Digital cameras

[ReCycled]

Tis the season so it's time for me to get a new digital camera. My Canon is 6 years old, 5 meg, cost me $800 then, and is now giving problems with the lens transport system. So It's cheaper to buy new than repair. Here's a bunch available at a popular Big box electronics store. I'm rather stunned that you can get 10 meg for a hundred bucks, but I don't know anything about this batch of cameras. Anybody here have any recommendations on these or a reliable, inexpensive camera?
Thanx....

[[BTF]RottenRose]

A lot of MP is not what it's all cracked up to be. Yes you can have larger pictures but what you are paying for is the sensor. I can't say that I know much about the different ones that are out there. I can say that at least the sony cyber shot has a good one and canon can be trusted. I like a high shutter speed so that if you are taking a picture that someone is moving it can easly get a clear picture with light to no blur. Optional zoom means that you have really good zoom because digital zoom sucks imo. Color is important, I would say if you can get into a store and hand each you are thinking about getting that would be your best bet. You can test out the quality of each and see the features for yourself. Get something you'll be happy with and will last you sometime.

The last one on the bottom is a DSLR. That is something I'm looking into getting because you have more control with your pictures. I do art photography so I like to have that control. Also normally DSLR's can take RAW pictures. RAW fills are pretty much a digital negitive (like film negitives). This means that you can "develop" it in a program like lightroom. Though the draw back with DSLR cameras would be the lenses. Zoom len sucks imo, but it works because it's normally what they sell you. Though if you don't want to mess with the lens then it's really you'd be wasting your money getting a DSLR that you would put on auto focus that you get the same result with a point and shoot.

It all comes down to what you are doing.

Hope this helped,
RR

[The Happy Friar]

I have a Rebel XT.  ~$500 on e-bay with two batteries, 4gb card, body, lens, charger.

Almost all the manual stuff on SLR's now is available in point-and-shoot cameras (but maybe in a menu vs a button in the body).  However, the biggest difference is the lag time between button push & the sensor taking the image.  On point-and-shoot's there's normally a slight delay, SLR is near instant. 

They normally come with a standard lens (don't let "standard" fool you: you break it you're out ~$300!).  They have auto & manual focus (mine's a flip switch).  I can use the auto focus, flip it to manual & takes pictures pretty quick, most likely quicker then with a PAS camera.  The zoom/focus on mine is also on the lens ring, VERY nice.  Much better then the button focuses/zooms (like on cheaper cameras).

[ReCycled]

Thanks for all the info. I checked out each of those cameras in the ad and they were all decent but each one had one serious drawback. So I'll continue to research. Panasonic seems to have a decent selection. I don't care about the ones that can shoot hi-rez video - I'm just after good quality, accurate pictures in an uncomplicated camera.
 

[The Happy Friar]

SLR's can do that.  I find it easier then PAS cameras.

[ReCycled]

I used to be really into film photography back in the 80s. Even prefered using a manual camera (Olympus OM1) over auto-cameras. I took loads of good pictures and slides. But the size of the PAS cameras these days is quite handy and digital has advanced so much that I've gotten used to them and the ease of editing. So I know SLR's are superior (variety of quality lenses etc) but I like pocket-size too.
But I might be tempted anyway. The Canon EOS has dropped in price as well as others.
 

[[BTF]RottenRose]

I've worked with the Canon EOS xsi (I thought the raws looked a little to much like a jpg). It was pretty good. Even the older ones like the 20D is really good. I love that camera. I hope that you find that camera that fits the bill though.