I need digital camera advice

snuffy

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 29, 2002
Messages
487
Location
Indy
Originally posted by Stingray:
How about the Canon S45? Any opinion on that one?
Thanks[/QB]
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If you want to save a few dollars you might take a look at Canons G2. The S45 and G2/G3 use the same "innards". Since the G3 came out some good deals are being offered on the G2. I've taken over 2K pics with the G2 before buying a G3 last week and I was very satisfied with the G2's performance.
icon14.gif
 

NeonLights

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 18, 2003
Messages
1,493
Location
Ohio
I just got a Sony DSC-P71 last week, and I'm very happy with the quality of pics it takes. Our camcorder uses the same memory stick media, so that was a plus. It is a 3.2 megapixel camera that I believe is very similar to the Sony digicam Emmet mentioned, except for a very important (IMHO) difference. The DSC-P71 uses NiMH AA rechargeable batteries. I had considered several digicams that used proprietary rechargeable batteries, but NiMH AA's are relatively cheap, I already had a bunch, and AA alkalines can be used in a pinch (although they aren't recommended for use by Sony). We sometimes go camping for a week at a time, so I didn't want to be on day three with a half full memory stick and dead batteries. Most of the proprietary batteries cost $30-50 or more, and although they typically last longer than NiMH AA's, I can buy a lot of rechargeables for that money. Just my .02 worth.

-Keith
 

geepondy

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
4,896
Location
Massachusetts
Canon S45 gets very good reviews. It would be near the top of my list(amongst many possibilities) should I upgrade. I have a three year old Nikon CP990 which is a 3.3 megapixel, more then enough for 4x6, fairly adequate for 8x10's although when comparing to the 5 megapixel sample pictures I can tell a difference at 8x10. These are features I would look for if upgrading or buying a first time camera.

-ability to take good macro shots. The digitals vary quite a bit in this category.

-ability to focus in low/no light. Many now have autofocus lamp assists.

-A fast lens if possible. Some digitals offer f1.8 or 2.0 but not the cheaper ones, particularly the compact/subcompact ones.

-movie mode with sound that is not limited to 30 seconds. (just a personal preference of mine.)

-No/low red eye problem. Some will take an external flash which would largely eliminate that problem but I have read on reviews that some are definitely better then others with just the built in flash.

I agree to read www.dpreview.com and the links of other reviewers on his site.
 

Rothrandir

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 17, 2002
Messages
7,795
Location
US
i can personally recommend the sony dsc-285. it works great for everything from beamshots to marcros to long-shots. it is also equipped with a carl ziess lens.

read about it at:
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=GHnZU8aHKbzZWPioM9jTWImIt33Bt9_PHZg=?ProductID=n54KC0%2eNZ4gAAADy7 ]http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=GHnZU8aHKbzZWPioM9jTWImIt33Bt9_PHZg=?ProductID=n54KC0%2eNZ4gAAADy7 SbHl%2eBd&Dept=dcc&CatalogCategoryID=4hsKC0%2eNZHkAAADy0M_Hl%2eBY

you can purchase this at best buy.

(i don't know much about cameras, but i love this, and it got good reviews from several sources.)

***edit*** link is crapped...d*mn ubb software.

sabby will come along and fix it...
grin.gif
 

Stingray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 21, 2002
Messages
1,202
Location
Chicago
Thanks for all the help...keep the responses coming
smile.gif
...I know you guys all have digital cameras and are technically saavy.
 

Xrunner

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 21, 2002
Messages
1,608
Location
Colorado
You can't go wrong with a Sony. I have the f707 and love it, but would recommend one of the 3 to 4 megapixel cybershots. I have used them, and they are really good cameras. The main difference between them and the upper end ones like the f707 (and now f717) are how many different things you can manually adjust. Hope this helps

-Mike

Edit: I was referring to the Sony Cybershot DSC-P7 (and the DSC-PP9 is the 4 megapixel version of the camera)
 

PlayboyJoeShmoe

Flashaholic
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Messages
11,041
Location
Shepherd, TX (where dat?)
Let's give this a little >BUMP< and add:

I sent my buddy who has had my Sony Floppy Drive camera about 99.9% of the time for the last year or two, a link to one for sale on Ebay... "hint"... that I wanted mine back. He replyed that he already had one, and then just today emailed me a bunch of pics of his kids and him.

So we are planning on getting another camera. It really needs to be >$300. It will be for pics of the stuff we weld up, pics for Ebay, pics of my sisters friends kids etc. Printing out perhaps 4x6 size sometimes too. Even though my home 'puter that has no USB (reason I bought an FD Sony) we are going with a USB camera this time as I can email myself anything I need from work.

I know to get at least 2MP, and 3x optical. Anything else I must know? Any recs for the price point I specified?
 

Raven

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 16, 2002
Messages
816
There are certain digital camera features I consider "must have".

1. must have at least x3 "optical" zoom
2. must have at least 2 megapixels
3. must use aa batteries
4. must have an optical viewfinder
5. must use common storage format

Raven
 

Silviron

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 24, 2001
Messages
2,477
Location
New Mexico, USA
I pretty much agree with Raven's criteria, although in an upper end camera an EVF can be even better than an optical viewfinder, especially if you use add on lenses, filters etc.

A lot of it depends upon what you want to do with the camera. Different models and brands have different strengths and weaknesses.

If you just want to take "snapshots" of people and landscapes and share them via computer, almost any 1.8MP up will do: My old 1.8 MP Olympus 600 still takes great quality pictures.

If you want to do Macros (closeups)you will want another kind of camera. (Nikon Coolpix, even the old ones are great for this., and for snapshots in general.)

If you want to do flashlight beamshots, to get any comparative accuracy you will need one with FULL manual control, which is mostly only found on the upper end of the price spectrum.

If you want to do photos in the dim / no light, a Sony 707 or 717 can't be beat.

For "digital film", personally I prefer the Compact flash media, followed by Smart Media: they are best "price wise" and found much more easily and widely than any of the others.

And I prefer a camera that uses AA cells to one that uses a proprietary battery; again, you can get them anywhwere, and share them with your small flashlights ;-)

Get a card-reader for whatever "digital film" type you use (unless you get one that copies directly on floppies or mini-CDs like the Mavicas use)- It will save you hours and headaches that hooking your camera directly to your computer will cause. You can get just about any format reader for less than $60 at Walmart, and the last two (that read both CF and SM) I bought were on clearance for under $20.00

After three months of agonizing and study, Today I finally decided to get a Minolta Dimage 7i to replace my Nikon 950 as my primary camera- I know this is a little higher price level than you were considering, but I chose it because the focal length of the zoom lens (28 - 200 mm equivalent) will let me do just about everything I need to do without having to mess with wide angle and telephoto lens adapters.

Plus it uses AA batteries, Compact flash cards and does well (if not excellently) in all types of shooting; Good from macro to landscape to moderate telephoto, decent color rendition, decent dim light focusing, full manual control etc.

Other cameras in its price range do certain things much better than the Minolta, but none of them are as good at such a wide range of things.

The only real negative is its flash system: It requires a "proprietary" and somewhat overpriced external flash. and since it uses a pre-flash, it won't work with the cheap slave flashes I already have.

If you realy want to study the capabilities of a wide variety of cameras "in the real world", I highly recommend you go to www.photosig.com. You can search for photos by specific camera type, and see how they perform in the hands of people ranging from professionals to absolute novices all over the world.

Sign up and you can view more photos, do critiques and ask for advice through the forums there: It is kind of like CPF but for photos instead of flashlights. Lots more "eye candy" there though:) (notwithstanding Sasha & Daughters recent thread)

Oh, and if you do go there to search for photos by camera types, be sure to be thourough- the same camera can be listed under several different listings due to mis-spellings and more or less complete model names etc.
 

SilverFox

Flashaholic
Joined
Jan 19, 2003
Messages
12,449
Location
Bellingham WA
Hello Stingray,

Two years ago I also decided to get a digital camera. I checked out all of the reviews and ended up taking a little different route.

I wanted good optics and good battery life. I chose a digital video camera with still capability. My Sony DCR TRV20 has been great. It has a Carl Zeiss lense with 10X optical zoom (and 120X digital zoom).

The still pictures are 1 megapixel, which seems a little low on resolution. My first test was to take a picture of my cat and print an 8X10 from it. It came out great. I am not sure how Sony gets as good a picture as they do from 1 megapixel of information, but they seem to do it over and over again. I have compaired my pictures with other higher resolution cameras with favorable results. I limit my comparison to 8X10 pictures. To enlarge beyond this you will need higher resolution, and sometimes I notice pixelation at the 8X10 size.

Go here to see my cat picture

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid48/p604a5ed5cc863684c03f81b97b94f27a/fcbdc26f.jpg.orig.jpg

The thing that really sold me on the camera was the battery life. I have two different sized battery packs. One gives me 2 hours of recording time and the other gives me 4 hours. I checked with several friends about their battery life and they were talking about 30 or 40 pictures on a set of batteries. On my 2 hour battery I can get around 300 pictures plus an hour of video. I might also add that I take my time composing the pictures and do not have to rush worring about battery life.

Another nice feature is the option of looking through the view finder, or flipping out the 2" by 3" LCD screen. The view finder is necessary in bright sunlight, the LCD screen is hard to see.

The down side is that it has some bulk (1 lb 11 oz with a 2 hour battery pack). It also likes to have a fair amount of light (minimum light is 7 LUX. It has a night shot feature that is suppose to work down to 0 LUX, but like all night vision stuff everything comes out green. In low light the camera tries to interpret the sceen and things come out a little blochy. By low light I mean one 40W bulb in a shade in a room. I have an IR LED light that is a bit weak and am looking at revising or replacing it with a more powerful one. This would make the night shot work a little better. The camera has a small IR light source built in, but it is only good for about 6 feet. The other down side is that it is more automatic than I am use to. I still have a lot of control, but I am used to my Nikon FM2 manual.

My main purpose for the camera was to include pictures in reports, post them on the web and email them to others. This camera does that very well. I do a lot of industrial photography and this camera works fine from close up to far away.

I have used this camera in a varity of industrial sites, on two 70+ mile canoe trips with the Boy Scouts (rain and shine), and I have traveled all over with it. It keeps taking good pictures and the batteries last forever. On top of it all, I can also take video.

Oh well, that's my $0.02 worth.

Tom
 

Stingray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 21, 2002
Messages
1,202
Location
Chicago
I have decided to buy my first digital camera. I know nothing about them, or even photography in general. I've been using a regular old autofocus 35mm for decades.

What should I get? What's the best bang for the buck. I want to be able to easily upload to the computer. I want good resolution, a zoom, compactness and ease of use. Don't need top of the line, but don't want bottom of the line either. Somewhere in the middle to top 30% area. Thanks for any advice you can give.
 
D

**DONOTDELETE**

Guest
I just bought a Sony 3.3 megapixel DSC-S75 camera. I love it
smile.gif
Its probably not as compact as you would like however.

That aside. You should probably do some research and find out whats important to you. www.dpreview.com was a site I found useful. What you want to get will be influenced by many factors.

Personally Id recommend a camera of no less than 3 megapixels. 3 megapixels should be good for making prints unless you wantlarge blowups. 3X optical zoom. Ignore digital zoom - its just an artificial blow up and crop of the image. Rechargeable lithium ion battery. The type of storage comes in many flavors: Compact Flash, Smart media cards, Sony memory stick, mini CD-RW., etc... If you already have a lot of money invested in any of these types of media you may want to buy a camera that uses the same type of media.

Upload is painless and is accomplished by connecting the camera directly to the USB port on your computer. The camera shows up as a removeable storage device and you can use windows explorer to drag files off the camera. If you dont have USB you can probably buy a memory card reader that plugs into your floppy drive.

The good news is that most digital cameras these days seem to take fairly decent pictures. If you get something with a decent amount of resolution you probably wont end up with a total lemon
smile.gif
 

Stingray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 21, 2002
Messages
1,202
Location
Chicago
I found dpreview.com already, just started reading. I don't need large blowups. Definitely want optical zoom. I don't have any money invested in storage types other than CD-RW so I don't care which type it takes (i guess). All my computers have USB. How about the Canon S45? Any opinion on that one?
Thanks
 

B@rt

Flashaholic
Joined
Nov 21, 2001
Messages
10,467
Location
Land of Tulips and Philips
Wow! That's a nice still for a camcorder!
fcbdc26f.jpg


To view the original, you will have to copy and paste the link provided by Tom, since IS doesn't allow direct linking.
bluesigh.gif
 

SilverFox

Flashaholic
Joined
Jan 19, 2003
Messages
12,449
Location
Bellingham WA
Hello Bart,

Once again thank you for helping me out. I did not check out the link when I posted (it was late).

I love this camera. I actually have two of them, one is a back up, and they both are great (as long as the light is good. I was up this morning taking some shots at 1 LUX and was having problems with grain).

Tom
 

DLG

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
89
Location
Chicagoland
Another place to look for digital camera info.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/

After lots of reading on the subject I decided on a Canon PowerShot A40. Fits all the requirements mentioned in a previous note and can be had these days for about $250.00. So far, no complaints.
 

LiteFreek

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Dec 15, 2001
Messages
74
Location
USA
Well I guess I'll put my 2 cents in for the Canon Powershot A40. It's a 2mp camera with a 3X optical zoom. It takes plain ole AA batteries and they last for a long time, even with using the preview screen and flash. The lens is fairly fast and it has the fastest focus and shoot time in it's price range. The last time I looked you could get it for right about $200. I checked many sites for reviews on this camera and they were all pretty good so I bought it. I'm glad I did as I really like this camera. Another good site for comparing cameras and getting good reviews is: http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
 

geepondy

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 15, 2001
Messages
4,896
Location
Massachusetts
Although my personal expectations are higher, I must say I'm very impressed with the Canon A40 based on the sample pictures I've seen. Very good color rendition with low noise. It may be one of the cream of the crop cameras for the 2 megapixel cameras and certainly would meet your needs if you generally didn't need to print photos bigger then 4x6.
 

txwest

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 30, 2001
Messages
1,773
Location
Houston, TX
Check out the many reviews available on the web. Most of them will be reviews on older models, as it's hard to keep up with technoligy today. Find the camera that best fits your needs & seems to be the best value. Then check out ebay. There are LOTS of people out there that MUST to have the latest technology, & will be selling their very good & useful cameras. Since you are new to the field, this will give you a cheap introduction. Next camera, after you have some experience under your belt, you'll know what features you want. It's like buying a car....let someone else take the "drive it off the lot deperciation" hit. TX
 
Top