Re: What's a good digital camera???

Posted by Chuck, WA on June 23, 2005 at 13:10:22 from (130.20.127.166):

In Reply to: What's a good digital camera??? posted by Ray on June 22, 2005 at 14:52:32:

Lots of good advice, but you're the only one that can know what suits you best. Shep,FL suggested the Dave's Picks site., and Bill Drew suggested Steve's Digicams. Both are excellent, but Dave's is nice because it is broken down by categories of needs. Just to complete the trio of good review sites, DPR at http://photo.askey.net/ is also excellent.

I agree with Coloken - number of megapixels isn't everything. If you're just into snapshots, not enlarging a lot bigger than snapshots, and not cropping smaller areas then printing, that's generally true - 3 MP will do. If you anticipate enlarging and/or cropping, you'd often like lots of pixels so you still have sharp pictures when you just take a fraction of the original - try 4-5 MP or more.

I also agree with Coloken that digital zoom is meaningless. It's essentially digitally adding pixels between the others that are calculated based on the ones on either side. In general, the higher the digital zoom you use, the poorer the picture quality.

On the other hand, I always tell folks to not ignore high optical zoom! You'd be amazed how much better pictures you can take when you can compose and frame with the zoom control rather than walking to a different position. Also, higher zoom makes for the best candid shots - like of kids or animals. Tractors don't mind if you get close! :)

My son has the Canon A400 that somebody suggested and loves it. Smaller than a pack of cigarettes, point and shoot, movies, lots of nice features. I bought my daughter an Olympus with 10X zoom, and it is an absolutely wonderful camera!

I tell folks to first decide how much you are willing to spend, then look for a camera with the most of what you want or need up to that amount. If you get one with rechargeable batteries and you take a lot of pictures, buy a spare. Also, remember, the more pixels, the bigger the storage card you'll want.

Don't overlook the Fuji line. I think they might offer pretty good value for the price - especially at the mid to higher end. Can't go wrong with Canon or Nikon. I don't like the Kodak cameras at all. When I was shopping for my most recent camera, it came down to three roughly comparable cameras: Nikon, Fuji and Minolta - but that was for my needs and not necessarily a match for yours. Nikon had by far the best macro capability, but most expensive. Fuji had a nice feature set and some interesting extras for the lowest price of the three, but the Minolta had the best all around match to what I wanted.

I personally have a 5 MP Minolta Dimage A1 that's now a couple of years old, but it does everything I want it to do. I bought the A2 - the upgrade version - for general use at work and have not been a bit unhappy with either.

Long-winded, but I hope it helps some. Incidentally, I earn my paycheck as an imaging scientist, doing image processing and analysis on digital images, so have some experience with digital cameras of all kinds. But the paycheck job covers the cost of hobby farming a few acres of grass hay with a MF35 diesel, very old New Idea sickle, Ford side delivery rake and JD 214WS baler...a very multicolored stable,! :) Often it's a lot more fun than the paying job.

Chuck, WA

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