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My Olympus 2.1MP from 2001, while nice, just isn't cutting the mustard when I want to mess with things in Photoshop or print 8.5" x 11" prints...
I have a debate going, however- between several cameras. First of all, I mostly use images for the web and my computer. I do, however, print some out on a color laser or (a few) on a dye sublimation printer.
Price range is flexible, but I'd like to keep it under $1000 with lens and the appropriate memory card.
It seems like 8.1MP might be overkill for me, perhaps??? Would ~5MP be good enough???
I have been considering a Fuji S5000. It is very well priced and appears to be a lot of camera for the money. But the resolution is lower than you want.
Although I think you can get quality 8x10s from about 4MP...
You can get 11 by 14 with a 4 MP camera. I have several prints of mine framed at that size (printed at a local photolab).
As for 5 MP vs 8 MP, the additional megapixels aren't doing much for you (see above), so you're just eating up memory cards and hard drive space.
If it were ME, I'd do one of two things:
1) get a good 4 MP camera like the Nikon 4300
2) go all the way and drop the money on a digital SLR (by the sounds of it you're not looking for that though).
4 Megapixel Option:
Nikon 4200 is ~$400 (I'd recommend the 4300, but it looks like Nikon is ending production of it, in favor of the 4200).
Get yourself a fast memory card (for the 4 MP, 12x is just fine, you won't notice much difference by going to 40x unless you shoot bursts of high res shots all the time). Say 256 mb card 12x is probably about $40-$60.
That'll get you a 4 MP camera that can easily make 8x10 prints (even with a little cropping). You'll also have a memory card that can store over 150 high res shots with very little jpg compression (fine) or over 250 shots on the normal jpg compression.
D-SLR Option
I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on this one myself, probably within the week, so here's what I can tell you about it after looking at this for a considerable amount of time.
In the ~$1000 price range you have two options. Both are 6 MP.
Option 1: Canon Digital Rebel $1000 for the camera and the kit lens. Another $80-$200 for a suitable memory card. That gets you shooting a Digital SLR the quickest.
Option 2: Nikon D70. $1300 for the camera and a kit lens (+same as above for memory card). From what I've seen the D70 and the kit lens are superior to the Digital Rebel kit.
Now, here's the downside of D-SLRs. That only gets you started. Lenses (glass) are expensive. So, when you start trying to extend the range of the camera with more lenses the price goes up quickly ($100's if not $1000s each). Same thing with external flashes. The Nikon SB-600 is $250 and the SB-800 is $330. I'm sure they're great, but just pointing out that the $$ starts adding up.
SO, what would I recommend to you, coming off of a 2 MP, and based on what you've said about what you want to do, I'd go with the 4 MP option and spend $500 or so to get the camera, a large compact flash card for that size camera (256 MB), and an extra battery.
Another brand you may want to consider is Sony. They have out an 8 mp at
$999 at Best Buys. I have the Sony F717 5mp and have been very pleased with the results.
I got mine at one of the many on line camera discounters and saved about $200 over the cost at a retail house. Good luck.
My HP 850 has served me well but Im also looking to upgrade and Im on the fence deciding between the Nikon D70 and the Oly C-8080. The C-8080 has an extremely sweet lens that goes down to 28mm which is super nice to have. The nice thing about having 8 megapixels is you can do some pretty extensive cropping and still get a decent picture. You can pretty much use the doubled resolution as a selective 2x digital zoom which is very handy if you're not skilled at setting up perfect shots.
The advantage of the D70 are already spelled out by DID, the only disadvantage (to me) being the $$$.
Thx, I think a 5MP camera would probably fit the bill for me. I still have an old-school Minolta X-700 SLR (manual focus, tho it does have auto-shutter speed) with a 50MM, 35MM wide angle and 70-210MM lens. Nothing like the look of slide film :smile:
I went to a camera shop this morning and spend a few hours just playing with the cameras, shooting photos of different things. Trying the features, I like the feel/feature implementation of the Olympus C-XXXX series and the Canon Powershot series best...
If I can get a deal on a Canon Powershot Pro 1, I'll consider it-
This package has extra lenses, but is it a good deal? Are the lenses of decent quality???
Thanks for all the info! I've been thinking about upgrading for a while now, and may be close to pulling the trigger. I like that Nikon 4300 quite a bit. Do you think there's a significant downside to getting a deal on one of those with production ending (customer support, etc.)?
I'm suspicious of any vendor who can't be bothered to make their website work properly in Netscape.
although i agree with part of your statment that they should at least make it readable by all browsers, does it really matter that much if they offer you the product for a cheap price and are well recommended?
although i agree with part of your statment that they should at least make it readable by all browsers, does it really matter that much if they offer you the product for a cheap price and are well recommended?
Probably not. I get jittery, though, when I'm looking to get something online at the cheapest price and I've never heard of the vendor. Stuff like a nonfunctional website just tends to make me more suspicious. That said, I bought my current digicam from a similarly dodgy-seeming vendor, and it worked out fine! :smile:
Trippy nice pics, but a bit large for NAM! Now I have to scroll aaaaaallllll the way over to read everyone's posts.
I think my biggest problem with the Nikons is the included rechargeable battery, which according to reviews can be good for as few as 40-50 photos with the LCD monitor on. I greatly prefer the flexibility of using my own rechargeable AA batteries. The Nikon batteries are $35 apiece if you want extras!
DiD, I agree about the 4300. I just bought one about a month ago to replace my now dead 880 which served me VERY well for many years. The 4300 is basically an upgraded version of the 880. A bit more compact, a little faster, but unfortunately lost the manual features and top LCD and in place more of the SCENE modes were added. But I paid $410 from www.BHPHOTOVIDEO.COM last month and I think there was a rebate.
I went with Nikon again, even though I had played with the Canons which seemed more feature rich, simply because I had an investment already with Nikon--Wide angle/Telephoto/Slide Adapter/Filters. The great thing about the 4300 is that it uses the same Lithium batteries as my 880. I had 2 of the batteries with my 880, and my 4300 came with 1, so now I swap between 3 batteries.
Oh yeah, the 4300 loses the bulky power adapter/battery charger--you get a nice compact charger, but need to buy an A/C adapter (of course I can use my 880 one, so no biggy)
Also, a lower resolution Foveon based camera produces much better pictures over a standard CCD camera even with higher resolution. So it's not always about resolution.
Any how, my point wasn't to post a comparison review between the two, but simply that the Nikon 4300 is a nice camera with decent features, but even more important than the camera and resolution is YOUR technique! I squeezed a lot of use out of my 3.3MP 880 for everything including 8x10 magazine ads and tons of product photography. I'd say buy the camera you can afford, and check out pictures taken with that camera with a grain of salt cause any good photographer can make any camera look great!
lil'Black Wow