10-10-2003 22:54									#1
	Help me buy a digital camera Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I've decided I need a digital camera but I know next to nothing about digital cameras. What should I look for, what brands are best, and how much should I spend. I'd like to get a good quality camera but not necissarially the top of the line. Picture quality is important.

	10-10-2003 23:02									#2
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I'd be interested in the advice too. I've also been wanting one but have been to lazy to do any research on them...

	10-10-2003 23:19									#3
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cannons are good

for the snapshooter, 2-3 megapixels is enough

optical zoom is important

the viewer in the back (the screen), is unimportant

Jon Miller

	10-10-2003 23:28									#4
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Cannon makes good digital cameras? Where can I find a review of various digital camera?

	10-10-2003 23:33									#5
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Here is a selection of cameras under $300.

	10-10-2003 23:41									#6
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Oerdin: this is the one i would recommend-- Olympus Stylus 300
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...s=19&iCompatid=

We sell a lot of them, and i've played with it. Stay away from Sony. You want a camera that has either a SD slot or a Compact flash, and a li-ion battery.

Dell has 10% off digital cameras right now too, so if you need one i can help

	11-10-2003 02:03									#7
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When you buy a camera, look for a CAMERA. Megapixels are not important, but the optics are. The only situation where you would need more than 2 megapixels is if you plan to enlarge the picture above A4 or US letter format. Those situations are extremely rare and mostly used by professionals.

The most important part of a camera is the lens. Crap input will give you crap output, and no electronics can fix that. The companies that make good analog cameras normally also make good digital cameras. Canon, Minolta, Olympus, Hasselblad and Nikon are good examples of that. Some of the traditional electronic producers who are not traditionally known as camera professionals outsource the optics to someone who knows that business. If you buy a Sony, make sure it has a Carl Zeiss lens, otherwise the camera is crap. Trust me, I've tried one with a Sony lens.

I have a Panasonic camera with a Leica lens with 12X optical zoom. While the zoom is great, I am somewhat disapointed with the shutter number. The lower the number, the less need for flashlight in semi-darkness and the more likely are you to take sharp pictures of movement without a flash. Whenever you use the flash indoors, there's a great risk of getting red eyes and pale colourless faces. While red eyes is a very easy problem to Photoshop, it still takes a lot of micromanagement (and 'poly time). Most digital cameras have a shutter number of 1:2.8 or higher, but Olympus Camedia C-5050 has 1:1.8 to 1:8.4. That's a very price-worthy camera, despite the limited optical zoom (3X). You could probably buy it for 5-600 dollars.

Another problem with digital cameras is the time lag from pressing the expose button until the picture is actually taken. For some cameras it could take seconds (Sony), while others are almost as fast as analog cameras (Olympus). It is very annoying when you try to take a picture of a kid, press the button and find out that the kid has left the view when the picture is taken. It happened to me hundreds of times with the Sony camera.

	11-10-2003 03:50									#8
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Take care that it is driven by good recharble batteries (LiON). Otherwise don't be surprised to see battery low after about 10 shots.
Also consider that you may need a bigger flash module if the one that is included doesnt satisfy you.

	11-10-2003 16:00									#9
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What about the Nikon D4? It looks pretty good, eh?

	11-10-2003 16:03									#10
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I managed to get a Canon PowerShot A70 for $266 before I left the States. I'm quite happy with it.

	12-10-2003 19:40									#11
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Ok, that's good advice everyone and I will make sure to avoid Sony (I didn't like their cheap plastic bodies any way). Here's some more information:

I already own Nikon N65 SLR camera and a selection of Nikor lenses as well as Nikon and Yashica point and shoot cameras. The Nikon point and shoot is about 2 years old and the Yashica is about 4 years old and both of them have performed well but niether has a zoom lense so I'd like to replace them with a digital camera which does have a zoom.

My first inclination is for the digital camera to replace one/both of the point and shot cameras so I'm looking for a very small yet durable and feature packed camera. If I want to take high quality pictures then I'll use the Nikon N65 which I already own. It seems like I can get a decent all metal digital camera for under $400 but I don't know much about digital cameras.

	12-10-2003 20:10									#12
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If you already have the Nikon lenses, maybe you want to check out their offerings of SLR digital cameras. Yeah, they are on the expensive side, but you get the quality as well.

	12-10-2003 23:22									#13
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Oerdin, look at the canon S series, the digital elphs are great! That's what i have, and i love it...

	13-10-2003 00:14									#14
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I wouldn't recommend mine .

The CF card gets corrupted if you leave it on too long and it overheats

Though maybe I should have a Cannon brand name CF card. Maybe using a cheaper brand for my 128 Meg card wasn't a good idea.

	13-10-2003 00:43									#15
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Kaak & Diss: Ok, I'm going to look at Cannon brand cameras since both of you and one of my college buddies have recommended Cannon plus I know Cannon makes top notch SLR film cameras. I'm going to make the rounds at all of the major digital camera stores today so I can manhandle the merchendise and compare prices. Once I'm done with that I will write another post about what I saw.

	13-10-2003 00:50									#16
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okay, let me know what you decide on, and i may be able to get you a good price on it (plus free shipping and no tax)

	13-10-2003 06:37									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Kaak Oerdin, look at the canon S series, the digital elphs are great! That's what i have, and i love it...

Word. I have the s400 and love it too.

	13-10-2003 07:07									#18
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that is like what I have but mine is only 2 megapixels

very sexy and works well

I recommend it

Jon Miller

	13-10-2003 07:09									#19
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I don't know why everyone is dogging on Sonys. I have a Sony DSC-P10 and it works great. No complaints from me...

	13-10-2003 07:33									#20
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if for no other reason, sony insists on using memory sticks as their removable media...crap

	13-10-2003 19:19									#21
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The media is realy unimportant to me, but as far as they go, memory sticks seem to work pretty well.

	14-10-2003 02:31									#22
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they can only go up to 128 mb (granted, they make them now where you can flip a lil switch, and you get another 128, but still not a lot of storage). and they don't work with anything that isn't sony. I can take CF cards or SD cards and put pictures on my pocktPC.

	14-10-2003 03:08									#23
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In the last two days I've stopped by a total of 16 different stores so I can play around with the cameras and get a feel for the build quality, speed, and ease of use of various models. I've pretty much narrowed the field down to the Cannon S400 and the Olympus C-5060 Wide Angle. I like the larger Olympus's features and super fast speed but the Cannon is more in line with the size and function that I need. Throw on that the Cannon is $150 less and I think the Cannon is the camera for me.

Kaak: How much can you sell me a Cannon S400 for and will it have a US warrenty and will the power source be good for US electrical plugs? Also how much does a Cannon brand memmory card cost? The bigger the better. Thanks.

	14-10-2003 03:14									#24
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Actually I think that Sony must have been playing some catch up.

The newer cameras, such as mine support memory stick and memory stick pro, which can hold as much as a 1 gigabyte the last I checked.

Also memory sticks may only be compatable with Sony cameras (I don't know this for sure, just an assumption), but the readers can be used with any brand product. I just recently built a PC, and my mobo came with 5 in 1 card reader (including memory stick).

	14-10-2003 03:23									#25
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How do you transfer files from the camera to the computer? I assume there is some sort of wire you can buy or do you buy something the memory card plugs into?

	14-10-2003 03:27									#26
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You can either get a card reader and/or use a USB cable.

Some of the older cameras actually use floppies... but you don't want one of those

	14-10-2003 04:53									#27
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I found the Cannon S400 at royalcamera.com for $358 plus shipping. It seems Dell is selling it for $409 so unless Kaak can get some sort of discount then royacamera maybe the best place to buy from.

	14-10-2003 04:54									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh Word. I have the s400 and love it too.

FMK: One question. While in video mode does the S400 record audio as well as video? I've noticed that some cameras do and some don't.

	14-10-2003 05:34									#29
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my s200 does

Jon Miller

	14-10-2003 07:57									#30
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have you had any problems with your S200 Jon?

My S200 is what I used in San Diego. All my pictures got wiped out.

It seems to be my CF card though.

Whatever you get, don't get a ProMedia CF card 128 MB. I tried formatting just now (I haven't touched it since I got back from San Diego). Even after trying to format, I get a CF error.

I wonder if they have warrantees on such things. That's money down the drain. My CF card is unusable now.