Digital Camera suggestions...

ok I am in the market for a semi good camera greater than 5MP and with a semi reasonable budget (no more than 700 with digital cards). Is there anything I should stay away from? Things that I need to have. I really want to have very good felxibility taking night pictures, day pictures, basiclly all types/styles of pictures. If you need more info just ask and I will try and answer.

-Josh

 

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...oductSKU=DSCW5


I love my W5. It's great.

 

http://www.ritzcamera.com/webapp/wcs...uctId=13186703

8 MB Nikon, $400. Wide angle for those car shots. Many accesories are available.

CF cards run maybe $200 for ultra speed 1 Gb, depend on where you buy them

 

--I don't know why but the W5 actually focuses and shoots pictures faster than it's bigger brother the W7. I did a test at circuit city and just went snap happy and I could squeeze off nearly 2 shots a second with the W5. The W7 seemed to fight you tooth and nail and wouldn't even focus if you rushed it.

I've been a sony digital camera fan since 1999. Their user interface is really friendly and their night shooting is the best in the industry. Just try to get the ones manufactured in Japan. The same model could be made in 2 different places, but the Japan made ones are always better.

--pyratio

 

I'm sure DID will post here soon as he knows a LOT about cameras.

In the mean time check out : http://www.steves-digicams.com/

Has a lot of good info on about every camera on the market.

Earl

 

I haven't found a better site for comparing digital cameras than this one: http://www.dpreview.com/

My Canon G1 died recently, and fixing will cost probably 200... I'm in the mkt looking...

 

I prefer Canon. Their digital sensors tend to be much smoother than the competition, based on all the comparisons I've seen on dpreview.com (and I look at pretty much all of them to make sure Canon is still looking good).

I would also consider the Panasonics with "Leica" lenses. They make some with very long, versatile zooms, and I've been impressed with their sensors. Nikon and Sony are okay, but from what I've seen, their sensors don't measure up to Canon.

You probably don't need high-speed memory cards because cameras in your price range don't shoot continuous frames that quickly.

If you really want versatility, go with a digital SLR like Canon's Digital Rebel line or the Nikon D50. The price would be a little higher than you're looking for (isn't it always?), but you get what you pay for. Even with the lens that comes in the camera kit, you'll have better glass, a better sensor, more manual control if you want it, and significanly better performance in low light/high ISO.

Plus, if you check out keh.com you'll find lots of used bodies and lenses that are in good condition and get lots more camera for the same money as a new point and shoot. You can reliably trust their ratings of equipment condition, and they have a no-hassle 14-day (I think) return policy.

 

How much are you willing to spend?

 

did you read the post, It clearly states 700 with cards...

-josh

 

I'll be curious to see what people have to say. My budget is lower, but I am looking for a little point and shoot for the SO so perhaps feedback here will apply. Speed and good auto pics is key. I've looked on the review sites but nothing beats hearing more real world feed back.

By the by, in case you are considering the Canon Elphs (400/450) I found lots of remarks online about the LCDs being prone to breaking easily. That compounded with other reviews of soft pictures made me hold back on it.

 

If it's worth it to you to lug around a big hunk of Leica glass, check out the Panasonic Lumix series with Leica lenses (12x optical zoom!). I have the FZ20 and I love it! I see that it now costs $100 less than when I bought it a year ago. It also has vibration damping for sharper photos, which I personally wouldn't buy a camera without.

 

I was waiting for Chris to chime in, that's a hard to beat package.

 

that camera looks awesome but I may not be willing to spend 9348573948 hours trying to learn it. Is there a steep learning curve or a shallow one? Or can i pick it up and use it normally then if I want go deep into the bowls and pull some awesome shots?

-Josh

 

Sorry for protruding here. I assume 5MP means 5 mega pixels (which I just realized my 2 year old Sony is--including a Zeiss lens). An artist friend told me she wants to get a higher resolution digital camera to make bigger clear images on Duratrans. She said she can get an 8 mega pixel camera for "only" $3000 now. Because it's for her business I thought the price was not insane. But after reading this thread I wonder if she knows about price-shopping on the Internet. She must be way off base and I should set her straight (also she does not drive a MINI because she needs to carry plywood). Or is there such a thing as professional quality digital cameras versus hobbyist casual digital cameras (like in the old days of Hasselblad or Kodak), but does that make sense since everything is now chips and software?

 

There absolutely is such a thing as a professional quality digital camera. It is a common misperception that digital cameras are all about megapixels. The sensor in an 8-megapixel Canon 20D digital SLR is a far different animal than an 8mp sensor in a Canon point and shoot, and the lenses you can use on a 20D are far superior to anything on a point and shoot. A professional set-up is going to have (a) a physically larger sensor, (b) optically better lenses to more accurately focus light on each of the pixels on that sensor, and (c) more options to manually control the camera to produce the image you want.

 

You can definitely use it as a point-and-shoot and get great shots. I know because that's about all I've done with it. However, the minimal amount of time that I have spent exploring its capabilities has been well worth it.

 

dpreview just reviewed the updated FZ30. Rated it as Recommended (a notch below Highly Recommended), and said "In many ways the FZ30 is everything the FZ20 could (and maybe should) have been...you cannot help but wonder how much better this camera would be with a less noisy chip..." http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...z30/page17.asp

I can imagine there being a time when I can leave my big lump of a DSLR at home, and walk around with something like the Panasonic. Given the samples of seen, the sensor isn't quite up to the task yet.

Here is a link to dpreview reviews by Rating (best ones first). This may be a big help for your shopping. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=rating

 

No offence.. I also own a Sony DC. Just a little consideration you may take account to. Sony's Memory Stick kind of expensive when you compare it with others like SD, CF.

 

So why is the FZ30 merely "recommended" while the FZ20 is "highly recommended"?

 

Thanks, bee1000n, for such concise technical information. Very interesting. Inspires me to visit Fry's to check out the Canon 20D.

 

I was editor and photographer for my High School yearbook and shot it with a Minolta X700. I loved the SLR and all the capeabilities. I have been waiting a long time for a similar quality Digital Camera. I think it is just about time.

Any suggestions? I have a 1.0 gig SD card for my MP3 Player and a 128 meg Compact Flash card. I will probably have to buy more memmory either way.

 

I imagine the bar has been set higher for the FZ30 than it was when the FZ20 was reviewed? The target moves pretty fast in the digital camera world.

 

I'm not sure which of the digital SLRs accept SD cards. All of them use Compact Flash (you'll want at least a gigabyte of storage given that 8-megapixel+ image files are pretty large), but some also use SD. From what I've been reading the entry-level Canon (Rebel) and Nikon (D50) are very capable. Depending on your needs and budget you may want to move up to a 20D or D200, respectively.

 

In my opinion, nothing in its price range can beat the Olympus C7070 for feature set, image quality, and speed.



http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_se...p?product=1152

I have a nice dSLR and I still find myself using this little gem more often.

 

Yea, okay I'm confused. My dad bought a professional level Olympus Camera about 3 years ago. It is 2.5MP and I find that I'm not getting even anywhere close enough to even sniff the high quality that you see in pics of DiD and fj0 are posting. Is this the camera, if so what should I get, or is it me? The camera is set on the highest resolution and quality so it's nothing like that, here's a pic I took the other night with a tripod, isn't it terrible?