Digital Camera

[yzeater]

Hey Guys-
We're in the market for a digital camera now. Here are the issues:
1. Quantity. Can the camera hold 40 or 50 high quality images? What are the different options here?
2. Quality. Are the pictures clear? How do we print them? Buy an expensive printer, use some online printing resource, local photo shop? What's the cost on these different options?
3. Zoom. We'd like on that has good zoom capabilities. Do we HAVE to have optical zoom, or will digital work just fine? How many times zoom do we need?
4. Cost. What am I looking to pay?
5. Brand. Which brand to go to / steer away from. What model do we want to buy?
Thanks a lot
-yzeater

 

[Danman]

1. That will depend on how the camara stores things. Like a smart media. I have 64 mB in mine and it will hold 45 on the best resolution compress. It does have Tiff, which is uncompressed, but the files are like hugh and I can only get 5 or 6 on the disk.

2. Quanlity is related to the pixels in a certain sqaure area. The more you have the better the quality. Go for the Biggest Megapixel camara you can. As for printing. You can get some decent printers from 300 to 500. http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3384834,00.html My printer is not near nice enough so I use a local photo shop. About 8 bucks for as much as you can fit on an 8.5X11 sheet.

3. Optical zoom is way better. The digital will pixalize things if you get it do large. IF they take take an aftermarket zoom or wide angle that would be cool. That was a feature that I wanted, but have yet to use.

4. That would be up to you. Quality costs. How good do you want it to be? There is some realy good stuff out there, but a decent mid range comsumer model will proably run you somewhere between 300 to 500.

5. Not sure, but check here: http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/index.html/

 

[biglou]

I am a big fan of the Sony CD-Mavica cameras. Check out www.steves-digicams.com for reviews of any camera you are thinking about. The Sony I have writes directly to a small 3" CD that you can just pop into your computer and look at the pics. It also shoots video with sound. The video is not camcorder quality, but it is great for web applications. The camera saves them as mpeg files. There are three quality setting for the mpegs on my camera, and there are numerous different settings for the picture size/quality. The little CD's are something on the order of 150 meg, so you can hold a boatload of pics and vids on there. Mine also has audio/video out plug, so you can look at the pics and vid on a TV if it has AV jacks (most do nowadays). We did this at Wardy's in the evenings and it was a big hit (especially that pic where Nikki was passing Okie ;) ). I got mine for $495 when it was all said and done, but it was a closeout model with a rebate. Also, mine is 2.1megapixel, I think, and the quality of the picture is very impressive. I shoot 1024 x 768 and the shots are 350k each.

 

[TwinSpar]

Optics play a big part as well. You can't beat the Zeiss lenses that come on some of the Sony cameras.

You should base your decision on what you ultimately want to do with the pictures. If you are looking to fill your photo album.... stay with a regular 35mm camera. Printing a bunch of pictures from a digital source is still slow and somewhat expensive. Digital storage (and that is the key word) is great for minimizing storage space but you have to ask yourself if all these pictures that you intend to take can be enjoyed on a computer (web or email based) or in less volume.

 

[Jaybird]

I had been shopping for a digital as well. I have come to the conclusion that I can keep using my 35mm and digitize as required. I have a Cannon AE-1 Program that I've had for about 20 years that takes fantastic photos. I realise that the digital functions make for a bit more ease and options, but I think I'm only hindered by how tight I scan the photos. I can scan a print in high res. and do just about what y'all can with a DL/ print. Of course in the long run, my method costs much more.
Now, the video thing is interesting though...but If I want to do vids, I think I'll just get a digital video specific camera someday.

 

[FireLily]

Nikon Coolpix 5700

My brother-in-law in Japan designed Nikon Coolpix 5700 as chief designer.
Please take a look!

http://www.nikonusa.com/usa_product/product.jsp?cat=1&grp=2&productNr=25504

Mini ;)

 

[Tony Eeds]

FYI - They have a number of Canon D30 cameras (just like mine) on eBay for $1200.00 or so. I know it is a bunch of money, but if you are looking at the Sony Mavica CD you are not that far off in cost, and the optics are 1000 times better. My company purchased mine last year at somehting like $2500. That is how quickly they are dropping. Lens are interchangeable (EF not FD) so any lens you have for an EOS will work.

BTW - It uses Compact Flash cards. I have a reader that plugs into my USB port. The largest card I have is 256 meg and it will hold 191 high-rez photos.

Tony

 

[ZOOK250]

I have been taking digital pics for a couple of years now, and i have found that a camera should have a minimum of 2 mega pixels. this amount will do an 8X10 pretty well. i found that a higher mega pixel camera will be most benificial when you are photo editing, ex. zooming and croping with a photo program.

i would go with a brand that uses smart card technology. the sony stuff is great , but they always seem to go with alternate technology that never catches on with the other manufacturers, beta,minidisc,memorystick,etc.the majority of hardware manufacturers prefer smart card.

the price of smart cards are droping everyday. you can get 8,16,24,32,64,128,256, meg smart cards. 8 meg on a 2 megapuxel camera at best quality jpeg will hold about 11 pictures. on 256 its more like 250 plus.switch to good quality then you get close to 700 per card. this takes longer to download however.

printers are cheap. the ink is expensive. a photo quality ink jet printer will be fine. i have used epsons for a long time and found them to be pretty decent. an epson stylus c-60 goes for about 70.00 cdn. and does a good job. glossy photo paper is about 24.00 for 100 sheets here. photo quality ink jet paper is even cheaper and looks just as good , if not better.

i have a kodak 280 dc that is about 4 years old. its still a great camera. 2 mega pixels. i also have a 4900 kodak. 4 megapixel they both do a good job for what i need. the 4900 has a burst mode that lets you take 12 shots in 3 seconds. also look at a canon g2 or g3 . they are pretty nice with lots of features.

take a look at my pictures in the gallery. they are with a 2 mega pixel camera.

 

[yzeater]

Anybody have top quality 4mp pics I could see?

 

[Tony Eeds]

My D30 is in that range. It is what a bunch of the photos for DW02 that have been posted by Okie were taken with. Obviously he has reduced the size and quality somewhat to get under the 50K limit for the site. All the photos range around 800K to 2 meg depending on how busy they are, and I think the specs on the camera are 3.9 mp. I can email some to you if you would like. Their natural size is 20x30 so they are impossible to view unless you have a paint program that will zoom out to show the entire shot. Cropping to a smaller shot is NO problem. Thump has a really nice shot up that shows him and one other bike real tight. If I remember correctly it was taken with the D30.
Tony
I forgot - The Epson printers are great. I am using the 1520 right now. It will produce 720 dpi, which on glossy paper will fool the eye of all casual observers.

 

[biglou]

YZeater-Go to my website and look at some of the pics I took. Also, look at my pictures thread in the DW02 forum. These are direct links to the full-size shots that I took. That is the second highest quality/size setting on my camera. I think they are pretty good. Tony's aren't bad, either!

 

[mkuder]

Megapixels and optical zoom is the top two priorities in digital cameras. I purchased a Minolta DiMAGE S404 for $500 at Target and it works great I added a 64mb flash card and can take 130 high quality pictures. The only drawback I have had so far with this camera is that it consumes batteries. I use rechargable AA's and always have a spare set with me. The LCD is what uses up the batts so when I'm outside I turn that off as it's usually useless in the sun anyway. An excellent website for digital cameras is:
http://www.dpreview.com/

 

[Rodzilla]

I just got a camera, went with the Olympus C-720 Ultra Zoom

This unit has one of the largest OPTICAL zoom capabilites around at 8X. Most are 3X optical. Add the 3x digital (not great, too much pixialization) and you in theory have 24x magnification.

THe unit is not the smallest, but not the biggest either. YOu'll want a camera your willing to haul around, for many smaller is better.

I found great prices on Ebay for new units and for the memory cards

 

[TreeKiller]

I found that shutter speed matters alot as well. My Kodak DC 240 has a max shutter speed of 1/500 of a sec and blurs action shots pretty bad. The only thing is it's not bad enough for me to convince people that 40ft jump was really 120ft. :)

 

[VintgeRiderVintageGuy]

A friend of mine has a Canon A40, 2.1 Megapixel, he paid $300 for it, on the internet they're as low as $218 now. It takes short videos and has a Compact Flash, which is the more common storage media. It's very highly reviewed (for a 2.1) on dpreview.com. Now I just need to convince myself and actually buy it. Maybe for Xmas ...

 

[marcusgunby]

I have a Olympus C2-its a 2mega pixel jobbie-it can take about 50 photos with the std card at a reasonable quality.Its a very nice camera and good value and quality but its a bit fiddly with all the functions-it has movie mode(15seconds) but its on .mov format which isnt my prefered option.On its best quality setting printing on my epson photo810 its easlily better than a std analogue camera.Then again its alot more expensive than a average analugue camera.

 

[yzeater]

WooHoo!! We just bought a 4.13MP Nikon camera with 3x optical zoom, 35s video mode. Awsome! I'll have some shots up next week. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[yzeater]

So did I make a good choice?

 

[marcusgunby]

I would say so:)