cameras

Any of the Olympus Stylus series are awesome point and shoot digitals. One of my friends got sent to India on short notice and she got a Stylus 500 at Walmart. Less than $300. 5MP is plenty for anything smaller than 8x10 prints. The new Stylus 1000 is even weather proof (which would have saved me a thousand bucks if my E-1 was) The image sensor and software in the Stylus 500 is almost comparable to what my EVolt 300 DSLR 8.1MP (and as good as my E-1 5.0MP which is my main portrait camera) will do and she spent megabucks less than I did, lol. Of course the money on the DSLRs is in the glass. Thats one of the main advantages to Canon or Nikon, if you want a DSLR instead of a point and shoot, just so much selection of affordable lenses.

Just remember, megapixles arent everything. Its like measuring horsepower. Theres a lot more to a great camera than the dots.....

Ditto on Olympus.

Our older 2.1 Megapixel Kodak would print full page photo quality pictures. So in that sense - you are right - who needs more pixels??

But if you want to crop out half a pic because of sunspots, trash in the yard, etc, and concentrate on the "good" part, with more pixels, the better chance you'll have to zoom in, still print a big print, and not see pixelization.

Even if you don't want to print, it is very handy (especially in the context of the original question for equipment closeups), to be able to zoom in and see wiring details, cracks in the block, size imprints in the tire, or whatever...

Also - IMHO - not all megapixels are the equal. Different camera manufacturers may be better or worse at how they capture and how they use the pixels the camera grabs.

Howard

Which camera depends on what you are wanting out of the picture quality, distance from the object that you are taking a picture of, and of course, how much money do you want to spend. ..... I have 5 digital cameras that we use around here, a Panasonic FZ50, 10.1 megapixel, with the 12 power optical zoom, a Pentax E10, 6 megapixel, with a 3 power optical zoom, a Samsung Digimax D53, 5 megapixel with 3 power optical zoom, a Kycera S5R, 5 megapixel with 3 power optical zoom, and a Hewlitt Packard 612, 2.3 megapixel with the 3 power optical zoom on it. ..... ..... . I recomend at least a 5 megapixel camera, with at least a 3 power optical zoom, for general useage. ..... .. The optical zoom works like binoculars do, actually brings the object closer to you, digital zoom does nothing but distort your picture quality in my opinion. As far as a memory card for your camera, I would go with at least a 512mb on a 5 megapixel camera, that will let you store about 225 pictures, or a little more, depending on your picture quality setting on your camera..... ..... I use my Kyocera S5R for my ebay listings, then downsize the pictures to about an 850 x 850 for faster down loading on my dial up connection..... .....The 10.1 megapixel Panasonic FZ50, I bought it for a trip we had taken, and now have it for sale on Craigslist.org. This picture was taken from a distance of 3/4 of a mile away, not using all of the 12 power optical zoom, on the Panasonic FZ50.

The Kodak Easyshare C743 is 7.1 megapixel and costs about $160 ($130 with $50 discount on $150 purchase at OfficeMax). It has an LCD display which has 110,000 pixels so it is decent with some grainyness. I have taken close up shots to within 3 inches and they turned out very well. The SD memory cards in the 1 gig format are about $15 and it can take about 500 pictures before filling the card. requires two AA rechargeable batteries which can be had for about $20 with charger.

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Randy

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