STORM2K

Guys, I need a little help...

Now that my computer is finally running up to speed and without problems, I have been seriously considering getting a digital camera, but I don't know where to start looking. What I like to take pics of the most are street scenes and skylines, with a little weather on the side (when I actually have weather to photograph ). I hear that the best way to gauge a high-quality camera is by the number of megapixels? I want clear, sharp pictures, which is something I can't get with the scanner I have. I also would like something with a fairly high zoom factor, for when I have to shoot something far away. What are the best brands out there? I want high quality, but I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars either. Like perhaps a $400 limit, at the very most. I know I could look for all this myself, but I just don't have the time and patience to start from the beginning all alone. Plus, it seems that whenever I buy something, it turns out that it's a crappy brand and a huge mistake, as was the case with my e-machines computer.

Can anyone help?

I don't own a digital yet but it's on my "for me" list for after Christmas. I've checked out several kinds and the best reports I've seen are for Olympus. I wouldn't go any lower than a 3.2 megapixel.

If you can, wait until after Christmas. The new models are due out and you can check to see what kind of deals will be offered after the first of the year - you may be able to find a decent mid-range megapixel at a bargain rate.

Here's a good source for camera info http://www.dpreview.com/

My sister is a semi-professional photographer and has both a Canon and Nikon digital along with her traditional 35mm cameras. Both companies make fine digitals and are competitivly priced.

As far as sharpness, the higher the megapixel rating the closer to film quality you get. The current limitation on digitals is the quality when you blow up a picture. For most typical uses (4x6 prints) you won't notice the difference. In your price range you're looking at a 3-4 megapixel camera. Maybe even a 5 megapixel one if you watch for Christmas deals!

As far as the zoom goes, digital cameras usually have 2 different types of zooms, optical and digital. The optical is like a traditional camera's zoom lens. The digital zoom is just a way of capturing a portion of the optical image which has the net effect of zooming in closer.

While digitals have come a long way, they still don't offer the clarity of a traditional film camera just more convience.

Do the cameras come with both zooms? If not, which produces better quality?

Most come with both types of zooms. Optical is probably better from a photographic standpoint but the digital is a nice convience

we have a cannon s230, the only problem is that it is not fast enough. my little one was in a christmas dance this past week-end and my oldest was taking pictures, she was having problems with it being to slow to get the picture she wanted. its a great camera, but wish it was a little faster. we bought it on sale in the 300s. my oldest wants to be a photographer.

I've heard that, too, Stormy, and that could be a big consideration when purchasing a digital. Ask what the delay time is - I've seen some that are as long as 12 seconds. That's a long time when you are trying to get an "action" photo.

Thanks for the replies...

I guess I should add that my plan is to get the pics I take with the digital camera up onto a website. I'm not really interested in having a physical photo made from it. I'll keep that for my 35mm camera.

One last bump for final suggestions. I'm going shopping for a digicam tomorrow. Another thing I am looking for is something that takes good nighttime shots.

Optical zoom is definately a better quality feature than digital zoom. If you open a pic in a photo editing program and zoom in on a portion of it, you will notice that the pixels also become larger. This is the same effect as digital zoom. The pixel count stays the same and the size of the pixels just increases. With optical zoom, say for instance you took two pictures of the same object. In one picture, you shot it normal, in the next, you used the optical zoom to zoom onto a particular spot on the object. You then proceed to open both of these pics in a photo editing software program. If you were to zoom in on the normal shot photo so that the particular spot that you zoomed into optically were the same size, you would see a definate difference in the quality of the image.

We just had our daughter's pictures professionally taken by a friend of ours who is a photographer for our local paper. He has a digital SLR with some great optical zoom lenses. His camera, however is only a 1.3 megapixel camera. The pictures turned out just as good as a film camera. There is no way you can tell the difference with the naked eye. Even the 8x10s. All this quality from a 1.3 megapixel camera. It was due to the optical zoom he used.

Good luck in your search. Another feature to consider is storage of the pics. What type of media would you like to use. Sony makes some that will store the pics on a disk, and now even a mini cd-rw. Others offer flash memory that you have to use a card reader or peripheral device to upload the pics into your computer. The upside of these though is that the will store many more pics on a smaller sized card.

I have a digital with less than 3 megapixels. It is terrific for shots that you send through e-mail (I'm sending you a sample), but limits any prints pretty much to 3 x 5 or 4 x 6 max. It has the digital zoom only which is useful for cleaning up jpegs to be sent via the internet, but almost useless if you want to make prints from adjusted photos. I suggest a 3-4 megapixel as a minimum. My next ne will be a 4 or 5. One HUGE advantage is that you can order ONLY the photos you want online. The cost of photo printers is not terribly expensive but color cartridges can make it much more realistic to send them out as opposed to printing your own.

That's my experience....

I've got an Olympus D-370, GREAT Camera indeed, y'all have seen some of my photos I'm sure. With this camera, you can change the pixels for different uses, SHQ=1280x960 pixels for High Quality prints, HQ same as above, SQ1=1024x768 pixels for email attachments, SQ2=640x480 for lots of pictures. This camera came with a 42 pix memory card (a $99 value). Total price w/ shipping, $376......The memory card is GREAT, take it your local WalMart, Kmart anyone with a photo maker, you can make studio quality prints for a 1$ a sheet, 8x11!

Dennis

Our family has two digital cameras, for both girls. My husband found them on refurb lists. That's how he got his iPod too, on a refurb list. When I have time, I'll ask him for a link. You can save half by buying products that way. His iPod should have been $300, but we got it for $160. The factory goes over each item, so they're often better than brand new out of the box. Both our kids camera's have given us no trouble and we got them cheap-cheap, compared to how much they would have cost brand-new. This info is in case you're trying to save money, and find a bargain. They are out there if you know where to look.

Mary

Well, I think we settled on a Kodak EasyShare DX4530. It's 5.0 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, 3.3X advanced digital zoom, and has 32MB internal memory. We got it on sale for under $300. I'll let you guys know how it turns out!

Ok, I took some sample pics and I am REALLY impressed with how they came out. Even pics at 1.2MP were still very sharp and good quality.

Here is one at 1.2MP:


Here is one at 5MP, utilizing all zoom capabilities, both optical and digital:


And here is a regular 5MP pic:

azsnowman wrote:I've got an Olympus D-370, GREAT Camera indeed, y'all have seen some of my photos I'm sure. With this camera, you can change the pixels for different uses, SHQ=1280x960 pixels for High Quality prints, HQ same as above, SQ1=1024x768 pixels for email attachments, SQ2=640x480 for lots of pictures. This camera came with a 42 pix memory card (a $99 value). Total price w/ shipping, $376......The memory card is GREAT, take it your local WalMart, Kmart anyone with a photo maker, you can make studio quality prints for a 1$ a sheet, 8x11!

Dennis

Dennis, I have the 360L and the HP photosmart 130 printer. Sweet combo for someone looking to make quality photos at an affordable price!

Lyle, you got up and out early and/or you didn't take long to find the camera you wanted.

Thanks for the info. I'm starting to think about getting one too. It seems that in the photos above, the color is very saturated too. I like film cameras (see my thread in the Community forum) but it's not always easy to get good color.

Hey Pro......aren't the Olympus Cameras AWESOME??? I LOVE mine! Ed...the GREAT thing about a digital camera, you can manipulate the photos, change the tint, sharpness, contrast etc with the program that comes with the camera. For those of you that haven't seen some of my photos taken with my Olympus, here's a link to my albums:

http://community.webshots.com/user/azsnowman


Dennis

I got a Nikon Coolpix 2.0, 3x optical zoom, very easy and just "watch and click". Now it has been superceded by the latest 3.5 and 5.0 megapixel.
Nikon remains my favourite.

A suggestion: normally they sell digicam with an 8mb card. Buy at least a 64k, if u wanna have a good deal of shots.

Ciao
Paolo