I bought a little Kodak Easyshare camera last November to use for shopping. Suddenly last evening as I was shooting the documents I needed to upload for a shop it stopped taking pics. I can see what I'm shooting but when I press the button, it does not take the pic. Any suggestions for a fix?

If I cannot fix it, I've got to get another one. Any recommendations for easy to use camera? I'd like to stay in the $100 or less range.

iPhone 4S

I agree - my iPhone4s is superior to any camera I have had for shop photos. It's really all I use for any type of pictures anymore. Of course it's likely going to cost more than 100.

Liz

I just bought my daughter an iPhone 4S. Cost was $0.00 with the 2 year committment with Verizon. They are the only game in town for coverage where we live anyway...so this was a no-brainer.

A terrific App on the iPhone, perhaps useful to Mystery Shoppers: TurboScan. It takes 3 consecutive photos of a document and then performs an algorhythem to create a crisp and sharp scan-quality reproduction of the document and then turns it to a .pdf, which can then be either emailed or uploaded to a computer/laptop later.

The camera inside the iPhone take beautiful quality photos. Best I've ever seen from any camera. Amazing.

Most smartphones on the market have cameras ranging from adequate to awesome. Plus using a smartphone camera is *so* much more convenient than a standalone camera.

I have a Galaxy S3 and the photo quality is superb. The older Galaxy S2 still has a great camera and is usually around $100 with a contract.

I would say you could even get by with an iPhone 4, which given the fact that it's now 2 rungs down on the iPhone evolutionary ladder, is probably going to dip near $150 on the secondhand market and will probably be offered by providers for between $50-75 with a contract.

The 4 still has a 5MP camera (4S is 8MP), which is more than sufficient for 99.9% of shop photos. I've been using my phone for one-off photo audits for the past year, and zero issues. If I'm going to be doing several in a row, I still prefer my Rebel XSi, since I can zoom more accurately and snap shots off quicker. I could do them on the iPhone, but when I'm doing a big run of photo audits, I like being able to walk, zoom and shoot at the same time.

I use my HTC Droid Incredible 4G's camera for shops.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that using the camera a lot on any smartphone is going to result in rapid battery drain. This matters if you're doing routes with a lot of photos. Let's say you're doing a big route of photo audits. If you have an iPhone, you'll only be able to charge your phone between shops in your car. You won't have the flexibility of swapping out your battery like you will if you use a pocket camera or another smartphone with a swappable battery.

Mmmm. I just got my Galaxy III but haven't learned how to use the camera or to email the photos. Maybe I should concentrate on that, huh?

Android is a wonderful, seamless OS for sharing stuff between devices. You'll love it! When you take a photo, tap the thumbnail in the corner of your camera screen. When the photo opens, tap your menu button and you'll see a "share" option. You can also just connect your phone to your PC using its USB cable and copy the photos over just like you would from a media card.

plmccut Wrote:
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> Mmmm. I just got my Galaxy III but haven't
> learned how to use the camera or to email the
> photos. Maybe I should concentrate on that, huh?

Tech - do you do any audit type shops? I can't imagine sharing my photos after every I take. When I usually take between 7 and 20 photos per shop, it would take FOREVER! I prefer just connecting and using as a jump drive.

zlinedavid - I'm totally with you. If I'm doing one or two audit shops (OR I forget the camera...) I'll use the phone. (EVO 3D). If I'm doing 3 or more I need that camera, so much faster!

I agree with Tech. The Android phones are super awesome and depending upon your contract, getting on could be as little as $99. The Galaxy III and the newest one have the same megapixel cameras. They're both outstanding.

Were you hoping more for a camera option that wasn't a camera and a phone? I have a Canon Powershot A495 that works great. It's about $110. It has all the fun auto-adjusts, takes video (records voice), you can set it for certain size photos (so if a company wants their photos to be 640x480, you can autoset it so there's no cropping or resizing). Anyway, that's a good camera camera to have.

That is what I miss the most with the iPhone, is the ability to quickly move files back and forth via USB or Bluetooth. Apple's cockamamie way to add and remove photos through iTunes is so complex, it reminds me of the ikea shop.


TechSavvy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Android is a wonderful, seamless OS for sharing
> stuff between devices. You'll love it! When you
> take a photo, tap the thumbnail in the corner of
> your camera screen. When the photo opens, tap your
> menu button and you'll see a "share" option. You
> can also just connect your phone to your PC using
> its USB cable and copy the photos over just like
> you would from a media card.
>
> plmccut Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Mmmm. I just got my Galaxy III but haven't
> > learned how to use the camera or to email the
> > photos. Maybe I should concentrate on that,
> huh?

zlinedavid - when I plug my wife's iPhone 4 into the computer, we have the option to download photos just like an Android phone or a camera. No iTunes needed. She does still occasionally use iTunes, so I think it's possible to do it both ways. Not totally sure, I could try to find out how.

I have yet to step into the phone/camera world but i am looking. But I have had my stable camera, Easyshare, freeze up on me while out a revealed photo audit. I carry extra batteries with me but they were not working either. Imagine the retailer looking at me and thinking you should have a cell phone.....HERE let me sell you one."

I, now carry an extra camera (CANON) with me. The week of the photo auditi I recharged the ion battery so I know it is working to its fullest potential. Until I move to a cmera-cell phone, this will have to do. I almost have mastered the Digital recorder so I can changed the types of shops I committ too.

I don't have an iPhone, but know with the iPad, you can connect to the computer and drag and drop like with a flash drive or by using Dropbox can share with multiple devices. I typically just directly upload my pics from my iPad photo album to my reports.

I would assume those options would also be available with the iPhone.

treydawgmt Wrote:
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> zlinedavid - when I plug my wife's iPhone 4 into
> the computer, we have the option to download
> photos just like an Android phone or a camera. No
> iTunes needed. She does still occasionally use
> iTunes, so I think it's possible to do it both
> ways. Not totally sure, I could try to find out
> how.

Oh I can get them from the phone, but the iPhone doesn't have the direct upload via USB. I used to use my Blackberry in place of a flash drive. One less thing to carry.

plmccut Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I bought a little Kodak Easyshare camera last
> November to use for shopping. Suddenly last
> evening as I was shooting the documents I needed
> to upload for a shop it stopped taking pics. I
> can see what I'm shooting but when I press the
> button, it does not take the pic. Any suggestions
> for a fix?
>
> If I cannot fix it, I've got to get another one.
> Any recommendations for easy to use camera? I'd
> like to stay in the $100 or less range.


Hi,

I have had a number of different cameras. Most recently the new one a Fuji ($79.) worked great, however, the USB slot at the camera side broke some way. I was almost frantic, however, I just recently received an iPad for my birthday and it takes great pictures and I love it. I am buying an iPhone as soon as my budget is free. LOL

Savana23
Silver Certified
Virginia

I personally haven't tried this but know that you can definitely connect an iPhone and get pictures off it via the USB. This is a link that I found that explains how to do it for video. Photos would be the same way.

[www.ilounge.com]

Yes, I do photo audits pretty regularly. Two tools I use are the Google+ and Dropbox apps. Both have options to automatically upload photos as they're taken. I typically have mine set up to upload only once I'm home and on wifi with my phone's plugged in. That way, I'm not draining the battery or sucking up the data unnecessarily. By the time I have myself settled in for my reports, the files are in Dropbox and in a private album under my Google account.

Dropbox will give you extra storage space for setting up the automatic upload. Google's is virtually limitless. You can turn the automatic upload on and off as desired; that way, you're not uploading every picture of the ceiling or your dog's butt as she runs out of the frame. LOL

Lowering the resolution on your camera makes for faster uploads and less post-processing of your pictures, but it can bite you. I usually shoot at the full resolution possible on my phone or whatever camera I'm using. Why? I forgot a shot on an audit one time and before I headed back to the store, I saw I could crop a whole store wall picture down to just that section of the display I needed and save it as a new image.

If I'd shot at 640x480, guess who'd be going back to the store for that one shot. I'd been thinking of taking smaller images, but after that I decided it was worth the work to resize them. There are batch editors that let you resize whole folders of photos with just a couple of clicks.

Doesn't iPhone have a cloud-based storage like Google+? iCloud or something like that? I'm an Android girl, sorry!

My daughter's new iPhone 4S arrived yesterday. I paid $0 and it was brand new. We added a data plan of about $30 with a two year committment.

I connect my iPhone direct to my laptop with a USB connection and all the new photos taken load right into the computer via the iPhoto program which is on my Macbook Pro laptop. I don't use any iTunes for my pictures. I'm not familiar with that method.

I like Apple products, and they work even better together!

plmccut Wrote:
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> Mmmm. I just got my Galaxy III but haven't
> learned how to use the camera or to email the
> photos. Maybe I should concentrate on that, huh?


Yes! Lol. You can do all the rotating and cropping from your phone, upload the photo to a remote sharing site like Photobucket, and attach the photo to your report from there.

Personally, I prefer a camera over a cell phone. In my opinion, a camera is easier for settings, etc. I have a couple of shops where they require a camera (not a cell phone). I have one shop where I have to take night photos. My Coolpix L26 works great for fine-tuning the flash for night photos. I also have a couple of shops where I have to take a discrete photo, in which case my Droid phone works just fine.

I scan my receipts with my printer as opposed to taking a photo. I don't have any experience if a cell phone works good for receipts. Might want to check that out.

Ladyofthelake Wrote:
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> I connect my iPhone direct to my laptop with a USB
> connection and all the new photos taken load right
> into the computer via the iPhoto program which is
> on my Macbook Pro laptop. I don't use any iTunes
> for my pictures. I'm not familiar with that method.

If you have WiFi at home, install iCloud on all your computers and it will sync your photos. Mine sync with the PC, laptop and netbook. Wherever I decide to work, the photos are there waiting for me.

Well, my sons and their wives were here along with my 2 lovely little grandkids this week. So that I didn't drive them nuts, I snagged a phone lesson from each of them. I think as I learn more and more about my little ol' Galaxy, I am gonna love that phone.

Grandson just got a 4S and I was surprised when he said he wished he had my phone. He was trying to convince me to go iPhone over the Galaxy a few months ago. Now if he had an iPhone 5 he might tell a different story.

I learned that my charger has the USB cord attached to it, how to take pics, how to email them, and actually used the GPS feature and it worked!

First, if you've tried everything else, try throwing the camera on the floor. I'm not joking. I had a Sony that had problems and a number of people claimed that solution fixed the issue. Darned if it didn't.

That being said, most smartphones have solid cameras on them and I frequently use mine for taking receipts. The biggest difference in quality (and I don't know an iPhone) is that I have a better zoom on my digital camera, but I have a better zoom on my digital camera than most digital cameras. I purposely sought out a camera with a high zoom capability. My cell's camera has a decent zoom which is as good a zoom as most regular digital cameras.

Of course, you don't need a spectacular zoom if you're looking to take photos of receipts, so that shouldn't be an issue. Ask your cell's carrier about smartphones with high quality cameras. I bet you can get a new phone for free if you're due for an upgrade.