Digital Camera Funtime

Due to there being no catch-all digital camera threads, and given the fact that I am currently searching the market to buy a decent one, here is this thread.

My dilemma: I need an affordable digital camera to take routine pictures. Pictures at the beach, pictures of the latest catch, pictures of the house for insurance purposes, pictures of myself, etc. I am no professional photographer, and do not need a 349823904823 megapixel camera for my shots. I really just want something practical and affordable, that some of you might have used or might have heard about.

Some discussion is warranted on prices, models, and all that anyway since digital cameras have exploded in popularity.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I can spend between $200-400 on one at the moment. That Nikon Coolpix P1 at 8 megapixels and a lot of other cool options for $299 is actually quite interesting, but if there is something better than that around I'd certainly be interested to hear about that too.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, aside from all the rambling about Ken Rockwell (who I'll agree, has no right reviewing cameras as a photographer and not a camera reviewer) I decided to go ahead and put down the $299 on a Nikon Coolpix P1 for now. Seemed like the best value for the money, and after going to Best Buy and getting a feel for them, the Nikon cameras were pretty nice. Only thing that really bothers me is the Lithium Ion battery but I can micromanage time very well so I'll deal with it in the long run.

That's a nice picture there RR. Hopefully I can take some of the Corpus Christi Beach here like that, especially when I head down to South Padre next year.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yes, but professional photographers will tend to have one certain type of camera and lens they're comfortable with, and then use that as the basis of comparison for everything they review. Camera reviewers on the other hand, will take each camera subjectively as if they were an amateur/professional photographer OR just an average joe from the buyer's perspective and review it like that.

Having a professional photographer review cameras is like having a movie director critique other films. Said director will favor his own style of directing over others, and you'll end up seeing considerable bias that way.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

The only complaint I really have about the camera is that it takes movies in .mov format. Sure, it keeps the files nice and small, but, goddamnit, why a filetype that needs quicktime (or quickalternative). I also don't get why you only have the choice to save files as .jpg on the camera (and why it decides to have the extension all in caps (.JPG), but they might have changed that by later versions).

Do you happen to know if there is any method of converting them to another file type? I suppose .mov makes sense considering most web browsers and such can play it back, but there has to be a way to convert it over to something else.

Most of my pictures that I'll take with it will probably be environmental type shots, about the only "close up" I'd want to take would be just inside my room and the insurance type shots. Hopefully everything will be fine. I suppose when I get the camera here I'll go through and do similar tests to yours for other people so they'll know about this camera.

Originally Posted by of pom

Well even with a personal bias, i don't care about him reviewing cameras, its just that he reviews products he hasn't used, so he's still a jerk

I'll agree there too, he has no ground reviewing cameras that he hasn't personally tried.

I was speaking idiomatically.