MP). Loaded the software that came

with the camera into my iBook. Pix from the camera at 5 MP

setting look like crap. I have no digital vocabulary, but they have

what I'd call very low resolution. The pixels, if that's what I see,

are big enough to form stairsteps. The software reveals my

images to be 15 KB at 320 x 240 something.

 

However, a beautiful snapshot a friend e-mailed me last year

shows up on the same software as 451 KB and 1600 x 1200. I

assume he shot it with a small digital camera, since he's not a

photographer, although he may have done 35mm film and

scanned it. He's not available for questioning right now. Anyway,

is there some basic thing I overlook?

[ray]

Without much knowledge of your particular camera, it seems that your camera is on the

lowest possible resolution mode. You want to set your camera to the "JPEG" mode and

then "Fine" or whatever the highest resolution mode is called. Your camera manual should

be able to assist you with this setting.

[leslie_cheung]

Your non photog friend probably read the instruction book.

[ozone42]

At 5MP your image resolution should be 2592x1944

 

After doing some investigation on that model, I don't think it CAN record stills at 320x240... What you may be doing is recording video.. and just seeing the thumbnail/preview of the video. I could be wrong, but the lowest still resolution the camera lists is 640x480 (about 0.3 MP)

 

Go over your manual again, either the camera, or the software you're using isn't configured correctly. It should be a simple matter to straighten out!

[Jochen_S]

You might shoot raw files and discover only a thumbnail stored by their side with your jpg opening software. - I don't know Fuji, but suggest RTFM! or going back to film.

[edward_h]

I concur with the others: try reading the manual.

 

If the manual is too difficult to understand, put the camera back into its box and sell it.

[paul -]

As pointed out, 320x240 is the video resolution. The camera's still pictures bottom out at 640x480.<p>What settings do you have set for "Quality"? To get the 5MP resolution, you need to set the camera for "5M Fine" (from the looks of the specs). If you have the camera set to, say, 0.3M to cram as many photos on the memory card as you can, you are recording <i>very</i> low resolution images. High resolution = fewer images on the memory card.<p>I point this out because a friend of mine complains about low res pics even though he insists on setting his camera for the most images per memory card (thinking that <i>all</i> pics from his camera are 4MP, and that the different settings just affect the quality of those 4MP).

[lemastre]

Since I posted my original plaint, I've found, with the help of Fuji

technical folks, that a routine in the computer's factory-loaded

software is insinuating itself into the download stream from the

camera to the Fuji software and degrading all the images to the

low resolution that I noted. I've yet to locate the guility software

so that I can delete or disable it, but I know how to avoid it.

 

I assume that this sort of problem might occur with any computer

harboring routines that seek out JPG or other such extensions.

[._kaa]

<p><i>Since I posted my original plaint, I've found, with the help of Fuji technical folks, that a routine in the computer's factory-loaded software is insinuating itself into the download stream from the camera to the Fuji software and degrading all the images to the low resolution that I noted.</i>

 

<p>That sounds so unlikely to me that I'm 99.9% sure the Fuji "technical" folks are talking out of their ass.

 

<p>The technique of "tell him something so that he'd go away and not bother me any more" is quite popular in tech support.

[mfophotos]

I have a Fuji S7000 -- use iPhoto -- images transfer seamlessly. You have an iBook, so

this should not be a problem.