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 was reading a Digital Photography magazine today and i was looking at point-and-shoot cameras (well i want a SLR but they are stupid £££s)

one point-and-shoot that looks really good is the Nikon Coolpix P1:
http://www.letsgodigital.org/html/re...amera_EN1.html From looking at it Price vs Features it seems pretty good. (£250 GBP) starting at $299, see the review site above, it has a comparison site link, you'll find something i'm sure though.
Hope that's of interest for you.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I've used a Nikon camera for about a years time and it's treated me very well. The only downside is it's size, but I accepted that because smaller models are just too awkward to use. Of that brand, this Coolpix L3 seems like a reasonable choice for an everyman's camera. 5.1 Megapixels, 3x optical zoom, 15 shooting modes and runs on two AA batteries for $199.95. The L4 model is similar, the difference being a 4.0 megapixel image and the price being $149.95. The L4 would be a better choice if you're just looking for something basic.

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

Nikon is good, but the best value you're going to find, the most band you're gonna get for your buck always seems to come from Canon. Olympus is the way to go if you want high end, but it's always as expensive as Sony, which sucks, by the way. Kodak always underperforms.

Individual models might be better than others, and if we know your price range we can suggest for you the best camera for your dollar, but, just in general, I wouldn't think about buying anything but a Canon.

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

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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Looking on just Amazon (not the most accurate price match of all), the Nikon Coolpix P1 is $399, the Canon S-550 (a similar buy) is $299. Fewer pixels (7.1 Mp), but a slightly better optical zoom. I've always been a fan of the Canon A-series becuase I like being able to use AAs instead of battery packs and I don't mind it if my camera is a little bigger/heavier. Plus, they are even cheaper. The top A-series, with 6 MP and a 6x optical is also only $299.

That the Coolpix P1 is wireless is pretty damn cool. I wish my cameras had that.

It won't give you the best idea of picture quality, but, to help narrow down the choices, I highly suggest a trip to Best Buy or Circuit City. That will let you hold all the choices in your hand and see what you like the feel of. Before my fiancee bought one, we went down to Best Buy and they have all the cameras powered so you got to basically see how every little thing worked, save for what the printed pictures looked like. You'll also get a feel of how far your dollar will go.

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Unless you're either really serious or seriously cheap, I'd suggest buying the smallest camera that you can afford. You'll find yourself using a camera that fits in your pocket a lot more than an average-sized one.

The current-model Canon Elph and Casio Exilim cameras are all excellent...they have metal bodies, big screens (though the screen quality of the Exilims isn't going to win any awards), and good lenses and image sensors. The Nikon Coolpix S5 is another nice small camera, too, though I really question the usefulness of its Wi-Fi feature. ^^;

Pentax used to make some really nice mint-tin sized Optios that, among other nifty features, had better color accuracy than Canon's main SLR of the time, the EOS 10D, but I'm not sure if they're still making small ones. Fuji makes a couple of little cameras that have really good low-light performance, and Sony's various W-series cameras are perfectly good all-arounders. Honestly, I don't think that you can go too wrong with any camera that meets your basic requirements unless you buy on cost and cost alone.

I wouldn't advise buying a Minolta unless you can get a big discount on one. While most of their digital cameras (except for the older slim Dimages) were perfectly good (if not quite up to the level of Canon, Nikon, and Fuji), they were bought out by Sony not too long ago, so warranty service might be a bit spotty. Most of Kodak's point-and-shoot cameras are pretty bad, too.

FELIPE NO

Just get a higher model sony compact point and shoot. Nikon and Canon are good, but they are only better at their DSLRs. A DSC-W5 or W7 is cheap, pretty small, well built, and has enough manual controls so its sort of better than lame ultra compacts.

If not that, then i'd say get something like a Panasonic DMC-FX9. Small and good quality. Get one of those.

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http://www.kenrockwell.com/casio/exz750.htm

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

http://www.kenrockwell.com/casio/exz750.htm

Going to sage this completely. For one, you'd be better off getting the Sony DSC-W5 since its probably cheaper. 5MP instead of 7, but unless you are going to be printing large sized images, then the 7 is a waste of money. Casio uses Sony digital censors anyway, so theres no quality difference.

Also Ken Rockwell is sooo lame. He reviews products he hasn't used. Use any other online camera review site but that please ;_;

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Ken Rockwell is pretty funny and knows what he is talking about. Anyway, I actually bothered to read the entire review, and I'm stunned and the sheer amount of features that camera has. It can do things even $10,000 digital view cameras can't do. There is a lot more to a digital camera than its megapixel rating. Features, ease of use, and other capabilties matter just as much, even more. Also, keep in mind that the differences in megapixels between cameras is very small. The difference between 5 and 7 or even 5 and 10 is miniscule at best.

If you want a personal recommendation, a higher-end Olympus camera would probably very nice. I've been using a C-5050Z for three years now, and it still looks great. I know that the C-7070 must be at least as nice, if not more so.

http://blaisefrazier.zoto.com/galleries

Taken with a years-old 5 megapixel camera. Most cameras today are probably not significantly better in image quality. My C-5050 is actually better-looking that my friends Nikon D-70.

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

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

Ken Rockwell is pretty funny and knows what he is talking about. Anyway, I actually bothered to read the entire review, and I'm stunned and the sheer amount of features that camera has. It can do things even $10,000 digital view cameras can't do. There is a lot more to a digital camera than its megapixel rating. Features, ease of use, and other capabilties matter just as much, even more. Also, keep in mind that the differences in megapixels between cameras is very small. The difference between 5 and 7 or even 5 and 10 is miniscule at best.

No but really, he reviews products he doesn't use. There are plent of better review sites then ken rockwell. This isn't my personal opionion, he's not much liked at most camera forums :\/

Also, i know MP aren't whats important, hence reccommending the dscw5 over the casio. Anyway, the uses he listed don't require a lot of features, but what does this Casio have that "$10,000" dollar ones do not?

And i don't get the comparison with your friend. Is he the worst photographer on earth? The kit lens alone should provide better pictures on the D-70 then than a years old Olympus. Olympus is a good choice, but theres no reason to get a camera from 2002. An Olympus C-500 is awesome, but probably uneccesary for the thread maker

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

People at camera forums don't like him? I wonder if it's because they're too busy measurbating and talking about equipment, and not out taking pictures. Ken dislikes those kinds of people.

And I don't know about his other reviews, but he does own and use this particular camera. Why not read the review and find out about the features? One feature is has that even huge cameras like the EOS-1DS Mark II don't have is the ability to store literally hundreds of presets. Or how about being able to record MPEG-4 video? It has a massive screen, near-instant startup time, and loads of other nice additions.

As for my friend, I have used his D70 extensively with several different kinds of lenses, and I simply wasn't impressed with the image quality. The camera also had a very strong tendency to overexpose almost every shot I took, and I had to end up using it in manual mode.

If you'll read the review on Ken's site, you can see a side-by-side comparison of a shot from the Casio camera and his D-70. They're surprisingly similar in quality.

Honestly, if all you want to do is take pictures at the beach, a camera from 2002 would be just fine. Most of today's best isn't any better.


See? Something like that would be more than enough for Kostaki's needs.

How ya doing, buddy?

Startup time for dslrs is like 0.15 seconds

"Contrary to popular belief, the lens has little to do with the performance of a digital camera."

This is why i hate ken rockwell.

"I'm a photographer, not a camera reviewer."

Off his own site. The problem with using him is that he'll review what he likes and talk about how it works for him. He isn't a camera reviewer as he isn't comparing the product to everything else available, just to what he uses.

ANYWAY I'm just saying i think there are cheaper and more suitable options for what Kostaki wanted to use his camera for. I don't think saving hundreds of white balance options is what he wants.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Quote:

"Contrary to popular belief, the lens has little to do with the performance of a digital camera."

I really agree with him here. A truly skilled photographer can take beautiful pictures, even with a kit lens, but joe blow will still take crappy pictures, even with the best L-series glass. I regularly browse at the DSLReports digital imaging forum, and I have seen some truly beautiful pictures taken with cheap kit lenses and even cheaper third party lenses. What it all comes down to is the eye of the photographer.

Anyway, it's nice to have extra features, if you ever need them. If you don't, don't use them. But it's good to know that they'll always be there.

Just pick up one of these and you'll be good to go. If you know what you're doing, it takes extremely sharp and well-detailed pictures. It has a nice range of shutter speeds and custom settings. It is easily better than most mid to high-end cameras on the market today, and it's nearly 4 years old.

FELIPE NO

Here's a picture I took with my Nikon Coolpix 3700 somewhat recently. I got it for Christmas a year or two back, and it's been pretty nice. It's small enough that I can throw it in my backpack without having to care about any sort of extra weight. When I'm wearing khakis I can put it in a pocket and it's hardly even noticable (too big to fit into the pocket on a pair of jeans, though).

My parents have a Canon digital camera that takes fantastic pictures as well, though I have a hunch it was considerably more money than the one they got me.

How ya doing, buddy?

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The trick I've found with my Nikon is to always take pictures at the highest resolution (for my camera it's only 3 megapixels) and then scale it down by 50%. It doesn't look super-nice when at the full 3 megapixel size, but after the resizing things looks a lot nicer.

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).

Also, their rechargable battery (if yours comes with one) holds a charge for a pretty long time and charges back up rather quickly.

Edit: Here and here are two pictures I took a little over a year ago. As you can see, sometimes the camera will focus a little bit on the wrong thing (first picture check out the detail on the duct tape), but it's only a problem I've had happen with close-up pictures (and even then only occasionally). Here's a picture I took a while back of a super-closeup ferrofluid, you can see most of it turned out pretty well, but the bottom got whited out a bit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Quote:

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.

Who better to review cameras than photograpgers? They're the ones that actually go out and use cameras to take pictures, as opposed to sitting in labs and taking pictures of test charts, as he would say. Perhaps Ken hasn't used every single camera he's written about, but you get what I'm saying.

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?

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 was speaking idiomatically.

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I don't know of any programs out there that can convert a .mov to something else, though I'm sure they exist. My camera takes movies at pretty low resolution and mediocre quality (17 MB movie link to me talking about the ferrofluid in the previous post), but they get the job done in a pinch.

FELIPE NO