I need details like really good brand, what kinds of things that the camera has (megapixels or something), how to know what a good kind is, etc. Thanks in advance for anyone's help! (And a really good price, I can't afford much.) It depends on what you want to do with it but since you are a beginner a nice point and shoot camera would be perfect for you. You should decide first how many megapixels you want which, one determine the quality of an image, that and lens quality and two, determine how much you can crop and enlarge the picture. 3.2 to 4 megapixels are good for 4 x 6 prints which is what most people use anyway and if you want something larger you will probably want to go to 5 or 6 megapixels, but mostly you won't be able to tell the difference on a 4 x 6 image. DO NOT buy anything with less than 3.2 megapixels.
Brands, steer clear of Sony since they use Memory Sticks (proprietary to them) so if you ever bought another camera you would not be able to use that memory with them, I never recommend Sony because of this. And, it makes upgrading to a newer camera easier because you can use the same memory with it. Brands you should look at, Kodak makes no nonsense easy to use cameras and they make docks and printers for them and Kodak is okay but would not be my first choice.
Canon, Konica Minolta and Olympus deserve a lot of your consideration, they make fantastic cameras with excellent quality and most of them take great pictures.
You also don't want anything that has only a digital zoom, you want to look for something that has at least a 3x optical zoom which is hard to avoid in all but the cheapest cameras. Digital zoom uses pixel interpolation to zoom the image resulting in poor quality, optical zoom physically zooms the lens out preserving image quality.
I suggest anyone looking for a camera read Cnet reviews and Steves-Digicams before making a decision.
One last thing, buy a camera that uses either SD or xD memory. If you think you will buy another camera in the future buy one that uses xD because it is becoming the standard but currently SD is the preferred format and it will not die any soon but a lot of the newer cameras are using only xD cards. Also when buying the camera, consider the price of a memory card, 256MB is good for a 3.2 to 4 megapixel camera and for a 5 to 6 megapixel or more camera consider a 512MB to 1GB card. I would go with Canon or Kodak. The higher the Megapixel the better quality it is. Look for something with optical zoom. Digital zoom does not actually zoom in. Well, of course you should get a Kodak x7440. It is a 4 megapixel, around $300, and has very good quality. It's not too tough to get a good camera at a great price.
Where megapixels are concerned, the bigger the number, the better. Buy a camera with as high a number as you can afford. It relates to the picture resolution. Higher numbers give you more resolution choices, so you can take good, better, and amazing pictures as you choose.
Also, try and get the highest optical zoom possible for your money. Digital zoom doesn't really mean anything--I'd ignore it. It will give you a better opportunity to take pictures far away and still look good.
Be sure it uses some kind of removable media--CompactFlash, SD card, Memory Stick. It will give you more flexibility to take more pictures of better quality.
As to brand, Nikon Coolpix is a great camera, and can be had for suprisingly little, especially if you shop around. Olympus, Sony, Minolta all make good products. You should be able to get something decent for under $300. Good hunting! I have been researching this topic for a few days now. I been to consumer reports, cnet reviews, pcworld, newegg, and several stores for price listings. Overall the 2 best in the $200 price range were the Canon PowerShot A520 silver and the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-W5. Really the Canon has more manual features than the Sony, but the Sony was pretty user friendly for those who dont need manual settings. The Sony was about $260 and the Canon was about $170.
Honestly if I was in the market for a new camera I would buy one of these two.
Good luck! Here is a website that i find very helpfull.
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/ Good answers here already; I'd add one consideration.
LAG TIME!
There's usually some delay between the time you press the button and the shutter actually moves. In some cameras, especially when batteries are low, this can be a long time: like, SEVERAL SECONDS! My first digital camera, an HP, was really bad about that.
Actually, a second thing: BATTERY LIFE. The aforementioned HP needed high-end AAs, and quickly ate through those anyway.
I now own an Olympus Camedia with which I'm very happy; it's good on both counts.
In general, I'd pay attention to time lag and battery life almost as much as resolution, as you go through reviews. No use in having lots of megapixels if the camera is operationally unusable. |
