Buying a digital camera?

I own the Pentax Optio 555 which is a 5MP compact camera with a 5x zoom. I'm quite happy with it but it looks a little out of your price range.

Oh and 5MP should be plenty for most people. You can easily get 8x10 or larger prints with it.

Quote:

From Wikipedia A megapixel is 1 million pixels, and is usually used to express the resolution capabilities of digital cameras. For example, a camera that can take pictures with a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels is commonly said to have "3.1 megapixels" (2048 × 1536 = 3,145,728).

So the difference between 5 and 7 megapixel cameras is the maximum resolution you may set it to, personally, since I dont really need anything much bigger than 1600 × 1200, I dont pay much attention to it, more megapixels is good, but to me Optical Zoom and how well a camera performs on low light situations is something to look for before taking megapixels into account.

I have Canon PowerShot G2, its really good.

I was in exactly the same boat as you not so long ago and i went for the Minolta Dimage XT, about 200 quid, but will be much cheaper now.

This camera is a fantastic little camera:

- Extremely slim with a zoom built vertically inside.
- Compact in general so very portable.
- Very very quicks startup.
- Takes a special battery so no AAs.
- It is only 3.2mega pixels, but hey even now there isnt need for more than that unless you plan to do real photography, and i mean long distant bird spotting style stuff.
- The quality of the image is brilliant, not so brilliant at night, but that is the case for most cameras in this price range.
- The controls are the easiest i have ever seen on a camera.

Now i know lots of people are going to big there own cameras up but if you want one u can take anywhere, startup in about 1 second and slot in you pocket then this is the one.

Here is the link

Let me know what you think,

Take care,

ace

Here are some important points:

1. 5 megapixels is 2800x1800 pixels which is way more than sufficient for good quality 4x6 pictures (if you plan on printing them).
2. Check the battery life and what kind of batteries the camera uses.
3. "Digital" zoom is not really zoom. It might be convenient, but you get better results cropping and resizing in a paint program. If you want zoom, get "optical" zoom (but it can be expensive).
4. Some cameras do not come with flash memory -- that will cost extra.
5. Check how the camera connects to the computer. It's probably USB, but you should make sure that you can connect it to your computer.

Awesome digital camera review site

I myself will be picking up a Canon Powershot A610 when they are released in about a month.

5 megapixels is too much power if you're just going to be taking pictures of your friends and yourself. It'd be like buying a 1 GB graphics card and then using it on a computer where you'll only be running Word and Excel. 3.1 Mp is generally plenty. 2 is okay if you'll just be posting them to the Internet; 1 Mp is quite grainy at full size and generally not suitable for printing.

You can get a suitable digital consumer camera for between $200 and $300, which usually comes with about 64 MB of memory. If you want to take a lot of pictures, you'll want to upgrade; that'll cost you more.

Quote:

Original post by Aqualung Awesome digital camera review site I myself will be picking up a Canon Powershot A610 when they are released in about a month.

I second that link. dpreview.com and megapixel.net are 2 of the best digital camera sites I have found. I recently purchased a Canon Powershot A510 and am VERY happy with it. Although it is only 3.1 effective mp, it is the best camera for under 200$ USD which was my price range. Tons of manual features, 3x optical zoom, compact.. I love it. You can get 2048x1536 pictures, which is good for printing out 5x7 or so. I didn't buy it for printing pictures, so that wasn't a concern for me. Some recent pics I took with it (the latest 4 galleries)... although they have been scaled down for size issues. I'll be adding my Coldplay pics (from last night) tonight, and I think those show off some of the features of this camera very well ;) Also, it was one of the only cameras in my price range that allowed unlimited duration movies (with sound.. although the sound quality is quite bad esp at the concerts i tried it at.. the bass kills it).

Anyways, check those sites out.

Here's a 3rd vote for Dpreview, but also check out Fred Miranda, where you can get lots of great user review on lenses and camera bodies.

If you're looking for a consumer digital camera, you can never go wrong with Canon, but let me suggest the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9:



I fell in love with it on first sight - and bought it after some research into it. It's perfect for my day-to-day snapshots.

width = sqrt(4000000*megapixels/3)height = 1500*sqrt(megapixels/3)

So, for the difference between 5 and 7 MP, that's 2582×1936 versus 3055×2291, and here's a picture to compare, because I really don't have much else to do at the moment:



[Edited by - smart_idiot on September 1, 2005 10:05:01 PM]

Be *VERY* VERY careful to read the specs closly. There are *lots* of cheap knock off cameras out there on the market that claim things like being 6mp+, but in fact are only 2-3mp, they simply scale the image up internally and save it. Utterly stupidly dumb, but they do it.

As mentioned, you cannot go wrong with canon. I personally have a 2004 model ixus 430 (4mp) and it's fantastic. However, recently, I got a chance to try out the 2005 model ixus, and *my god* it's possibly twice as good, twice as fast and twice as thin, I couldn't believe it (As my camera is already quite awesome for what I paid). However, 150 pounds ain't going to stretch to one of these :/

3mp with a good lens is what you want. 3x *optical* zoom at least.

Also, do not buy without putting in some research on the exact model, plus similar models.

I highly recommend steves digicams review site. I spent probably 10 hours on this site, looking through the various models I considered getting. Very useful.


[smile] *PICTURES I'VE TAKEN* [smile]

this is my favorite picture I've taken with my 4mp canon.

this is a 2mp image taken with my dads panasonic lumix DMC-FZ1.

And this is what you can take with a 12x optical zoom [wink] - that was from the same panasonic lumix camera. Truly an awesome, awesome lens. (that was taken about 2m from the duck)

I have the Sony Cybershot T3 and quite happy. My only complaint is it's poor performance on darker areas on a few meters distance, the camera lens needs to be open for a longer time so any movement (like, a mosquito landing on the camera) will make the image blurry. Daylight pictures it's chrystal clear. On a sidenote, it's the sexiest camera there is! :P

Oh, I've heard there's a T7 or T9 now. Didn't like it, visually. Mine's sexier ;)