<font color="green"> Yeah, another off topic post. But this time I need help for someone else. My mother is looking to buy a digital camera but we know very little about them. I do know that the more megapixels the better. But the more MPs the more money is involved and she doesnt want to spend a lot on this. Its gonna be used mostly for everyday stuff not a magazine spread. Although, I'm sure I'll be taking pics of cars, people, etc and want them to be good despite my lack of ability. Ive looked at a lot of good 3.2 MP digicams and found that most are under $300-$350 so thatll help a bunch. Mostly Im thinkin of you folks who use a digicam often enough to know what to look for as far as zoom, media storage, etc. A few that seem to be priced well and at least 3 megapixels are listed below. I know a lot of you know about this stuff. Shell really appreciate being informed enough to buy a good camera the first time out. Shes used one of the Stylus models and liked it so I threw in the 300 and 400 just to see if anyone here has compared them to one another and if theres much difference between them besides megapixel count. Kodak Easyshare DX4530 - 5MP - $300-$350 Fujifilm Finepix S3000 - 3.2MP - $300 Canon Powershot A70 - 3.2MP - $300 Minolta DiMage E323 - 3.2MP - $200-$250 Minolta DiMage Z1 - 3.2MP - 10X Zoom - $350-$400 Olympus Stylus 300 - 3.2MP - $300-$350 Olympus Stylus 400 - 4MP - $350-$400 Sony Cybershot P72 - 3.2MP - $300 Any other suggested cameras? Thanks in advance, Neppy </font>
Funny you bring this up. We just went and bought the Canon A60 for $199. We didn't get the bigger higher dollar ones because we just use ours for basic stuff, like candid family shots or pictures of car parts on the HAMB and Ebay... stuff like that. We're not like ShortBus and Scribe where they use their cameras for a living... But I got the Canon because I've had a 35MM Canon for 12 years and it's been nothing but fanstastic including surviving about 10 drops and other untold abuses and it still works great. I don't expect to treat the A60 the same but I do expect it to last a long time... Travis
I just bought the Fuji 3800 today.It was on sale,about $300 US. It has alot of manual functions,as well as all the automatic stuff. Some of the lower end 3 megapixle cameras don't have the manual functions. A friend of mine has a similar model,and all the reviews I've read have been positive. More Megapixles will allow you to do larger prints with it looking grainy. I think 3 Megapixles is good for doing up to 8x10. When comparing zoom numbers,worry more about optical zoom.Most cameras come with 3x optical zoom or greater.Some of the lower priced cameras rely strictly on digital zoom.
My suggestion for a digital camera is the canon elf series. they are the size of a pack of smokes and can be taken with you everywhere. they are great for snapshots, swapmeets, etc. In fact the febuary image on the HAMB calendar was taken with my elf 110 and that was only a 2.0 mp! (note: that wasn't a straight print and had a little photoshop/genuine fractals help to get it to be that size.) but you get the Idea. I also have played around with the camera/computer interfaces and have found the canon software to be the easiest. It has a rechargable battery that takes about a hour to charge and last a long time, but I would recomend to get two their cheap. Much cheaper than to buy AA's al the time. A couple 128 or 256 cards and your set to go. Now for a warning! There are two major issues that digital cameras have not overcome. 1) most digital cameras record in jpeg format. Jpeg was a compresion format that was designed for the internet, and not sutible for long term use. EVERY time you open a jpeg it loses information and degrades just a little. I have had that happen to images that were less than a year old. To solve that problem you can do one of two things. A) convert all your images to either a TIFF or photoshop format right away. B) Burn the originals to a CD or DVD right away. In that process you will always have a 'LOCKED' original to work from. They second and most disturbing thing is and what the manufactuers do not tell you is. There is no long term storage of digital images. No ifs and or buts. The CD/DVD's we burn images to are a dye base product that can start breaking down (lose information) in as little as 10 years. If we keep our images on a hard drive then we run a high risk of a hard drive crashing wich will happen. Then only but expensive way to preserve digital images is to convert them to film. One other consoling factor is on selective printers and inks (epson is the leader) is that they have archvial based ink and paper that if kept out of UV they can last 50-80 years or so they say. Hope this helped.
There a couple things that narrow it down really quick: 1. Do you plan on taking candid stills or more action shots? The more snapshots you use it for the more unnecessary most of the higher end ones are... 2. What format do you plan on keeping the pictures? If its on cd or drive on cpu the megapixels really don't matter, they won't be very big and will be grainy due to the computer naturally. If you plan on printing them, like UnkleIan said, 3 mpx is good to about an 8*10, but if printing a lot, the more mpx the better. 3. How much will it be used concerning battery life? If it is goin to be used a lot (especially with the lcd screen on instead of actually lookin through the camera like old times) you would be better off with a lithium ion battery. Although more expensive, they save you a lot of money and hastle as opposed to constantly replacing akaline camera batteries. **One last thing, if you are going to print them, it is better off to just go to walmart or your local photoshop and do them individually, printing them on photo paper on your computer is costly in both paper and draining your printer ink hella fast...
Santa gave me a Nikon 3100 and I researched it and found it to be one of the better ones out there for around the $300 price range, with three plus Pixel's. And it is real small (fits in the pocket), and I have dropped it twice already so it is durable. Now I just need to upgrade my Hard Drive to handle the better pix that I will be taking. Also make sure that it does not take a one off battery. Make sure that it takes AA's so if you are in a bind, good ole' store bought will work. Someone told me that also. Question to those who read this that are computer guys. Will windows 98 second edition handle a 120 gig hard drive? I have the Ghost program to copy it over but have been told that 98 only can run up to 80 gig. Chris Nelson Kansas
I would agree with sodbuster. I also picked a Nikon, but went with the coolpix 4300 for the larger megapixel size. It was about $450, though. I think it's come down since, to $400 or around there. It's a great camera. On the other hand, all the editors at our company use nothing but Canons.
I received a Minolta DiMage F300 from Santa for Christmas. It has 5 MP and cost $299 at a Ritz camera store. There are 1200 locations nationwide. It has all the bells and whistles, an inch thick owners manual and an inch thick software manual. Both of which were important to me so I could learn ALL the features and benifits of the camera. The camera store also teaches free classes regarding the operation of not only the camera but the software too. 5 MP is probley alittle overkill but it was the same price as most of the 3.2 so why not. One of the other important features was that it came with not only a lithium battery but with rechargable ni-mh batteries as well. Go here an compare all the models your thinking about.
After a post about this came up a couple of months ago I bought a Minolta Dimage Z1. It's only 3.2MP,but it has a 10x optical zoom, and, like Denise's, all of the bells and whistles. It's $400 at best buy and the like, but I just looked around the web and found a place with good reviews that had it for $289! I am still in the "tinkering" stage, but so far I LOVE IT!
Sodbuster, I put in a IBM 120gig in my mac its sweet and its very fast. I can put up to 3 hard drives in my mac internaly so I believe you should put at least 2 in your pc. so keep your original install the second and then you can transfer everything over. if you want to run windows 98 you just need to 'partition your new hard drive BEFORE you put anything on it! You can make as many partitions as you want but you probaly only need to do 2 or 3 ( partions are splitting up your harddrive into sections they will 'appear' as seperate hard drives but its really just one.) keep your operating system on a partition under 20 gigs and split the rest up how you would like. p.s. like I said before I prefer the canon rechargeable batteries just buy a couple and switch them out, WAY cheaper than AA's IMHO.
Thanks for the info on the computer issue. On the double AA's, I meant in case you are stuck in Wendover, UTAH during speedweek and you camera needed recharged, you can buy some AA's for a back-up. With the "odd" batteries that are out there if you lose juice, you are outta luck. Chris Nelson Kansas
I also have a coolpix 3100.I do like it, it takes perfect pics BUT most of the pics I take I would like to post on the HAMB.Problem is its 3.2 mp and all the pics come in above 70,000 byts.I have tried setting the cam and card to its lowest settings, but still too big. So I have to shrink them to the smaller size witch makes them a small pic on the HAMB.My old crappy aol camera I had no problem.Is this because of to many megapixels? I know this isnt the place but if someone knows how could ya message Me or let Me know.--Feder
FEDER, I think that you can go to Image settings and scroll down to the lowest quality called TV mode 640 (640x480) and it should work. Chris Nelson Kansas
SODBUSTER I tried that with no success. After I process the pic I have to drop it to 320-4?? and thats when the byts fall and the pic gets small.And after you shrink it you cant make it large again and retain the clarity.Didnt mean to hijack this post.sorry--Feder
<font color="red">FEDER..ifin ya are on an MSN groups site like the HAMB chat or the COFFINS site you can post on there then resave on your comp then post to the HAMB...thats what I do! R E D M E A T </font>
NEPPY where the hell have you been... sorry i cant give you advice to your o/t post... haha but I can say Merry Christmas /happy new year! Tuck
<font color="green"> Sooo... basically we could get any of the ones I listed and be OK... I appreciate the help guys, I'm sure we'll be able to pick a good one. I'll try to get her started soon so I can use it. Not that I have much to photograph. Tuck, I've been lurkin a lot lately. Got nothing to contribute so I stay out of the garage. Just occasionally use up bandwidth for this stuff. And Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you too. </font>
I'm with autocol...dpreview.com has alot of good straightforward reviews. For what it's worth, I just got a Canon S-50 and and the supplied battery charger comes with a regular plug attachment that flips out switchblade style. Very handy and beats the hell out of a bunch of bulky AA's! Proprietary rechargable batteries help keep the size of the camera down too!
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