Digital camera good for capturing tv screen?

Question

I like taking screenshots of games from my tv, and the only way I have to do so is a KODAK EasyShare Z650 and pointing it at the TV screen.

The problem with this though is I sometimes get lines over the image I have taken, sometimes these lines are really visible, sometimes not so, but they are usually there.

I need something that will take a good clear shot, without the lines, and will get a decent picture of a HDTV screen.

Or perhaps someone with better experience can give me some tops on how to improve the quality of the image usuing the Kodak

I have a budget of around £80, anything up to that is fine.

Any recomendations?

Answer 1

Why not use the 'PrtScn' key on your computer? Pressing this will copy the screen to the clipboard and then you can open any photo package and paste it in.

If you are using a games console then this is not open to you easily, If you have a hard drive recording device for your TV you can put your games consul output through this and then play it back on your computer, the 'PrtScn' becomes available.

Taking a picture of the screen is not the best way unless you can control shutter speed, it needs to be slower than your TV takes to scan (1/25th of a second) anything faster and you end up with blank 'bars' across the picture as your only recording a partial scan of the screen. Any DSLR can do this and some top end compacts, but nothing I know of for £80.00.

Chris

Answer 2

The reason you get lines is because the tv screen is refreshing. When you take a picture at a fast shutter speed you'll notice the tv is in the middle of a refresh and you will see the horizontal line.

To take a clear shot without the line, you need to set your camera's shutter speed to under 1/30 sec. I'd suggest maximum of 1/20 sec. You could use 1/15 sec and also get good results. Basically, you slower the shutter speed operates the tv will have enough time to refresh the screen and you won't see the line in the final picture.

Make sure when you take the picture you place the camera on a table top or some other stable platform. At very slow shutter speeds the camera will be more susceptible to blurry images if you don't keep it still.

I notice your camera does have shutter priority mode. Set it first to this mode, and then adjust the shutter speed like I mentioned above.