I`m searching for a digital camera, but the trouble with these quests is; wich one :confused:
My knowledge about these digital goodies is below zerow, so a few questions ahead,

What storage medium is most common?

The camera will be used for cycling and travel, what resolution should i take?

My price range is between 200$ and 350$ USD, any experience or recommondation is higly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark:

I bought my digital camera 3 years ago now and I am not up on the latest and greatest. But I would suggest a minimum of 3 megapixels if you want to print any pictures over 5 by 7 inches. Anything less could be very disappointing to you.

BJ

I haven't researched since September, when I bought one for my girlfriend. At the time, I chose the Canon Powershot S110. It has most likely since been upgraded/replaced - so look for what's out there similar. We are very happy with her camera.

CompactFlash seems to be the most common medium.

Good Luck!

Dax

Generally good digi Camera brands are generally the brands that make 35mm camera plus guys like HP.

CompactFlash is the most common, though SmartMedia and Memory stick (sony)

The thing is though, that resolution is not necessarily the most important feature of a camera. Its the quality is what really matters (I'd rather have 1.3 of great quality than 3.1 of crappy). That being said, I would recommend that you hunt around and you should be able to find a Kodak 2.3MP camera that takes great shots in the upper end of your price range.

Hope this helps!

I know very little about photography and not much more about digital photography and cameras.
I picked up a Casio QV3000 (3.3 megapixels) last December on www.ubid.com for $329US (Casio was selling it for $800US at the time). Great camera. :thumbup:
I was looking for something that was at least 2 megapixels with a large enough storage medium to hold at least 30 "economy mode" images.
The Casio came with enough storage (16 MB) to hold 89 economy mode images (768x1024).
It came with easy to use software for downloading images and manipulating.

You might find a bargain at one of the online auction sites.

Here is a sample picture (economy mode) I took with the Casio.

you also might want to peruse www.dpreview.com and www.steves-digicams.com for some reviews of the latest and greatest.

beware that these have a lot of hard core photogs and as such will tend to slightly deflect your stated budget upwards; just like with bike budgets.

you'd probably want to nail down your wants (zoom or no zoom, size of camera, pricing, will you be mostly printing the pictures or emailing/posting on webpages, how many pictures do you think you might take) and go from there. as with bikes, leave a little bit of money for accessories such as extra batteries (if they use rechargables or perhaps to BUY rechargables), bigger memory card (because the factory never includes a good sized one), filters, bag, tripod or anything else that you might need for your needs.

have fun!

bt

A good resource when buying digital cameras is the digital camera section on www.cnet.com. Identify the price range of cameras you are interested in and read the user reviews. I found that the user reviews are a pretty good guide as to the performance of each camera.

I don't know alot about digital cameras being a confirmed
retrogrouch , but I can tell you that for zoom you
want optical zoom as well as digital zoom. The optical
gives a much clearer picture.
My wife has been looking into them and had some
rather good sites with information. I'll get the links
and post them later.

Marty

Lotek's got it right. Optical zoom is very important. The higher the resolution, the more you can "crop", enlarging just a portion of your image, without losing too much image quality. Cameras without good optical zoom depend on digital zoom. digital zoom is like holding a magnifying glass in front of your TV. It's bigger, but looks crappy. Optical zoom is what you have with a zoom lens on a film camera. You get it close, then commit it to pixels.

Even low cost cameras are starting to use memory cards that can be very large. 128 MB is not uncommon.

I have been using digi cam for about 3 years now.

Just a couple of thoughts:

1. Is your computer up to processing and storing very large image files - perhaps as large as 8 mb's? My little old laptop is NOT, while my desktop can handle a larger file more easily. My camera has 3 modes (unlike some which have only two) for economy, middle and high resolution.

2. I have totally enjoyed, and highly recommend a camera whch will play directly through your newer TV (or if an older tv, through the VCR into the TV). My camera hs an "automatic slide show" feature, and it is a great way to share pics with family and friends on a 27" or larger TV. I also use this to show pics to my class when I am teaching.

3. I recently bought a 64 mb compact flash card for about $32.00. I can take almost 600 economy pics, 300 medium and about 150 or so high res (my camera is 1.2 mp). Memory cards are now so cheap, especially if very common like compact flash.

4. Having an AC connector greatly saves battery life.

5. My camera can load directly into the computer through the serial port, or, much better, by using a compact flas card reader for my desktop or a PCI slot adapter for the laptop.

My camera is now old, but it still meets my needs for web photos and general use.

Have fun.

Megapixels, shmegapixels.

There are always bigger and better cameras out there, but most manufactures are marketing the 2.2 or so range. Unless you will be printing 8x10 photos, don't bother buying up in megapixels.

You need to decide if you will be posting pictures online or will you be printing. That will make a difference in the resolution you use.

My last suggestion is make sure it is USB compatible.


I just bought a Sony MVC-CD200. Great 2.2 megapixel camera. It records onto a 3" CD-RW, which is compatible with most computers. My only gripe is that it doesn't have a view finder.

Thanks guys, that`s some real info
I wrote it down, so i can compare different camera`s, thanks again!

I have an Olympus 3020 zoom (3.34 Megapixel useful). The camera is awesome. It uses smartmedia memory and can be had through mail order with U.S. warranty for about $410.

How about Sony digital cameras? They look so cool, but the price is up as well. What do you people think about it?

Go for quality of lens rather than number of pixels first. You can print 5 x 7's from 1.3 that don't look too bad but to get near conventional photo quality at that size you really need 3 megapixels, and that's only 'near'. If you're printing you're own the quality of the printer and paper makes as much difference. For web work a good quality 1 megapixel is more than adequate.

www.epinions.com has good reviews (and a few dodgy ones like most sites).

Richard

Toolfreak,

A good place to look is Circuit City if you have one in your area. I bought a $600 Toshiba PDR-M70 3.3 megapixel camera that does sound and can even create a little movie with for $200, because it was an open box buy. I got the full mfg warranty, but I did have to buy a couple things that didn't come with it so I have about $300 in it. It takes smartmedia, which I also use for a portable MP3 player and have a 128meg, 64meg and 32meg card on the 128meg card I can take as many as 1331 pictures in the lowest mode and 160 in the highest mode.

So take your time and check around there are plenty of great deals and camera's out there.

Hp 315. 2.1 mega pixels, 64 meg flashcard memory 4 AA batteries. All the shots I've posted on this forum, and others, with the exception of my website are all shot with this camera. I figure I'm posting to the Net more than I am publishing/printing.

If you are thinking of printing look at a new printer though too. The resolution on the printer will make all the difference too.

Brand: Look at digital cameras manufactured by companies that are estabilished in the regular camera business. They have the most experience, and will be using their own lenses in the camera. I'd suggest Canon myself.


Picture Quality: What's been said so far is great, but make sure you read the small print. Many cameras claim to have as high as 4 or 5 megapixels, when really they only have a couple. The camera itself may only take 2.1 megapixels, and then the software inside enlarges the picture! It just enlarges the image, which does nothing more than use up more memory space- limiting the amount of photos you can take!

In your price range and for your needs I'd suggest something around 2 megapixels. This is lots of quality for standard 4x6 prints, and great to view on your computer.

Look for: I'm running out of time, so I'll just post a couple quick tips.

- optical zoom is very important, digital will get the job done by also decrease image quality

- find something durable, preferably with a metal case. my canon is very small, but feels heavy compared to some other cameras I've tried

- good, rechargeable batteries (like lithium ion) are much better than standard AAs

- a good camera case is very important! it will keep your shiny new camera looking that way for much longer

Good luck with buying your camera! I started with digital photography a little under a year ago and I'm never going back. I can take pictures of anything, without wasting any film. The cameras themselves are expensive, but you'll actually save money over time because you won't be developing all that film!

Toolfreak, try this site, it seems to be a good resource. gmason put it up in another thread in response to my query.
https://dcresource.com/

i recently did a lot of searching and bought a camera last month. what every person wants is different and i could write about 3 pages about stuff... but i'll try to be shorter...

i bought the Canon Powershot S200 (Ixus 2 in Europe) which retails for about €400. it's a 2 pegapixel camera with 2x optical zoom plus VERY good lighting control. i am very satisfied. For the price i could have gotten more pixels, but i found the lighting quality more important -- from my research, i found Cannon best, Sony good, plus a few others like Nikon and HP and Kodak... plus, the Canon is about the smallest you can get for less than $600(Nikon has one that's the same size but different shape and Sony's is slightly larger)

for me i wanted:
* at least 2Mp - i don't need more since i'm not doing large pictures or a professional - the normal photo printouts look good - occaisonally i can see some striping from simpling residue (horizontal stripes in my case)
* some kind of OPTICAL zoom --- a digital zoom just increases the pixel size so you loose quality, but an optical zoom is what you want - on the other hand one of my friends favors NO ZOOM because there are fewer moving parts to break...
* quality of the sampling and lighting - as i said, many 3Mp cameras take crappy pictures and lots have problems with flash photos (mine takes incredible pictures in pitch-black or mixed or low light - very impressive for an auto) - read reviews or try some samples first or stick with the ones i lested above
* good battery system

make sure the camera comes with all the hookup to a computer, probably USB --- and assume from the beginnning that you will need at least 32MB of additional memory -- i bought a 64MB for $70 to go with my 8MB the camer came with. my girlfriend got 194MB on sale for $90 -- without the cheap memory you'd be spending $200+ if you can even find a card this large!

as i know there are 3 basic types of memory cameras use: the Compact Flash, the Sony Memoystick (slightly more expensive) and the Multimedia/Compact Media whatever it's called (about twice as much as the others). if you pick the expensive memory type, assume an extra $50-100 depending on how much extra you will need to buy.

also look at the batteries: the best come with their own litium battery and built-in charger (Sony, Cannon), some use regular AA-size batteries so you will need to buy NiMH batteries and charger if it doesn't come with it b/c regular battieries die too fast.

my final choice came down to a used Sony P-5 (3Mp no zoom), a Sony P-3(2Mp, Digital zoom only) or the Cannon for about the same price and i chose the Cannon -- small size, 2Mp, 2x Optical zoom, good featues and lighting and quality, rechargable battery system, cheapest memory system

email me if you want to know more or have a specific question

ToolFreak:
Nathank's reply was pretty good, as others. IMHO you need to decide what you want to do with the pictures once you have them. If you plan on large prints, than 3 MP there abouts is a good choice, but if you plan on a web site or emailing mostly, 640X480 is good. I post mine on a web site, and don't print too many, so I use 640X480 mode most of the time. Hence my 1.3 MP is perfect in most cases. And I love the 8X optical zoom. What I do find is digital zoom has a tendency to fuzz the pictures slightly. If I was going to take my camera on my bike a lot, I think I would go with one of those Canon Powershot's for the small size and completly inclosed metal case, plus they take pretty good pics. I find if I carry the camera more, I take more shots because if I don't like it, I just delete it.
Just my 2 cents.

Fofa - what make & model of camera do you have. I too am thinking of getting one, and a strong optical zoom is high on my list of priorities.

I have a Casio with the swivel lens. I really like that option when in crowds and such, but I do find the lack of a view finder a problem in strong sunlight. Qv-8000SX is the model. I bought mine in spring 2000 and love it, I bought it because of the 8X zoom. But like anything else, you have to define your need. I would like to get a smaller one (not that my Casio is that large) that I can put in a shirt pocket and really carry around all the time. Just can't afford it right now.