Touring - Digital Camera Advice

OK Gang, here is my Problem . . .

Way back in the day, I bought this state of the art 1.3 MP Olympus Camera. Point and shoot style and a 32 meg card would hold about 400 pictures, and battery life was respectable.

So I decide to upgrade back in the spring to this Fuji camera, 3.2 MP w a 6X zoom. (4 years later and cheaper than the Olympus 1.3 MP) Besides the fact, that every picture that I take with the flash seems to give a red tint, I hate having the LCD screen viewfinder, its bulkier than the Olympus, battery life is terrible, and its not even close to being as rugged as my old, simple, point and shoot Olympus. On top of all that, using the zoom almost always results in blurry pictures. (the reason I ended up buying this beast in the first place)

So for now, when I go for a ride, and pack a camera, the new one stays in its case, and the old Olympus seems to always still make its way onto the ride with me . . Assuming I can unload this mistake onto some other unsuspecting fool, I would like to once again upgrade to a higher resolution camera. I was wondering if anyone could relate any good/bad experiences with digital cameras to help me figure out just what is a good digital camera for Touring cyclists . . Basically what I am looking for is something that is simple to use, the ability to zoom somewhat, decent battery life (more than 30 pictures) rugged enough to carry in a handlebar bag and not have to worry if it is getting beat into pieces . .

Thanks for any advice!

I carry an Ixus v3 made by Canon about 2 years ago.
This image is almost to scale.
http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/IXUSv3/index-e.html
One of the best buys I've ever made.
So tiny if fits in the back pocket of my jersey, I've a 128MB flash card which
holds about 3-4 minutes of movies with sound or about 100 images.
A 2x zoom and combined digital of over 6x. Rechargable battery with charger
so you can charge it in a hotel or pub/restaurant in about an hour.
Carry it in a small loewpro bag and you won't notice it in your bar bag.
Works superbly with an iMac and iPhoto.

Similar to Sid Kelly's I have the Canon Elph (Elph, for US market). When looking for a zoom, always look for specs on the optical zoom, not digital. Digital zoom means nothing....you can digitally 'zoom' into your image on your pc at home.
I am in the market for something even smaller with a max of 3X optical zoom in the 3mp range. I personally also find that a viewfinder is not necessary as I use the monitor to frame and compose shots 99.9% of the time. I can now understand why Nikon came out with their viewfinderless digicam a few yrs back.... Back then I thought to myself who would want to buy a digicam with no viewfinder....
Sony's new almost credit card sized camera with a huge 2" monitor looks appealing but I have no use for 5mp of resolution.
The search continues..

George

By brother-in-law just bought a Canon 4.1MP Digital Elph from bhphotovideo.com - product link (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=336967&is=REG). It's a great little camera with a good battery life and a 3x optical zoom (I agree with The Fixer - ignore the digital zoom number. I've turned off digital zoom on my Canon G2 as it just tends to stuff up the picture, and I can zoom using cropping in Photoshop at home). He's been backpacking around Asia with it for the past few weeks, and is very happy with all functions.

I am with you on the Digital zoom feature. . . I guess I should have mentioned this is a 6X Optical zoom. Digital zoom is a waste and very misleading! So others won't make the same mistake I made . . This is a Fuji S-3000. 3.2 MP w a 6X Optical Zoom.. . . . .

The well-received 4Mp Canon A80 has just been discontinued. Prices for the inventory that's left are in the $250-299 range (orignally $400), so you might consider looking at its specs and hunting one down locally if it fits your need. Good NiMH rechargeable batteries last long enough to fill a 512Mb card (just under 250 shots at best quality).

I tour with it in my handlebar bag. Spare memory, batteries and a small charger go in the panniers. You can use the A80 in point-and-shoot mode or take control of any settings you wish.

You mentioned wanting to switch to higher pixel count. You may want to consider a 5 Mp camera, then, because "4" is really only 3.87, and "3" is really 3.15, just because of the way the pixel counts work out. That's only a 23% advantage, while "5" works out to 5.04, or 59% greater than for 3Mp.

Lew

p.s. You might have a look at the Fuji forum at dpreview.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1012

Sign up and you can ask specific questions of other users of your model. You may be able to tame that beast after all.

Also, with respect to touring: If you're going to be on the road for a long time, you should take two memories (I have two 512Mb) which you can use alternately. Take the full one to the next Walgreens/Walmart/whatever and sweep its images onto a CD, which you can then mail home. The other memory serves during the days until you find such a facility. Ditto, batteries: take an extra set, along with a small charger to use in motels or restaurants along the way.

Here is a thread I posted on this topic late last year, it might provide some insight.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=40560&highlight=digital

Here's the skinny...Olys and Canon Digicams rock. The only Fujis that really seem to get any kind of real critical acclaim are their higher end models. Canon's get a lot of press, and there's a good reason for it. Olympus keeps a little lower profile but those who know photography know that Olympus is known for their amazing glass (lenses).

I bought a point & shoot Pentax Optio 33WR. A nice feature for me was to be able to use AA batteries. I already had a good charger and several 2100mAh NiMH-batteries for bike lights, so I can just continue using those.

I did try to use the camera with the included alkaline batteries - they died during the first evening as I was getting familiar with all the features in the digicam. Guaranteed, they were some el cheapo brand, probably been on the shelf for some time, too. Nevertheless NiMHs are SO much better.

Re: ruggedness. The Pentax WR series are waterproof to 30mins in 1m depth (JIS7 specs) which is very convenient when I go kayaking.

And for some reason the thing also connects nicely to my Linux workstation, even though Pentax documentation only says Win / MacOS. Linux sees it as a removable SCSI drive, but so what? I can read photos from the camera and write them back, if need be.

--J

By brother-in-law just bought a Canon 4.1MP Digital Elph

I have that camera also. It's very small, the battery-life is awesome, and it takes great pix. Moreover, it can take a beating. I've taking this camera on teeth-jaring mtb rides, with no complaints to date. The ONLY thing I'd want is more optical zoom, but I guess there are trade-offs to be made. Anywho, I rate this camera very highly. :)

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the best camera, so I won't offer one.

I will however list features I look for on a digital camera.

Since I travel to countries where they don't take 110V, and often stealth camp I don't take anything that requires recharging. A camera that takes 2 AA cells would be best. Very compact cameras tend to give 'red eye' because the flash is too close to the lens. Get used to it and learn how to remove it. More than 3 megapixels is probably too much camera, even if you lower the resolution to get more shots. I don't plan on downloading images while I'm away, so choosing the right media card and carrying an extra is good. A very expensive camera encourages theft. I travel light so I would prefer a camera that can also play MP-3s so I won't have to carry a separate player.

When it comes to brands, everyone seems to have their own preference. I have used many digital cameras and have observed that the lenses on the Sony seem to be inferior, Fuji's seem pretty good but I have noticed a few manufacturers advertising famous European lenses such as Leica and Karl Zeiss. Never mind the damn features, I want a good quality lens!

You can get digital zoom of close to infinity with any camera, grab the picture upload to computer, open up photoshop and PRESTO!

i have a s5000, i was going to get the s3000. but i am really happy with my s5000. its a 3megapixel camera that can interpolate to 6mp, and also has 10x optical zoom.

I use an Olympus mu400

4 mega pixal
Weatherproof
fits nicely in the back pocket of my cycling jersey
can be easily operated by one hand whilst cycling along (something I have done on several occasions)

I think this camera retails for about £300 ($450?)

Or you could look at the new style cell phone which have cameras built in. They are starting to get towards a more suitable number of pixels now.

We have a Canon A70, 3.2 megapixels. It is really good. We've used it for over a year and hundreds of photos. I've taken it on numerous trips and hikes. It's hard to beat. Of course, the A80 will give you an extra megapixel.

Canon's autofocus technology is really good, and overall the camera is easy to use.

Friends of mine who are pro's use Nikon but they've been unhappy with the mid-range cameras. I believe that they love the D-70 (or is it D-90?) but they paid 1800 CAD for them. I'd go with one of the Canons, perhaps the A80 or the Elph.

I use a Nikon Coolpix 4300. I think we paid about $500 US for it. Megapixel is 4.0 and it does a good job in controlled conditions, but performs very poorly in lowlight and taking pictures of just about any kind of action because it writes very slow. Battery life is okay. I probably would steer people away from it, especially for use touring.

I just recently bought a Canon PowerShot Digital Elph S410. Great camera, small, compact, easy to shoot one-handed while riding, fits easily in a jersey pocket.

Stokell makes good points about what cameras to use. I'll mostly second them. Stick with standard formats, whether we're talking batteries, memory/storage or software. My camera takes AA batteries, some kind of ubiquitous compact flash(?) card and looks like a disk drive when plugged into the computer. I don't need any particular vendor's software, batteries or media. If I get a mac, or format my computer for Linux, I know the camera will work. If I can't recharge my batteries, I know I can buy AAs somewhere - or buy additional rechargables at sam's club. When I need another storage card, I can shop by price or reputation from competing mfrs. Its great. Pick a camera that'll give you the same choices.