I'm looking for a reasonably priced (maybe 200ish) digital camera that will take good pictures, is small enough to have on a trip and will still be taking good pictures a year or two from now.
Any suggestions? I know absolutely nothing about digital cameras or anything...
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
Take a look at the Fujifilm cameras. They have some 2 or 3 megapixel cameras that are very good. I would look for one with a wide range optical zoom lens. Ignore digital zoom range. It's virtually worthless.
Try looking at Costco, Sam's Club, etc. If you can't find what you're looking for there, look on line.
http://www.cambridgeworld.com or http://www.adorama.com are 2 of my favorite places. They are both reliable, but will not give you any real help in decision making. You have to know exactly what you want before you buy.
Last edited on Tue Apr 19th, 2005 12:36 pm by Mr. Versatile
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Panasonic DMC LC80
Discontinued but seem to be lots of them around. Great optics. I picked one up to keep in the glove box but find that I'm using it more than expected.
They were selling in the 700s range originally, got mine for 300CDN so should be in the 200s range in the US.
____________________
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams...John Barrymore
Chelly has a 2 year old Sony and it still works great(only a few falls and some light rain). Its fairly small and easy to cary. There is a new version of it now. Exactly the same size but the megapixels were bumped up. I think the new one is in the $250-300 range tho. check out Best Borrow and Circuit Shitty for deals. I got my digital video camera mainly because I got 2 year interest free deal. I'm paying $30/month for it but my minimum is $25/month. If they have that deal or similar buy around the $300 range and use the $200 to pay down on the card and than $20-30 month would be paid off in no time.
Gr33nlemon got a 5 megapixel cam for about 200-300 xmass of 2003 and its been working fine for him. Can't remember if it was Fuji or panasonic, or poloroid..
My mom has an Olympus but I know you don't want what she got ($$$$$$). But it is a great camera.
I love my Olympus digicam... unf. mine's like 4 years old so it's a bit large, but here's a couple I found that are in your range and look to be good quality/size, etc...
I know my camera's only 2.1 megapixels, but I still find it quite clear, so one with 4 or 5 would be crazy good, IMO. And these both have a decent optical zoom, like someone else mentioned, ignore digital zoom stats.
So this is the camera that I ended up with.
Somehow after buying a 200$ camera I still ended up spending close to twice that?
Should I really have bought this "USB 2.0 5 in 1 Card reader/writer"? I truly don't have a clue what it is.
And what about Best Buy's extended Warranty? Did I just get ripped off for $40 or is it truly worth it?
I also bought the 512 MB memory stick.
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
That's a good one. Just a personal note, I would have wanted one with a greater zoom range, but Nikon is a good name. It should work fine for you. If you use the digital zoom, IMO you'll be disappointed in the quality. Overall, it's a good choice.
____________________ If you can't read this, you're illiterate.
I haven't opened it yet.. cuz like I said I'm scared I screwed up buying it.
I don't know anything about zoom and the guy trying to sell me the camera was more interested in selling me things to go with it than about the cameras.
So I can still take every single thing back.
Want to tell me a little more about this zoom thing?
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
From the looks of it you did ok. If you look at all the other cameras in the $200 range thay are all 3x optical zoom except for 2 I saw while doing a quick look at the cameras. Bit In getting the extra zoom you loose out in the megapixels. Olympus is a good camera. If you have not yet looked at it there is a Minolta 3.2mp with 8x optical zoom http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6825803&type=product&productCategoryId=cat04002&id=1091101680600
The higher the megapixel the better photo quality you will get the clearer picture you will be able to print(provided you have a decent printer). You will also be able to print larger pictures with the higher megapixels, but you also need to take the picture in a larger format(selected on the camers). When printing you want to take a larger picture and shrink it down to size not take a smaller picture and enlarge it, you will get distortion and such. As for the zoom, I'm not 100% on this, but the optical zoom is kinda like the zoom from film cameras and the digital zoom is an extrapolation of what is far away. Kinda like taking the smaller picture and enlarging it to fit on 8.5"x11" paper. On digital zoom it is also hard to get exactly waht you want without a tripod as the slightest movement of the camera can make you loose what you want to take a picture of. Example (bad but it mag gat the point across) stand away from a light switch and extend you arm and turn off the switch with your finger. Easy right. Now put a 5 foot peice of 1/4" PVC pipe tapet to your wrist and try to turn off the same switch. Harder isn't it. Now think of your arm as optical and the PVC as digital. It my experience that is kinda like waht thedigital zoom does. Someone may have a better explination.
fx3 wrote: From the looks of it you did ok. If you look at all the other cameras in the $200 range thay are all 3x optical zoom except for 2 I saw while doing a quick look at the cameras. Bit In getting the extra zoom you loose out in the megapixels. Olympus is a good camera. If you have not yet looked at it there is a Minolta 3.2mp with 8x optical zoom http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6825803&type=product&productCategoryId=cat04002&id=1091101680600
The higher the megapixel the better photo quality you will get the clearer picture you will be able to print(provided you have a decent printer). You will also be able to print larger pictures with the higher megapixels, but you also need to take the picture in a larger format(selected on the camers). When printing you want to take a larger picture and shrink it down to size not take a smaller picture and enlarge it, you will get distortion and such. As for the zoom, I'm not 100% on this, but the optical zoom is kinda like the zoom from film cameras and the digital zoom is an extrapolation of what is far away. Kinda like taking the smaller picture and enlarging it to fit on 8.5"x11" paper. On digital zoom it is also hard to get exactly waht you want without a tripod as the slightest movement of the camera can make you loose what you want to take a picture of. Example (bad but it mag gat the point across) stand away from a light switch and extend you arm and turn off the switch with your finger. Easy right. Now put a 5 foot peice of 1/4" PVC pipe tapet to your wrist and try to turn off the same switch. Harder isn't it. Now think of your arm as optical and the PVC as digital. It my experience that is kinda like waht thedigital zoom does. Someone may have a better explination.
eh, I finaly broke it open shortly after I posted my last post. I'm really happy with it. I'm going back tonight however to return pretty much every single thing he sold me with the camera. I picked up a memory card NIB not refurbished off of Ebay for 33, so my total price instead of the 380 (or however freakin expensive it was) will be around 245 (after I pick up an extra set of rechargeable batteries because I guess we already had a charger which is also going back).
I can swallow that price a LOT easier than the 380.
Plus I'm having fun taking pics of my pups, and they're having fun trying to eat the camera lol.
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
Keep the case for it or get a case. Shouldn't be over about $10-$15. Gives you a place to keep it fairly safe and allows easy carrying of spare batteries and memory cards. Chelly's case comes in handy and even holds a few TF pimp cards
I purchased a 4$ Walmart case instead of the 15$ Best Buy one. I am not about to let this camera get ruined.
I took lots of pictures this morning already,had fun with my dogs.
Now I just have to figure out how to get them from the camera to the computer
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
The wider optical zoom will allow you take wide angle, (fit more stuff in the pic when you can't back up), as well as zoom in on subjects that are farther away. The less optical zoom range you have, the more limited you'll be in this aspect of your photography. Digital zoom allows you to zoom in digitally, but what you're really doing then is just enlarging the pixels that the picture is made from. The pixels are those little square things, that you can see and become more obvious the more they are enlarged.
Another thing I look for, and usually insist on, in any camera I buy is that it operates on AA or AAA batteries. Digital cameras eat batteries for lunch. They use a LOT of power, especially when using the viewing screen instead of the viewfinder, (eyehole). It's no fun being in Zion National park, or at your daughters championship soccer game & having your batteries crap out. AA & AAA batteries can be found virtually everywhere in alkaline as well as rechargable nicads. The chargers are cheap, too. Button batteries & other specialized batteries may have to be special ordered. You might not be able to find one at Riteaid.
____________________ If you can't read this, you're illiterate.
We have NimH or something like that rechargeable batteries. The camera runs on 2 AAs and we have something like 12-16 rechargeables.
Overall I am still really happy with the camera.
I took back all of the useless unneccesary crap tonight and feel a LOT better.
So total price
199- camera
33- memory card (512)
4- case.
6- extra set of batteries.
total price 242.
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
Thought I'd bring a post back from teh dead!
Our camera broke and we had to have it sent back to the company to have it fixed. We were told it would be back in about 1.5 weeks,well we dropped it off JULY 23 and hadn't heard anything (any time I called and checked, everyone I talked to was absolutely clueless!).
Well yesterday I finaly got someone who kind of knew *something about our camera. mentioned that it was finished and shipped on the 13th of this month, well it was the 25th yesterday we should have had it. he said that he would call me back but I didn't hear anything from him. So today I took a little trip into Best Buy. I made it my goal that I was not leaving without a camera!!
Got there, talked to the manager and countless other peeons before they decided that they lost my camera! Holy crap was I mad! So they printed me off a new receipt and I could just pick up a new one. Well, I went back to the camera dept and the camera that I purchased I guess has been on backorder for quite some time now! I told them that I was not leaving their store without a camera, it was their mistake, they lost my camera and they had to replace it! So they gave me the next model up Nikon CoolPix 5600 insteadof the 4600. 5.1 megapixel and I forget the rest.
Still really pissed that it took so darned long, but I guess kind of happy that we got a little bit better of a camera without having to pay anything.
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
I swear you could probably see the smoke coming out of my ears! Surprisingly though, I stayed very calm throughout the whole time we were in there (probably just under an hour!) which is probably what got me a new camera.
I have to admit that the reason it was broken in the first place was from Shamu splashing it while we were on vacation (they aren't kidding when they say you're sitting in the 'splash zone'! lol) and having it on the beach so much.
____________________ "Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. "
Well, now I'm shopping for one because my Sony (I need to correct Dan here...I've had the Sony for 5+ years and it's treated me well) but she's dying.
I'm looking and really want to get something that I can add to and feels like I have a camera in my hand. nothing too small, but with a lot of lense options and when I take a picture it doesn't have a delay. I hate that about digi's
____________________ Get in, Sit down, Shut up and HANG ON!
Congrats on the upgraded camera, it really sucks that you had to wait so long and they Lost your old one, but at least you kinda kept your cool and ended up with something for nothing! That doesn't happen too often, enjoy the new digicam!
Nikon CoolPix 5600 insteadof the 4600. 5.1 megapixel and I forget the rest.
