Digital cameras

[Capt. Ron]

I'm going to buy my first digital camera soon and was looking for some info. What should I look for? I just want something to point and shoot. I don't need anything real fancy. But I do want good quality pictures. I found three on ebay that seem to suit my needs. They range from $89-$196; from 3.2 mp-6.1 mp. They all come with "starter kits" batteries, chargers, blah blah. I had a camera phone that took great picutres but it's "out of order" and I have the camera bug now.

Thanks all

[Choqiees]

if you need only P&S camera and won't print it more than 4x6 size, I'd suggest a 4-5max mp digicam. more than that is an overkill. and If I might suggest, get the ones with AA/AAA batteries, last more and won't ruin the fun.

[JungleRR]

I would get a 6.0 mega pixal camera just because you might want to take a picture and make it a 8x10. That way you would have a nice clear picture.

A viewfinder is nice to have just in case you get low on batteries at a por time where you can't get more. I use mine all the time.

The Olympus F-120 and F-150 are really nice for ease of use and are point and shoot cameras.

Please whatever you do... DO NOT buy a Kodack (sp?) They shoot poor pictures and have terrible consumer reports. They don't last long and have a lot of problems right away.

Also, please if you can, buy your camera from costco. They stand behind their product while places like Office max/depot won't let you return the camera for your money back for any reason.

I work at office max selling cameras and helping people set up wireless networks and I have seen so many people bring the camera back within the the day because it's too hard to use... or somethign of that nature and office max will only give you another camera if yours is defective. I think that is totally wrong and poor service. (office depot does the same thing)

I have an older olympus and it takes awesome photos and has worked for ever... I totally love it!

If you have any other questions I would love to help, just PM me!

[TerryS]

I bought a Kodak for both my son and my daughter. They took great quality picture, and both have died.
I bought a Sony Cybershot 4.o mp p&S for my wife and it is very good, both in ease of use, and picture quality. She has a huge memory card and it holds 500+ picures and take very good video clips. Video clips can be very long but are shortened by the number of stills you have stored. It uses rechargable AA batteries, which means if you're away and they start going dead, you can pop in some alkelines to hold you over. Avoid cameras that ake proprietary batteries, as JungleRR says.
My niece visited for the weekend and has a nice Panasonic Lumix 8.o mp but it's expensive. Her dad was with her and had his Cascio P&S which he likes alot, even though he bought her the Lumix. She works for the Harvard Natural History Museum, so she needed the quality and features of the high end camera.
There are as many opinions as there are cameras. Sony, Cannon, Nikon, Olympus, Cascio, they all make good P&S cameras. Get whichever offers the best followup service.
I still like film too, but will eventually have my own digital and am leaning towards another Sony (my fist Sony stored them on 3.5" floppys, but it still works). The Sony is very easy to download, and it's software isn't hard at all, not said for some others. As JungleRR says, get an optical viewfinder, as well as a large LCD. In certain light conditions, the LCD can be hard, if not impossible to view.

[LRDisco94]

Make Sure You look at the ZOOM !!refering to P&S - there is two types digital and optical - there might be a camera with 3x optical and 4x digital and the advertisment will say A TOTAL 12x magification - but digital zoom honestly sucks a big fat one - if all possible try to get the most optical zoom - not saying its bad to get one - i have two cameras and i use a canon 3.3mp 3x optical 4x digital 12x total just for takin pics of the rover - family, items for sale on ebay and they come out fine - but if i was hiking and wanted to zoom into a alligator it would be shitty because i would have to use digital zoom - tht why i carry my canon rebel

[JungleRR]

Originally Posted by LRDisco94

Make Sure You look at the ZOOM !!refering to P&S - there is two types digital and optical - there might be a camera with 3x optical and 4x digital and the advertisment will say A TOTAL 12x magification - but digital zoom honestly sucks a big fat one -

OH yea... I totaly forgot to talk about zoom... thanks LR

[cellulararrest]

The best point and shoot digital cameras out there right now are the canon powershots. Problem is there's a little on the expensive side.

As for megapixels the difference between 5 and 6 megapixels is so miniscule it doesn't matter. Thing is the general public will pay more for a 6 megapixel camera so the prices are generall much, much higher. Now if it was the difference between a 1 and 2 megapixel camera that'd be different.

[Muddy Oval]

I use a Lumix, but I still think that Nikons are the best bang for the buck. I know a lot of people who have Optio series and like them a lot as well.

[Kevin88RRC]

Originally Posted by cellulararrest

The best point and shoot digital cameras out there right now are the canon powershots. Problem is there's a little on the expensive side.

You are absolutely correct! Canon leads the field in digital P&S and SLR. I have the Powershot S70 (7 megapixal) and the thing rocks. I'm even able to get portfolio quality images from it. And if you need to, you can get an 11x14 from it. And depending on how you print it you can go bigger too.
But they are pricey. Check out B&Hphoto they have the best prices.

[Capt. Ron]

Ok, found several. What do you think about these?

Olympus Camedia D425, 4 mp, 3-4 zoom $89 (used)

Olympus D630, 5 mp, 3-4 zoom $149.99 (new)

Fuji FinePix A350, 5 mp, 3-4.1 zoom $119.95 (new)

Fuji FinePix E550, 6.3 mp, 4-6.3 zoom $155 (used)

Fuji FinePix S3100, 4 mp, 6-3.4 zoom $139.95 (???) I'm guessing used.

Cannon Powershot A530, 4 mp, 3-4.1 zoom $119.95 (new)

They're on the low price end but that's my budget. I think the more I look, the more confused I get.

[Disco Mike]

Ron,
If you think the used car busines if shakey, how about used digital camers? Most are out dated, tired and are their last mega pixels, so to speak.
Look new, look ar the optical zoom first, think big, mega pixel second, good size memory card third and battery last. Try and find a camera that uses 2A batterys, they are everywhere when you need them.Ket the new higher speed memory cards that will record pictures quicker cutting down lag time between pictures, at least a 512 card or bigger since you want to take good quality pictures and they require lots of memory.
Mike

[TerryS]

Originally Posted by LRDisco94

but if i was hiking and wanted to zoom into a alligator it would be shitty because i would have to use digital zoom

If I was out walking and ran into an alligator, the only thing that would be shitty would be my shorts!

[davechogan]

Check out dpreview.com they have a lot of good reviews on digital cameras.

[Capt. Ron]

Well thanks for the advice everyone. Looks like I'll hit the stores this weekend. I wasn't really planning on a used camera, just listing them for ideas. Apparently they and Kodak are the pleague. I kinda figured I might be looking for too much for my price range. You shoulda seen some I didn't mention; 12 mp, MP3, vid/aud/cam, $125. Yeah right!

[Choqiees]

the camera brand is purely personal preferences.

just make sure you get a good OPTICAL zoom, screw the DIGITAL zoom. if you can get like 4x or even 6x optical zoom with a good price, you're good to go, but I won't recommend getting like 12x optical zoom in P&S digicam, they tend to blur when they reach 12x optical zoom.

as Mike said, get the one with rechargable alkalines batteries, more practical if you're away.

as in body style, IMO I don't like the thin and crispy kinda body, pretty hard to hold it in my hand, I'd prefer small yet a bit beefy. I have Canon SD450, good P&S digicam, decent LCD size (2.5"), and user friendly. a bit bigger than that is Canon A620, I like the vari-angle LCD where you can flip the LCD to every directions you want, take sharp images.

I really don't have anything to say about Fuji, Sony, Lumix or anuthing else, I don't have much experience about them.

or if you like, get Leicas, damn they look so good!

go to the store, play around with them and get use with the buttons to get a feel for each of them. usually each brand had the same button configurations so you can shorten the list from there.

Good Luck!

ps: if you already reach where you only have 2-3 different cameras to compare, go to dpreview.com as suggested above to get the final pick.