Buying a Digital Camera..

[Hyperglide]

I'm gonna buy a Digital Camera but I don't know what's good and what's not. I want to know if you guys know any good websites with information on what's cheap and good quality. Also i would like to know personal experiences with your own Camera's and tell us why you purchased it and what you like about it.

I still don't know what Megapixels are (is that the quality of the shot?), I don't know if having Optical and Digital Zoom is really that much of a factor over normal Digital Zoom, and also how much memory is adequate to hold 50-100 pics? Is having a 1.5 LCD screen or larger pre-requisite and is a 1.5 or 1.6 area LCD to small for comfort?? Any other information would be great.. THANKS!

Also I was looking at buying a Hewlett Packard Photosmart 435 or a Kodack EasyShare CX7300 . I hate Sony, I used to buy all Sony and i've kinda sworn off of them because of their poor quality built products but Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P43 is hard to resist. Also it comes with NiMH batteries AND a charger. It's 100 bucks more than the other two I was looking at. Tell me why I should spend 100 more on the Sony one?? I know battery chargers are pretty expensive as are the batterys so that right there makes it a pretty good deal. But it's got the stigma of being a Sony following it. Enlighten me.

All those prices are Canadian $$, btw...

 

[emad]

I'm gonna buy a Digital Camera but I don't know what's good and what's not. I want to know if you guys know any good websites with information on what's cheap and good quality.

www.stevesdigicams.com - my favourite review site for cameras.

Also i would like to know personal experiences with your own Camera's and tell us why you purchased it and what you like about it.

Try it before you buy it. ALWAYS.
I bought the Sony Cybershot DSC-P100. It was a semi-cheap, pocket sized 5megapixel camera with optical zoom, good battery life, and slr-like features. The SLR type features and size were the key selling factors for me.

I still don't know what Megapixels are (is that the quality of the shot?), I don't know if having Optical and Digital Zoom is really that much of a factor over normal Digital Zoom, and also how much memory is adequate to hold 50-100 pics? Is having a 1.5 LCD screen or larger pre-requisite and is a 1.5 or 1.6 area LCD to small for comfort?? Any other information would be great.. THANKS!

Megapixels - those will determine the image resolution and the maxmum print size. 3.1 megapixels will be enough for you to make decent 8x10 prints. More megapixels = bigger print size and greater detail for photoshop work.

Take Optical zoom over digital. ALWAYS. In fact, don't ever read the numbers for digital zoom. All it does is degrade image quality by cropping the picture.

Screen size doesn't matter. Take what you like best.

Amount of Memory needed will be determined by how many megapixels you have and the quality of image you set the camera to take. I normally reccomend 128 megs as a starting figure (but buy it AFTER you spend some time with the camera).

Also I was looking at buying a Hewlett Packard Photosmart 435 or a Kodack EasyShare CX7300 . I hate Sony, I used to buy all Sony and i've kinda sworn off of them because of their poor quality built products but Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P43 is hard to resist. Also it comes with NiMH batteries AND a charger. It's 100 bucks more than the other two I was looking at. Tell me why I should spend 100 more on the Sony one?? I know battery chargers are pretty expensive as are the batterys so that right there makes it a pretty good deal. But it's got the stigma of being a Sony following it. Enlighten me.

For the cost, I'd say go with Fuji. They make the best damn cameras for the price out there. There is no competing with their entry level stuff. You can pick up a Fuji Finepix A330 for $198 canadian at Futureshop. It's even cheaper if you buy online. If you want better quality images, the Fuji Finepix A340 is identical in features and functionality to the A330 but offers 4.1 megapixels. The price of the A340 is $279 Canadian.

I reccomend these because they're cheap, offer good quality, and they have Optical Zoom.

I find that the HP cameras are pretty horrible in low light situations, and with Kodak, their entry level cams aren't *that* great. The sony is also not worth it due to it's cost and lack of optical zoom.

 

[CDailey]

*edit* Dammit, emad beat me.

For reviews and explinations of camera stuff, go to www.steves-digicams.com and www.dpreview.com

Check those two sites for reviews on the cameras you listed. It should help you decide. Also, go to the stores and check the cameras out for yourself. The camera with the best features may not feel right to you when you hold it.

A "megapixel" is the quality the camera takes pictures. The higher the megapixel count, the better the image quality (basically..there are a few other factors but it would only confuse you) and the higher the megapixel count, the closer the digital image will be in terms of quality to film quality.

A 1.5" LCD is fine. Bigger is usually better, though.

Depending on the megapixel count, memory cards will hold different ammounts of images. With my 4MP Fuji S5100, my 128MB xD picture card holds 132 pictures.

 

[KieranMurphy]

I still don't know what Megapixels are (is that the quality of the shot?)

Megapixels refers to the resolution of the CCD. The CCD is a special microchip inside the camera that captures the picture. Digital pictures are made of pixels, so the more pixels, the higher quality the picture. The megapixels quoted for cameras is gotten by multiplying the number of pixels wide the picture by the numbers of pixels high. So a camera which take pictures 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high gives a resolution of 1,920,000 pixels. This is just under 2 million pixels. So it would be advertised as a 2 megapixel camera. 2 megapixels or more is good, but 3 or more is even better. At 1600x1200 you could print your images at 8 inches by 6 inches at a resolution of 200dpi. That would suit most people's snapshots, but the more pixels, the better, and the bigger you can print your pictures without the quality decreasing.

I don't know if having Optical and Digital Zoom is really that much of a factor over normal Digital Zoom

Digital zoom sucks. Digital zoom means that the hardware in your camera takes the centre of the picture and "zooms" in on it by doubling it's size and using something called "interpolation" to make it look higher resolution. But it's nothing that you couldn't do with a decent software package and it reduces the picture quality anyway. Optical zoom is "real" zoom. That means your camera has a telescopic lens and can zoom in on the subject properly.

, and also how much memory is adequate to hold 50-100 pics?

It depends on the picture resolution and the amount of JPEG compression used. Most cameras have different settings, allowing you to choose different resolutions and different levels of compression (compression is used to make the pics take up less memory, but reduces their quality). My advice is to use the maximum quality settings at all times. It'll make your pics look much better when printed. You'll probably want to upgrade the memory that came with your camera. My camera (a 4MP Canon Digital Ixus 430, aka Powershot S410) came with a 32Mb memory card, but I upgraded to a 128Mb card which will store about 60 pictures at the highest quality settings. This is enough for me as I can just deleted the crap pics as I'm using it and only keep the ones worth printing or saving)

Is having a 1.5 LCD screen or larger pre-requisite and is a 1.5 or 1.6 area LCD to small for comfort?? Any other information would be great.. THANKS!

Mines got a 1.5" LCD and it's fine. It can be hard to tell if it your picture is out of focus, but you can zoom in on the picture so see fine detail and decide if it's okay or not.

My advice would be to go a site like Steve's Digicams and check out his reviews. He gives all the cameras he reviews a thorough working over.

My advice: don't buy a camera without reading a couple of reviews of it!


KM.

 

[Hyperglide]

Ya, i've already had all my questions answered at other forums but thanks for the help here guys! Also I performed lots of research at epinions.com and compared all the cameras that were in my price range.

I've decided on actually another camera that's on on my original list.

I'm getting a Kodak Easyshare CX 7330. It's got a nice 3x Optical Zoom 3.3 Digtal Zoom, a nice 1.6 LCD Screen, good shutter lag, good on batterys (yes i'm getting NiMH's guys), and it uses MMC/SM cards not those crappy Memory Sticks (which Sony cam's need *sighs*). Also it's 3.1 Megapixels which is great. Good quality and shouldn't eat to much memory. Also it's got 16 MB of embedded memory IN the CAMERA. Not like the Sony one which gip's you by giving you a crappy 16 MB stick which isn't expandable on. I plan on getting a 128 MB MMC card so i'll have 144 MB which is good for around 130 pictures. Sweet!

Lastly I'll still review Steve's impressions on the CX7330 and see what he thinks about it.

 

[TsLeng]

Why not get 256mb MMC cards.

They're dirt cheap at around $40. 👍

You'll need it if you take many pics.