Buying digital camera.....need input
 

I am looking into buying a digital camera but I first want to do some research first.
What are some features that I should look for? I know prices can vary greatly so want something in the mid price range. I don't want some cheap thing or the top of the line stuff either.
I just need to know the basic things to look for in a digital camera because I know nothing about them....at all

if you find out , let me know , iwant to get one too, but not a 500.00 one:eek: , just a cheap one that works good, cya. :D :D

Well, I have a Sony that holds floppy disks. That is very convenient because you can take the floppy right out of the camera and put it in your CPU. It only has 1.2 pix though, if you've seen any of the pics I've posted it was with this camera... Clear enough but there is much better out there. My dad has a camera that you plug into the computer and its not quite as convenient and the screen on the camera is not as big but it has 2.1 pix, its much clearer. What is it you want and what are you using it for? The higher the pix the higher the digitial quality. You figure out what you want and then go to www.pricescan.com or any of the other price watch services on the web and you are sure to save some money... then again, Skyler may be able to save you a buck and steer you in the right direction. There really is alot to choose from nowadays, 3.1 pix is the best I saw when I was looking around but I'm sure you can get better now.

TOSHIBA 4 me!
 

Ive got the Toshiba PDR-M65 and I love it~!! Its the 3.3 Megapixels..the bigger the M.P. the better quality your 8X10's will print, if you are into printing out your pics! I"ve been VERY happy with it. Also came w/ some cool software for storing your pics in Photo Albums....makes it easy to keep them organized, resize them and print them!

I got mine on sale, bought 2 cards for it, and a carrying case. I think I paid about $400 for the camera. It was onsale. Goes for about $499. (I hope I remember the price right!) I think I dropped over $500 on everything...or closer to $600. Its been money well spent though....It takes EXCELLENT pics....

Good luck! TNT :cool:

, oh yeah, I also can plug it into my pc, and I bought a little thingy later on that I can plug into the PC instead of using the camera and killing the batteries...you take your card, and plug it into this 'mouse' looking thing, and you download the pics directly to the PC....

sounds like a killer camera tnt, out of my leauge, but i remember the pic's you have posted were great, so i guess you get what you pay for, but that one is more camera than i could get, h- pipe instead? lol. :D :D

That's out of my price range too. I am looking to spend around $200-250

I got a sony that uses memory sticks for around 250 at best buy !!

What model is that Sony? I'm kind of partial to Sony products.
How many megapixels does it have?

I'm pretty sure mine hold the memory stick too but it cost around $650 but that was 2 years ago. Best buy has some good deals but I'll guarantee you can find it cheaper on the web. You would be amazed how much cheaper. I was looking at digital camcorders and best buy had it for $1000 and I found it on the web for about $400 less, from what I can remember.

it really is too bad that Sony's DSC-F707 Cyber-shot Digital Camera isnt in your price range...cuz for $1000, nothing beats it...my dad has one and we took a picture in a pitchblack cave on a tour...the tourguide called whoever took the picture an idiot, but it turned out perfectly...the quality is also incredible...so if you can find a cheaper Sony, i say go for it!

Mine is the Sony DSC-P31 I paid 219.00+tax and I also got the service plan on it. It is 2.0 megapixels!!!!!!!!

Hope this helps some!

See Ya,
Karen

Polaroid 2300Z Digital Camera. I have one, and I can highly recommend it. It's a 2.3 Megapixel setup, and the entire kit is very comprehensive. I got some Interstate rechargable batteries for it, and a charger for them. The camera will completely fill a 64MB compact flash card before the batteries wear out. The camera seems to be very efficient. Don't buy a camera that uses a floppy disk. They are extremely limited in memory. If you have a free USB port, the USB connection is just as user friendly, especially if you're using the very good software provided with the camera. Takes a little bit to get the hang of it, but I found it to be just as good as my Adobe Photo Deluxe that came with my HP Scanne, and faster with less conflicts.

8x10s print out very good on my HP Deskjet 932C.

I recommend you pick up a 64MB compact flash card, and the rechargable interstate AA batteries. You'll be able to take 75 pictures at a time. 68 on the 64MB card, and 7 on the 8MB card supplied by Polaroid as part of the kit.

http://www.polaroid.com/products/pro...&FromListing=1

Here's a Consumer Guide review.

http://products.consumerguide.com/cp...x.cfm/id/21942

BTW, I've had an extremely hard time locating these camera's at this time. A couple on Ebay. I picked mine up on Ebay brand new this past fall for $180.

I use a Fuji FinePix 2300 with 2.1 mega pixels the image file size is 1,600 X1,200 pixels , Digital telephoto is 2.5x with the 1.6-inch monitor . The camera uses the Smart media cards. The cost was $279.98 on sale at $248.93. As far as I can tell the camera and softwear is very easy to use and understand . All I need is a good editing program. Make it a point to get the the rechargable batteries. ( I use the NiMh type).

I like the Sony Line myself.

Check out the wide variety that we sell.

http://pcpros.rite2u.com/scripts/cgi...SCName=Cameras

Skyler

Rechargeable Batteries!
 

I agree.....Rechargeable batteries are a MUST! Its waay to expensive to keep buying them! Ya, the Smart Card thing Is what I was talking about. The name of the thingy I stick the card in that plugs into my USB port is the San Disk, Image Mate. It is VERY easy to use. :) TNT

I use an Olympus D-460 w/ a 32 meg Smart media card. At it's highest quality setting, it holds 73 pictures. It has a 3x optical zoom lens, and a 2x digital telephoto, so essentially you have a 6x zoom. It's only 1.3 Megapixels, which looks perfect up to a 6x8 print. I have printed 8x10's that looked great, but I give alot of the credit to the Epson photo printer. If you plan on printing pics any larger than that, get a higher MP count.

I bought mine for $299 a year and a half ago, and use it every day. I also bought a Ray-o-vac rechargeable battey charger at K-mart for $10, and 4 Energizer rechargeable AA batteries. I later discovered that the Energizer's suck, and bought a set of Ray-o-vac rechargeables, which last twice as long, and I use the Energizer's as back-ups.

Much of my stereo and video equipment is Sony, and I do like their quality, but my Grandfather always preached to me about Olympus cameras, which is the only reason I considered it. It was the best bang for the buck when I bought it.

Take care,
~Chris

I had the same prob with the energizers Ray-o-vac is the best IMO. Unless you have the older 'grey' ones they dont last at all.

Anyone know how the price is on that 32 meg Smart card (or a 64 )? I have an 8 and the 16meg but need at least 3 of the 32's (at a decent price ) for vacation photos. Any Ideas?...... Anyone?

I have an Olympus 3.3 megapixel cam and love it. It was expensive, but the quality is great! I can only say good things about this cam except that when it takes movies it only saves them in .mov format, and I hate quicktime! :( I have premiere from adobe to convert it to mpeg, but I wonder why they picked that format! :confused:
Good luck, once you go digital, you'll never go back... my scanner is so neglected now!
btw I have the C-3000 Zoom
Click here

Induction, why not just get a 128?

I like the look of the New Olympus 4000 or something. 4.0 megapixels, and I've seen it around for $499, kind of pricey, but it has good features and that's a darn good resoulution.

$$$$$$$$$$$$ ?

Bang for the buck. How much is three 32's going to cost?

I don't know you my guess on a 32 is around $45. ?

LOL! Yeah, mine is too.

I love Quicktime, but I guess I'm supposed to, being a Mac guy and all. I love it's editing features.

Take care,
~Chris

I use Quicktime too, So why is it you can edit like a mad man & I can't ? sigh....

And don't say its because Im a woman or Ill get shelby ta kick ya in the knee! lol:D

Check your personal email.

i can honestly say, Olympus cameras are great. i own the C-700 Ultra Zoom. It has 10x optical and 2.7x digital zoom. it makes movies with sound. has USB cable and an A/V cable too! i have a 128 meg Smartmedia card. roughly in standard quality mode(640x480) it will hold over 1000 pictures using the 128 meg card. it can hold about 250 pics in Super High Quality mode of 1600x1200. it has and LCD viewfinder AND a 1.5" LCD screen so you can review your pics and movies. all i can tell you it is awesome. here are some of the specs:
C700

82GT, when shopping for a digital camera, the first thing you look for is zoom. there is digital and optical. ALWAYS look for the higher number in OPTICAL! Digital means crap! you can have a 4x digital and still wont be as good as a 4x Optical.

See what kind of memory it takes. Smartmedia, Compact Flash and Memory Sticks(Sony is the one that only uses them that i am aware of). Smartmedia gets pricey and Compact seems a little cheaper.

See what megapixels it is rated at and how they rate it. go here Counting Megapixels . Finally, take time to use the camera in the store or buy it and if your not satisfied with it in so many days, try another one(some stores do this). i did alot of research before i bought my camera. Dollar for dollar to this day, i cant find nothing that beats the C700 in its price range of $500 retail.

good luck!

If you want to check out some REAL reviews, try www.dpreview.com and www.steves-digicams.com. They actually give you sample pictures, and reasons each camera varies in the photo they take. I spent about 3 months realizing that Canon makes the best cameras for the money (surprised nobody has mentioned them yet....), and bought a Powershot A20 (2.1 megapixel, 3X optical zoom). I also got a set of Maha Energy Corp. rechargeable AA's with their 3 hour rapid charger (better than anything Ray-o-vac ever made). I paid $320 for my camera on eBay, but you can have a new A40 (same thing with movie mode) for $299 or less at Wal-Mart, eBay, online stores, etc. A good cheap memory is made by Mr. Flash USA and can be had at www.newegg.com. 256MB's of CF memory was only like $86 when I bought it. Anyways, that is tip of the ice berg, PLEASE CHECK THE SAMPLE PHOTOS before you buy. Numbers don't mean squat when buying a camera.

So,when I buy a camera, I will still need to fork out more cash for the memory?
So we're talking, $250-$300 for a decent camera, plus about another $50-$100 for memory? Plus whatever for rechargeable batteries and charger?
That's going to get expensive really quick unless some of this stuff comes with the camera.

You'll get a set of regular batteries and a small memory card with the camera.

My Olympus came with an 8 mb mem card, and a usb cable.

Don't go under 2 megapixels, I'd look to see if there were any affordable 3 megapixel cameras out there. The camera will come with batteries and a small memory card, allowing you to maybe take 10 pictures at the higher resolutions. The higher the optical zoom the better, like srv1 said, digital zoom is crap. Using digital zoom will lower the quality of the picture, and it can be easily done after the picture is taken with a computer. I have an Olympus D-490 with a 64mb card, and I too use rayovac rechargables. Seems to be a popular choice.

I was in Wal-Mart the other night looking at digital cameras. I don't know about the rest of the wal-marts out there but ours didn't have crap to choose from. There were a couple cheapo ones and then one or two high dollar units. I'll check out Best Buy.

You can save 50% buying online. Go play with it in the store, and then go home and order :D The Sony Mavicas are easy to use and convenient, but if you are really picky about picture quality, nothing beats a Canon...although they are slightly out of your price range.

http://pcpros.rite2u.com

:-)

What did Wal-Mart have in the way of "cheap" cameras ?
I only ask because my first Digital camera was a Kodak EZ 200 that I found there. It turned out to be a good "first camera" for me and is now the camera that is kept in the stang for multi-purpose use. ie. Those moments when you wished ya had a camera handy, see a cool car photos ,and If ever get into an accident photos( hope i never need it for that but who knows)
The camera only cost 57 bucks and was worth it (Yes I know , why not just save it and buy a better camera, I did but it paid off for us and our kids as they also use it for school trips , projects ect. )
Anyway, this camera holds op to 128 pictures, Captures Videos,has a self timer, both hi and normal quality pics. and doed frame by frame pictures. It has no flash , but what can you ask a $57.00 first camera to do?!

here are a few pictures that were taken with it :

another one:

Indoors (shoping)

I don't know what brands they were. As soon as I noticed they were well below 2 MP, I moved on to the next. The cheapest one I saw was ~$90, again, I don't know what kind it was. The most expensive was a Sony model for $350

.