I am a high school yearbook adviser, and I need to buy a new camera (or two) for my staff to use. We can't spend a lot of money, but I need a camera which will take pictures quickly. I'm not sure what the terminology is, but I need to be able to push the button and have the picture take as soon as possible. We have to take action sports shots, etc., so we don't want blurry photos. Any suggestions on specific models, or even what I should ask/look for when I go shopping, would be greatly appreciated! Ha ha, on the yearbook staff too, and I just bought this camera for it. What a coincidence.
So, enough of that, I got the canon SD 750 about a week ago, and I love it compared to the previous cameras that I have owned. I bought it because of the high review rates for the price of $299. One of the many great features is it take 1 second to turn on, and your ready to take a picture, so you can almost instintly take a picture, once you know your subject. It also has great features like color accent mode or color switch mode. You can also use a sd card and it can hold well over 1,000 pics with a 2 gig SD card. It can aso take well over 20min of video with the same card. This card can cost about $45. The camera itself is really small and thin, for all the features it has. You can download pics to your computer by using mini usb cable included with the camera. Overall I think this camera would be perfect for tourism, sport events, events, and protraits. I really believe buying a camera is an individual choice.
The person needs to read alot of reviews on cameras and learn as much as they can from the internet.
Go to the store and hold them and try them to see what they feel like and how they take pictures.
I can only give a suggestion of what to look for in a new digital camera.
Good Luck
my suggestion
go to yahoo shopping
digital cameras
digital camera GUIDE
be sure to check titles on the left side
the guide should answer your questions The only way you can avoid the delay time between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken in a digital camera is to use a Digital SLR. They are expensive. Look at this list of lag times and find one in your budget. http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-la...
Or, use film. Here is the PERFECT camera for you!
You should get the PENTAX Optio W30. Its slim, sleek, stylish, with 7 megapixels, has lots of features like a macro setting for pictures up to half an inch away! Plus its waterproof down to 10ft for 2 hours!!
I have had the PENTAX Optio W10 for a few years and I have never had ANY problems with it at all! It is such a great camera and I LOVE it!
It has TONS of features, VERY good picture quality, its sleek & stylish. And its waterproof! You can see the camera here: http://www.pentaximaging.com/products/pr...
I have had the PENTAX Optio W10 (a slighty older version) for a few years now and I absolutely LOVE it!
(If you half press the button and hold it half way, it gets the camera ready to take a fast picture, then right when you want to take the picture, press the button fully and it takes the picture right away! The camera also turns on in about 2 seconds!) The concepts you're looking for are: focusing time, and shutter lag. The first means how much time the camera needs to find focus in a given situation, and indeed there are some better than others, but anyway you can always try to use a part of the scene with good contrast (not a flat wall or something without details), as much light as you can (most will need to 鈥渉unt鈥?for focus a bit longer in low-light situations), and even pre-focus, by pressing the shoot button halfway, then waiting for the moment to press it full. As for shutter lag, it's the -usually shorter- time between you pressing the button full, and the camera actually taking the picture.
Cameras with good ISO performance tend to have a good pre-focus response, so models like the Fujifilm F series, and particularly the F30 and F31fd, will do nicely in that area. They also have little shutter lag, that is, once they focus, there's less than a tenth of a second until they make the actual picture. Casio cameras also tend to have negligible shutter lags, as do Kodak and Sony cameras, but I don't know that either of these three have also good focusing speeds.
This page has a list of several models' shutter lag times, which can be ordered from better to worse:
http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-la...
But, as far as I see, it just measures shutter lag, not pre-focus time, and considering that these numbers sometimes differ from those offered in other photography sites, I'm not sure at all that these ones are accurate. Anyway, they seem to be a good guide.
For more specific performance measurements, you'll want to check DPReview's analysis of many cameras:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/
You'll usually see timing measurements in the 鈥淭iming & Sizes鈥?section that most of these previews have. Look for the 鈥淗alf-press Lag (0->S1)鈥?numbers, at wide angle and telephoto (that is, without and with zoom), 鈥淗alf to Full-press Lag (S1->S2)鈥? and if you want the sum of both, that is, just how much d*mn time the camera takes, 鈥淔ull-press Lag (0->S2)鈥?
Imaging Resource and DCResource usually offer these kind of measurements, although the latter's are somewhat less specific:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM01...
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/allrev...
Anyway, keep in mind that fast pre-focus and lag times do not necessarily mean that you'll avoid blurry photos, it just means that the camera will take the picture pretty much the moment you press the button; but even the fastest camera in that respect can still produce blurry pictures if, regardless of its quick reaction, the shutter speed (that is, exposure time) was set to slow. To 鈥渇reeze鈥?action you'll also need a fast shutter than can go as high as 1/1000 seconds, 1/2000 or even more; and considering that these very fast exposure times mean that little light will be gathered, what you probably need in the end is more like a camera that has both a fast lens (one which can be set to very wide apertures, that is, low 鈥渇/鈥?numbers), and a good ISO performance (to compensate for the fast shutter speeds, while keeping ISO noise to a minimum). Therefore, again, a Fujifilm camera might be what you need. If you don't need a lot of optical zoom, check out the F30 and F31fd; if you need a lot of manual control functions but still in a small-form factor like the F30/F31, then look for the E900; and it you absolutely need a long zoom, then the S6000fd or S9100 might be the one you need. |
