How to take decent pictures with PSP Camera?

Jommy

Jommy

CAGiversary!
Feedback
43 (100%)
I know the PSP camera is only 1.3 megapixels, which is worse than many cell phone cameras, but I have seen some pictures online that were taken with the camera which were pretty decent in quality.

I've tried taking pictures with the camera and they come out horrible, much much worse than cell phone cameras. Can anyone with this camera give me some tips on how to take good pictures with the camera? Thanks!
 
Got any links to good pictures taken with it? lol mine come out pretty bad quality, too.. The video quality is decent, though.
 
Yeah the camera works with the PSP slim; that's what I have.

Let me look around for the pics I found. Some guy took pictures of an outdoor car show on his psp camera and they came out really nice and clear. All my pictures have all this grain and strange coloration.
 
I don't know anything about the PSP camera since I don't own one or have used one. Although, if you are having a "grainy" look, the I would check what ISO setting is at. If you are outside set it low (like 100). While you will need to set it higher for inside shots, the high number ISO is what gives a "grainy" look. You can't avoid this with dark inside shots, but on bright, sunny days the lower number will help make your pictures look better.

Also I would guess the weird coloration is because of white balance. Most digital cameras have a White Balance or White Point setting. They usually default to "Auto". Look at the different settings to see if there is an "Outside" setting or "Incandescent Light" setting.

My cell phone has both of these settings and it really helped me get better pictures from my camera phone. I would guess the PSP would have the same settings

Also keep in mind that some people could just be tuning their pictures in Photoshop or Gimp (Its free!). You can turn a crappy pic into some nice using photo manipulation.

I apologize if you knew these things already, just replying with what I "think" maybe wrong. Again, I don't even know if you have these options available.

Would love to see the shots you take with the PSP camera.
 
[quote name='chilly']I don't know anything about the PSP camera since I don't own one or have used one. Although, if you are having a "grainy" look, the I would check what ISO setting is at. If you are outside set it low (like 100). While you will need to set it higher for inside shots, the high number ISO is what gives a "grainy" look. You can't avoid this with dark inside shots, but on bright, sunny days the lower number will help make your pictures look better.

Also I would guess the weird coloration is because of white balance. Most digital cameras have a White Balance or White Point setting. They usually default to "Auto". Look at the different settings to see if there is an "Outside" setting or "Incandescent Light" setting.

My cell phone has both of these settings and it really helped me get better pictures from my camera phone. I would guess the PSP would have the same settings

Also keep in mind that some people could just be tuning their pictures in Photoshop or Gimp (Its free!). You can turn a crappy pic into some nice using photo manipulation.

I apologize if you knew these things already, just replying with what I "think" maybe wrong. Again, I don't even know if you have these options available.

Would love to see the shots you take with the PSP camera.[/quote]

Wow thanks for all the tips! Sadly, I don't think the PSP camera has an ISO setting, but at least now I know what ISO is.

There is a florescent lighting setting for White Balance; should I set it to that even if I am inside? Is there any other way to remove that grainy look other than ISO? I can change the resolution, I would think using the highest resolution setting would give me the best quality, but I've tried with all the resolutions and all the results are grainy.

Again thanks for all the tips, I know absolutely nothing about taking pictures, so any advice is great advice for me.
 
My guess is that the PSP Camera has variable ISO like any digital camera ever made- but you probably don't have much/any control over it. Therefore, the reason that one guy's pictures are nicer is probably because he's outside where there is lots of available light to take, and therefore the camera selected a lower ISO. If you shoot indoors the amount of available light goes way down and the camera needs to use a higher ISO. Not to mention that the camera doesn't have a flash, any kind of indoor shooting is going to tell the PSP camera to use its highest ISO which means it's always going to be grainy unless there is a LOT of light inside. Small cameras like these are very sensitive to noise (graniness) because the physical size of the sensor is quite small- and extreme examples like cell phone cameras or the PSP camera are nearly worthless for anything but outdoor imaging. Compared to a digital SLR camera, where the sensor size is vastly larger (10x or even 100x greater) they can take relatively noise-free images even at high ISO because the sensor is bigger (which means it collects more light... think of putting a thimble on the ground to catch rainwater vs. a 5-gallon bucket)

Regarding white balance, only select fluorescent white balance if you are in an area lit by fluorescent light. If you are using regular tungsten light bulbs the colors will look all wrong. Same goes for outside- if you use fluorescent light white balance setting then all the colors will look off. I don't know if there are other white balance settings but you should try to stick to the correct balance for the correct scene or put it on auto white balance otherwise.

Always keep the camera on its highest resolution (unless you have serious storage space issues), it does not affect things like graniness or etc- just the resolution that the image is captured in. You bought a 1.3MP camera, why hobble yourself with lower than 1.3MP pics?

Good luck with the camera and keep shooting!

Ruahrc
 
[quote name='Ruahrc']My guess is that the PSP Camera has variable ISO like any digital camera ever made- but you probably don't have much/any control over it. Therefore, the reason that one guy's pictures are nicer is probably because he's outside where there is lots of available light to take, and therefore the camera selected a lower ISO. If you shoot indoors the amount of available light goes way down and the camera needs to use a higher ISO. Not to mention that the camera doesn't have a flash, any kind of indoor shooting is going to tell the PSP camera to use its highest ISO which means it's always going to be grainy unless there is a LOT of light inside. Small cameras like these are very sensitive to noise (graniness) because the physical size of the sensor is quite small- and extreme examples like cell phone cameras or the PSP camera are nearly worthless for anything but outdoor imaging. Compared to a digital SLR camera, where the sensor size is vastly larger (10x or even 100x greater) they can take relatively noise-free images even at high ISO because the sensor is bigger (which means it collects more light... think of putting a thimble on the ground to catch rainwater vs. a 5-gallon bucket)

Regarding white balance, only select fluorescent white balance if you are in an area lit by fluorescent light. If you are using regular tungsten light bulbs the colors will look all wrong. Same goes for outside- if you use fluorescent light white balance setting then all the colors will look off. I don't know if there are other white balance settings but you should try to stick to the correct balance for the correct scene or put it on auto white balance otherwise.

Always keep the camera on its highest resolution (unless you have serious storage space issues), it does not affect things like graniness or etc- just the resolution that the image is captured in. You bought a 1.3MP camera, why hobble yourself with lower than 1.3MP pics?

Good luck with the camera and keep shooting!

Ruahrc[/quote]

Thanks for the informative post.

My room is actually quite dark, so I'm going to try filling my room with extremely bright light when I take pictures with the PSP camera.

I've heard the background also affects how much light the camera receives. Would using a white background help?
 
Background as in what is behind the object you're photographing? This actually won't help much, in fact it might make it worse. Having a really bright background surrounding a dark object fools the camera into thinking that the scene (and especially the object of interest) is brighter than it really is. The result is that the background will come out nice and white but you won't be able to see whatever you're photogrpahing very well as it will be very dark and underexposed. Better to shine a light right on the object you want to photograph, and try to keep the background lit at a similar intensity.

Ruahrc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top