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DXG -308U
Underwater and Outdoor Digital Camera
Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2004
Author: Jsgolfman
Provided By: DXG
Page: 2 of 4
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I am sure most of you, if not all, have heard the terms "point and shoot" and "ease of use". What do they mean? In their simplest forms they mean a camera that requires little interaction from the user. Simply point the camera at that which you wish to photograph and "shoot" the picture. No need to fiddle with white balance, metering, etc. While no camera offers true "hands off" use, some point and shoot cameras really stretch the boundaries of the phrase. The DXG-308U strives to put real meaning to ease of use. For the beginner, the last thing you want to worry about when the perfect shot comes in view is the shutter speed. You want the ability to turn the camera on and click away. As you can see from the picture below, the controls are few and easy to manipulate.
The rather large screen, if you will, is the 1.5" TFT (Short for thin film transistor, a type of LCD flat-panel display screen, in which each pixel is controlled by from one to four transistors. The TFT technology provides the best resolution of all the flat-panel techniques, but it is also the most expensive. TFT screens are sometimes called active-matrix LCDs.). Here is where you compose your shot. You don't have to place your eyeball against the camera to see your subject; you can hold the camera at arms length. In the 3 Megapixel camera range, this size display is common with some cameras providing as large as 1.6"-1.8" monitors. The difference in size is nominal. Just on top of the TFT you will see two LED's, busy and macro. When the camera is performing an operation such as flashing, storing an image, etc. the busy light will flash red. When you flip the switch (see picture) on the side of the camera to macro mode (for close shots), the macro light will become a steady green. Also, when in macro mode the flash is no longer functional (due to their location on the camera, flashes used at close range will normally not be focused on the subject and without flash level adjustment, will normally overexpose the picture).
You can also see the ports for the USB and video cable, currently concealed by the black rubber cover. On the other side of the camera is the compartment for the 2 x AA batteries and the SD/MMC memory card. On the bottom is a threaded hole for the use of a tripod. Never discount the value of the tripod. It may seem strange to use a tripod on such a small camera, but it is imperative that the unit remain still through the shot for a crisp picture. Can you still attain a high quality picture without one? Yes, but holding ones hands steady can sometimes be forgotten.
The next area we will look at is the "lightning bolt" symbol on the far right. This is the button used to direct the camera on which flash mode to use. Below you can see the three modes from which to choose:
On the left we have no flash selected, in the middle is flash on and on the right is flash w/red-eye reduction. Red-eye reduction utilizes a pre-flash to eliminate that pesky beast from the netherworld look you so often see in subjects' eyes when flash photography is used.
The other small button on the rear of the camera is the mode display button. This is used to power-on the camera if it is in auto power off mode. This means that if you turn the camera on and don't use it for 1 minute, it powers itself off to prevent battery wear. The other use of this button is to switch between display modes. Standard - shows you many things like flash mode, battery life, picture number, resolution, etc., Image only - just as it states, the image only is shown on the display, Monitor off - turns the monitor off. From this mode you can press the display button to enter "Play" mode and view the images on the internal memory or memory card.
The large, star looking button with the arrows near the top is the multi-select button. This is used to cycle through the various menus and enter changes when in setup mode and to cycle through pictures you have taken when the mode dial is in the "Play" mode.
Speaking of the mode dial, it's the large ribbed dial at the bottom of the rear of the camera. This is where you select the mode in which the camera operates. Your choices are - PC (used when you directly connect your camera to your PC to transfer images or use the camera as a mass storage device), Record (it looks like a camera and is the normal mode used when you are taking pictures), Play (looks like a square with a sideways triangle in it and is used to view images you have taken), Movie (looks like a video camera and is used to take short videos, without sound) and finally Setup ( says "SET" and is used to configure the way your camera operates. As you can see below, there are a few options you can adjust in setup mode. Once in setup mode, use the multi-select dial to scroll through your changes by pressing the arrow keys up/down and left/right until the change is selected and then press the small round button in the middle to make the change:
The first menu item is "Image". From here you can adjust the resolution of the images. Be aware, the higher the resolution the more space it uses on your internal memory/flash memory. You can also make changes to the quality of the image. I use only the fine setting. It doesn't use that much more memory and I prefer the best quality image I can attain. One other setting on this menu is white balance. You can make adjustments here if you want to, but I find that the auto setting does a good job and is one less item I need to think about. The last adjustment for the image menu is exposure value. Basically, this adjusts how much light the camera has to work with when taking the picture. The default setting is balanced. If you get adventurous, adjust it and take some sample pictures. You will learn what works, when it works and when to leave it alone.
The next menu item is "System. Here is where you set specific properties of the camera that don't affect image quality:
The first image is the Language setting. I like the availability of 7 languages, but this assumes one can read English in the first place in order to change it. However, this shows there was some forethought in the design to include such a variety. Just below the language setting is the Date/Time function. Use the arrow keys once again to scroll through the selections until you have the right ones selected. Next is the TV Standard setting. Your choices are NTSC/PAL (Short for National Television System Committee. The NTSC is responsible for setting television and video standards in the United States (in Europe and the rest of the world, the dominant television standards are PAL and SECAM). The NTSC standard for television defines a composite video signal with a refresh rate of 60 half-frames (interlaced) per second. Each frame contains 525 lines and can contain 16 million different colors.). So, if you are in the U.S. you will set it to NTSC. If you are anywhere else, set it to PAL. Lastly, we have Frequency. Leave it at the default of 60.
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