Digital Cameras?

[kermitology]

Who better to turn to thean the bickering crowds of the Calgarypuck off-topic board when you seek the answers to life's questions.

I'm looking for a digital camera, I know very little of them, so I want to get the best one for my money. I'm willing to part with around $400 of my hard earned cash, made while posting on CP usually :P..

I don't really care about video capturing, I just want an easy to use camera that's fairly small. If it can take pictures with a colour filter, black and white, or sepia, that would be roxors!

CPers AWAY!

[BlackArcher101]

I'm stuck on the Canons
I have the Canon A70. Does everything great, just lacks the telephoto zoom

What's going to be your primary use for the photos?
Web graphics? Print? Posters?

[Yellefan]

I'll Second the Canons-- nothing comes close to them IMO.. I have an older S30 and still love it, takes some of the nicest pictures I've seen a consumer digi cam take.

[BlackArcher101]

Also, if you don't plan on printing anything over 8.5 x 11 in, then 3.2 MP will be sufficient. My A70 is 3.2 and I made a 8 x 1 ft poster, which is shown in my sig. If you want to see the uncompressed version or any other examples, let me know.

[photon]

Hard to go wrong with a Canon for sure.

Some great sites for reviews:

http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

[Pagal4321]

Good work Kermit, looking for a digital camera myself. What a smart man comming to CPers for advice.

[kermitology]

I'll probably use it mostly for prints.. I've had nothing but good experiences from my Cann Elph jr. But it's not digital! Keep the opinons coming!

[Dirty Mr. Clean]

Canon for sure!

[kermitology]

BA does the A70 have any kind of filter features.. the kind of thing I'm thinking of is everything is black and white except for one colour, like green for example. Or sepia?

[BlackArcher101]

Originally posted by kermitology@Aug 8 2004, 11:41 PM
BA does the A70 have any kind of filter features.. the kind of thing I'm thinking of is everything is black and white except for one colour, like green for example. Or sepia?

For filters, it has:

Vivid (more color contrast)
Neutral (kinda lessens the color contrast)
Low Sharpening
Sepia
B&W

[Tron_fdc]

Holy I'm ######ed. I don't have a Canon I have an Olympus C-750 ultrazoom. Just goes to show how much I know about photography!!

Yeah, I have an Olympus Ultra Zoom and it's pretty sweet. 4.0 megapixel with a 10X zoom, so it takes pretty crazy photos. I'm still learning how to set it up, though.

I went with a camera that had a powerful optical zoom over a digital zoom, which is what I would recommend. Get a massive memory card as well (256Mb) so you won't have to mess around with a bunch of smaller ones floating around in your camera case.

edited because I'm stoopid

[zarrell]

I have the a70 as well and agree that canon is the way to go. You can get the a75 for $400 and is the same as the a70 with a few more features (same megapixels - 3.2)

I've played with a few others since I bought mine last summer and no other camera fits in your hand as nicely as this canon.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally posted by zarrell@Aug 9 2004, 12:08 AM
I have the a70 as well and agree that canon is the way to go. You can get the a75 for $400 and is the same as the a70 with a few more features (same megapixels - 3.2)

I've played with a few others since I bought mine last summer and no other camera fits in your hand as nicely as this canon.

Agreed. These Canons fit your hand very well. Mine is easy to operate with just one hand. Index finger controls zoom and shutter button, while the thumb controls all the functions in the on screen menu.

Even the A80 is worth mentioning. I like the flip screen on it

[300spartans]

I have a Canon A75 and HIGHLY RECOMMEND it. It is not that different from the A70, the only major difference is a larger screen. For $400, you can get cameras with higher megapixel counts but with the A70/75 you are paying for a TON of features. Manual exposure and focal lengths, iso speeds etc...

Here is an excellent review of the camera and an overall excellent site for anything related to digital cameras.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/A75/A75A.HTM

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I'll also say nice things about Canons. Personally I use a Sony as that was my first digicam and when I replaced it it made sense to stick with Sony for all the accessories I had. The 05 Sony's have been shunk quite a bit making them nice and compact.

The Memorystick also gives you a nice reason to get a Grand Wega LCD rear projection as it has a MS reader conviently located on it.... ;-)

[firebug]

Seeing that this is my line of work currently, i will give a few suggestions.

Canon A75- what all the popular kids drive. Certainly a very good camera, but make sure to take an honest look at some of the other contenders out there. Pro's-Good picture quality, loads of features, cheap memory (CF), and a big screen. Con's- Large size, no rechargables included,

Fuji S3000- the best performance of the class, fastest lens (aperture wise), longest zoom (6x), best picture quality. Fewer features than the A75, a clunkier design, most expensive memory (XD).

Nikon 3200- as good a picture quality in the real world as the Canon, smaller size, less money, simplified design, includes rechargables, and has a two year warranty. Con's- slightly more expensive memory (SD), shorter battery life (only uses 2AA), no manual controls.

Olympus Stylus 300- (my fav.) Best all-around brand (Canon #2). Small, simple, stylish and weatherproof. Good picture quality. Li-Ion rechargable (best battery life), remote control. Con's- no sound with video, expensive memory (XD), no manual controls.

All of these cameras are less than 400, and all of them take a better picture than what you need.

You need to budget about $150 in accessories to make your purchase really usable. Memory Card, rechargable batteries, and a carrying case.

Brands to avoid:
-HP
-Kodak
-Sony (under $600)

I have sold over 500 digicams in the past year working part-time while going to school, and my suggestions reflect the responses of many of my customers.

Shop at a place like Vistek, the Camera Store, or London Drugs (I work at the store on MacLeod & Heritage). The people who work at these places know photography and are usually very experienced with cameras. Other places will tend to push products that are spiffed the best (Kodak and HP).

PS- Whatever you buy, don't shoot in the B&W or sepia modes. Shoot full colour and use your computer software to tweak it. B&W is much more difficult to shoot well than most people think. Doing it in post-production gives you much more flexibility to try different things eg yellow, green, orange or red filters. Plus, if you shoot B&W you can never get a colour version, while if you shoot in colour you can get any effect you want afterwards.

PPS- If you are really serious about photography, buy an old manual SLR like an Nikon FE, Pentax ME Super, or Canon AE-1. Your results will be far superior to digital, your composition will improve, and you'll have several hundred dollars more in you pocket to buy film and developing.

[notoepik]

My daughter had a Canon. The door to the battery compartment kept breaking. She loved the camera except that little problem. It was difficult to have fixed and broke within days of finally getting it back from repair.

I bought her a new camera for her at Christmas last year, a Kodak something or other with a 10x zoom. She really likes it, and it takes great picutres. She has taken 9000 of them since Christmas.

It looks like this one, althought I am not sure her exact model #. I will ask her tonight if you are interested in it more.

Kodak Camera

I have a Kodak too, a 6340. I like it, but it doesn't have the zoom hers does., And mine is older and larger in size.

Enough rambling B)

[InSutterWeTrust]

Just like everybody else has said, probably the Canon A-75 is your best bet. I sell Cameras my Self, I work at Saneal Cameras in Sunridge. But one thing to keep in mind when looking at a camera is the extra stuff you ususally have the buy. Im talking about An extra memory card for more pictures, Rechargable batteries (This is a must for digital cameras), and possibly a case for your camera. So its easy to spend an extra $100-150 on accesories on these cameras.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

At the end of the day, try before you buy as much as you can - buy the camera take it home and make sure you're satisfied with the camera and it's picture quality. Return the sucker if it's not to your satisfaction Costco and FutureShop are great in this regard - and stay away from the places with more sticky return policies (all of the smaller stores named above). Nothing beats forming your opinion on the matter.

Great example - based on a 35mm Olympus I had I wanted to try something out from their Camedia line... PQ was OK, nothing really beyond the others but the most annoying thing was the long boot delay and time the camera need to extend the zoom to operating length upon power up. That drives me nuts as I often need a camera FAST to capture a moment. Not stuff that's always captured in people's reviews and opinions.

Be sure to check Steve's Digicams and DCRP. Easily the 2 best review sites for digicams on the interweb.

[photon]

Oh, and here's a site where you can sometimes get good prices:

http://www.cameracanada.com/

I went there to find a good price and then got the store to price match it. Future Shop should price match it after taking shipping into account, but sometimes you can save some good $$ that way. I managed to get the Sony Store to price match them!! (I have a Sony DSC-V1).

http://www.henrys.com is another good store, and http://www.ecost.com is a good store in the US to get from; they have a Canadian checkout that gives you your final price CDN. Careful with warranties buying from the US though, I know for sure that Canon is ok, but not all warranties are transferrable.

Good luck and post pics when you get it!