Hey everyone,

Looking for a new camera, I have a Canon powershot sometihng it's about 3 years old, 5 megapixels. Looking for something 10-13, max limit on price 200. Any input would be greatly appreciated?

 

I absolutely love my Panasonic Lumix. You can find it for a little over your budget but it's really great.

 

For that amount of MP I think you are going to have to spend just over $200.
From my experience, I have owned many point and shoot cameras over the years, and I still think the same thing. Canon makes the best point and shoot cameras. And Nikon makes the best D-SLR.

take a look at:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=113
And: http://www.steves-digicams.com/default.htm for your reviews.

I would recommend the 'SD' Canons

Good luck.

 

My photography club has a link to http://www.dpreview.com/ as one of the best sources of comparative camera info.

The best-sounding generic advice I've read is to chose a company which has been making cameras for years, rather than the ones that have grown out of the computer industry. The camera companies know how to make lenses really well, and that's the key part of the camera. Exception: Sony, which took over camera company Konica-Minolta.

Left-field suggestion: if you come across a Ricoh camera, they can be good. I have a oldish point-&-shoot Ricoh and it includes lots of settings and choices I'd only expect to find on a DSLR.

 

The best advise I can give you on a Camera is you need to really break down what you shoot. I have a few different Models for Different situations.
The entire MP thing is dependent on how large you intend to blow a shot up.
For me, when I am just doing family shots inside the house my NikonPoint and shoot is great, good pictures for the Photo Album.
Now when I am shooting an airshow or a Club race or Autocross, you need not only a Long Lense, but something that is very fast, so then I will use the Canon XTI. Look at what your needs really are that may help make your decision a bit easier.

 

I second that. I check out the cameras I'm interested there.

I also think that 10-13Mpixels is probably a waste, most people don't need that many and its just marketing departments who make you think you do. Why do you think you need that many? After having use a 4 Mpixel camera for a while I thought I could use a little more resolution, and I got a 7 Mpixel one. That is just about fine for my needs. The problem now is no one makes ones with such low resolution any more, so for my next camera I'll probably be getting a 10 MPixel one and setting it to take 6 or 7 Mpixel shots.

The other thing to worry about is if your lens can even handle that many Mpixels, most can't. If you have a 15 Mpixel sensor behind a lens which can resolve 5 MPixels, you'll get 5 Mpixels of information which just clutters up you hard drive with another 10Mpixels of useless information. Interestingly the latest reviews I've read from DPreview makes more or less that point, the complain about the abundance of useless pixels in the latest crop of cameras. The one thing I really like about the DPreview reviews is they show you what the resolving power of the lens really is. A good lens will make the biggest difference to the picture of any hardware you have. (The photographer makes the biggest difference of all though.)

The camera I'm thinking of next is the Panasonic LX-3, the review for that sounds quite releived the marketing people didn't just go chasing useless Mpixels and are quite complimentary that the lens can resolve almost that many pixels. (I'd probably use it in its 7 Mpixel mode.) The LX-3 doesn't fit your criteria, its an enthusiast camera and rather expensive. Panasonic do make a lot of good cheaper cameras as noted. They almost count as one of the old school camera manufacturers, there lenses are "made" by Leica (or at least branded as Leica). Leica made some of the best (and most expensive) cameras and lenses back in the day.

 

Canon PowerShot A1100IS or similar is what I'm looking at. Thanks for all your inputs and review sites so far!

 

To get in your price range, I'd recommend looking on Ebay for a Canon a590 point and shoot camera.

It is an excellent camera, although it is only 8 mp. It is a discountinued model, but can be found for a little less than your budgeted amount from reputable Ebay dealers.

If you could find the extra cash to go bigger, I'd recommend looking at the Nikon D40 DSLR camera. It is an excellent camera, 12 mp and all dealers are running special sales on them at this time. Camera with lens should be around $449.

 

The Nikon D40 is 6 megapickles. The D40x is 12mp. 6 mp are plenty. A small sensor point & shoot even with 12 mp is never going to match the image quality that those 6 mp gives you in the D40. The D40 is a very nice little DSLR. I bought a refurb from Cameta at a very nice price & I keep it in my car at all times.

 

I stand corrected, I think. What's a "megapickle".

 

I went with a 12 megapixel kodak it was about 190 after tax and I have 30 days to play with it if I don't like it I can bring it back.

 

Nice.

 

Re: Btwyx's comment on high megapixel cameras:

The more megapixels the better. You can quick snap a pic and have the ability to enlarge it, crop it, and get that thing you wanted, but didn't have time to frame up. I have taken many pix out the window of a car or with the cam held high over a crowd. Just point in the general direction of your subject and voila! You got it.

 

There's a point where the extra megapixels are wasted and just clutter up the disk. That point depends on the lens. If you think more megapixels beyond that are doing you any good, you're just wasting your money.

 

OK. Where is that point with current crop of pocket-sized cameras?

 

More is not always better. The extra mega pixels on these tiny sensored cameras do no one any favors. They give a very noisy image at anything beyond the lowest ISO. They don't do well when one has to enlarge, or crop very much.

Small pocket cams do have their place & work well for some things, but using one to make large crops isn't one of them.

 

It is my belief that it is purely marketing. More is better, well that is what they would have one think. If the camera mfg's want to keep selling more cameras they have to make people believe the new ones are better. Rather than adding things that would be useful they stuff more pixels on the tiny sensor.

 

Well, I like my 7mp Canon. Can I assume that the break point is above 7 or am I simply not sensitive to the kind of pixelation you're talking about?

 

No, 7 or 8 mp isn't bad. Now 12 that they are coming out with now is just nuts.

 

It depends on the lens. The DPreview reviews show you the right test shots to make that determination.

 

The best camera is the one you carry around with you.

 

Man you hit the nail on the head with that one.

 

I believe it was Eddie Steichen that said, "No photographer is as good as the simplest camera."

 

While I agree with that in general, thats why I use a compact camera rather than an SLR (the SLR got left at home). There is a limit, I found the first camera I had in a phone was worse than useless. It was no good even if I were carrying it.

 

Its quite possible, especially for Canon to make a lens which would compliment a 7Mpixel sensor (which model do you have?). Though there are dogs out there which don't even live up to that. As I said further back, I think 7MPixels is around a reasonable maximum, anything more is getting difficult to justify. I'll probably run my next camera in 7 MPixel mode no matter how many pixels it thinks it has.