Digital Camera, Advice Needed

[Philliesfan980]

Hey Everyone,

Over the Holidays, I've racked up close to $300 in Best Buy dollars. My Wife and I have decided to use these dollars to put towards a good digital camera. Like most of you here, I have a pretty good idea of electronics, but I'm fairly clueless on the camera scene. Here's what we want:

1. Something that takes quality (not "grainy" pictures). If possible I want the final product to not look like a digital camera was used in the production process. Some of my friends have digital camera's, and while the quality is ok, I can tell that they were taken with a digital camera.

2. In a pinch, I want something that I can print out on my color printer. I'm not sure how cost effective this process is (Does it really drain the cartridge when you print out your pictures? How much is the "photo paper"?)

3. Is there a major difference between megapixels? (For example, a Sony 3.2 Megapixel is about the same price as a HP 5.0 Megapixel camera). Or should I focus on brand?


Like most other electronics decisions, I'll spend the extra cash if I have to for a quality product. Any advise would be appreciated.

[Philliesfan980]

Bump.. Comon, I know one of the 16 who read this thread has some input on dig cameras.

[Subby]

I bought a Sony CyberShot 3.2 megapixel camera about a year or so ago. I use the Shutterfly on-line picture service to process the images (and as a photo album that I share with all of the relatives). The picture quality is great - but I don't print them out myself, so I can only assume they would look decent on a home printer as well.

A 5.0 megapixel camera is a lot more expensive, IIRC, and I just don't see the value there - 3.2 works great. I would spend the extra money on a 64MB memory stick - it holds 40 high-res images at a time.

I wish I could have the money back from all the photo-processing money I wasted when I was using a 35mm camera...

[Philliesfan980]

Thanks for the input. So what does Shutterfly do? Mail you the images? Totally forgot about the memory stick thing, hopefully those will come down in price soon.

[vex]

Me and my fiancee also got the Sony Cybershot 3.2 for Christmas and we really like it.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I got myself a Sony Cybershot 3.2 megapixel (I believe the model number is DSC-P72), and I love it. Recommended.

[Philliesfan980]

So just to confirm, I'm not getting a much better quality of picture if I upgrade from 3.2 megapixel to 5.0 megapixel?

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by Philliesfan980
So just to confirm, I'm not getting a much better quality of picture if I upgrade from 3.2 megapixel to 5.0 megapixel?

Well, from a literal standpoint, yes, you will get much better quality from a 5.0 megapixel camera. The wrinkle is that this quality difference will be minimal when printing anything smaller than 8" x 10".

Take, for example, identical image files that are 1024x768 pixels and 800x600 pixels. Shrink both images to about 160x120 and tell me if you notice any difference. It's the same idea with digital cameras. If you're going to print 5" x 7" or 4" x 6" pictures, 3.2 megapixels is plenty. If you're going to print much larger pictures, you'll have to step up to 5.0 megapixels or more.

[Primal]

When using your camera if you ever want to print you can always go to websites like http://www.ofoto.com/Welcome.jsp its $0.23 per image and they print the exact same quality as normal film. Just make sure you have the proper resolution for the size.

[Primal]

err $0.29 for 4x6 not $0.23

[Philliesfan980]

Is that a good price? It seems to me that I can get a roll of film developed cheaper than that, I think at least.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by Philliesfan980
Is that a good price? It seems to me that I can get a roll of film developed cheaper than that, I think at least.

It's been a while since I got a roll of film developed, but the beauty of a digital camera is that you can take tons of pictures and discard the ones you don't want. Like I said, it's been a while for me, but I always got frustrated with getting 24 pictures developed and then find out that I only liked 18 of them. That's a quarter of my film wasted. In addition, a digital camera would have an LCD screen to show you what your picture will look like before you do any printing. On top of THAT, you can also edit your photos (cropping, etc.) on your computer without having to worry about film developing, scanning, etc. Digital cameras really are convenient. The convenience may make the price of getting prints worth it.

[Primal]

Originally posted by Philliesfan980
Is that a good price? It seems to me that I can get a roll of film developed cheaper than that, I think at least.

What does a roll of film cost to develop? $6, $7 for 24 exposures?

I look at it as the online digital printing may be $0.01 or $0.02 more per shot but you get the exact pictures that you want developed. So in a 24 exposure roll you may only like 17-20 images, where with a digital camera you get exactly what you want.

[Primal]

Oh...

Plus with a regular camera you pay for the film and the development. Which would make it more expensive then just the digital development.

[Philliesfan980]

Good points guys, I think I'm going to pick up that Sony 3.2 MegaPixel one at BestBuy, model # DCS-P72. Its currently on the website for $242.99, plus it looks like there's a $30 rebate. Not bad at all!

[Subby]

Phillies -

Shutterfly is a full-service digitial picture management web site. Their software (shutterfly express) enables you to upload your images to their site. You can create photo albums on their site and do all kinds of photo management (editing, cropping, borders, red-eye removal, photo album creation, picture titling and descriptions and sharing.) I uploaded about 290 pictures to the site over the course of this year and can easily share as many as I want with friends. You or relatives or friends can order pitcures from the site - or do any number of picture related things - calendars, greeting cards, etc...

Having a central location to store and organize your images is nice - while I still keep everything locally, the ability to easily share the images on-line saves me hours and hours of web site maintenance and picture copying and mailing....

[gstelmack]

Almost any of the cameras 3 megapixel and up are good, as long as you buy a brand you know by name (either electronics such as Sony, or photography such as Kodak). I personally have a Minolta DImage S404 4 megapixel and love it. If you're going to use it heavily, I would get a 4 megapixel or higher because you can do great quality 8x10s, or crop other images to correct framing problems without any quality issues (I've also turned a landscape picture to portrait doing this).

Remember to focus on optical zoom and ignore digital zoom. You can do digital zoom with a paint program...

I would also highly recommend www.ritzpix.com for sharing pictures over the net and getting prints. Only people with an e-mail address on your list can view an album, the prints are cheap, and you can pick up prints at a local Ritz camera if you have one. We've used this site since our daughter was born in January and it has worked very well for us.

[wishbone]

I have a Kodak DX3900 and the easyshare dock. When my wife and I went to Best Buy to pick one out, I had been researching them for about a month and she didn't know anything about them. She is the photographer for us, she's taken a couple classes and has a Canon Rebel she plays with. She played with everything they had while I looked at games, when I came back she had picked the 3900. She preferred the Kodak's in general because they were easier for her to use and more intuitive.
Reviews and specs all said it was fine and we haven't been disappointed. I bought another for my sister a few months ago, this was a DX4630 (or something) and she was able to use it with no problems after reading a one page summry of the manual I made for her.

I like the Kodaks, some people don't but I think you have to play with any camera before you know if you'll like it, buy from a place that doesn't charge you to return it and use your full return time to see if you like it.

[sterlingice]

In my continuing forum necromancy of catching up over the holidays...

I'm in a similar situation as I arranged to get quite a few relatives to get me Best Buy gift cards and I have $150 that I have earmarked for getting a camera (and I'll go as high as about $400 for the camera + accessories). I love taking pictures but it's a lot different when my parents were paying for things versus throwing down my $10-$15 (film + developing) every time I want to take a roll of pics now. What I want to be able to do is take a ton of pics, only keep a few and then print them out and it looks like the infrastructure is finally there to do this. Both the Walgreens at the corner and the WalMart have machines that print 4x6s at less than 30c each. Basically, you're having a lot higher sunken cost (a good 35mm camera versus a good digital camera is $100 to $250) for much cheaper upkeep and that's what I want.

As for models, I've just started doing a little research. The guy at Best Buy suggested Sonys but I've played around with a Kodak and an HP that friends own and it seems the Kodaks have more features for about the same or even a lower price. On top of that, cnet likes the Canons for their features and quality. So I'm not really set on any model or even company at the moment. It will come down to watching the ads and seeing where I can get the most bang for my buck.

One little side note: Why do cameras have to be so small?!? I have pretty big hands and these little mini things make it hard for me to hold onto them. Plus, I can see it's going to take some getting used to of taking pictures thru the viewfinder.

Anyone who can separate Sony, Kodak, and Canon for me would he helpful

SI

[Philliesfan980]

Just to follow up on this thread, I ended up getting the sony-p72 model from Best Buy for $279 ($249 after $30 rebate). I'll never go in that store again, but thats another story entirely.

[Philliesfan980]

Dola..

Very happy with the camera and performance.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by sterlingice
I can see it's going to take some getting used to of taking pictures thru the viewfinder.

With regard to the above, here's my advice about taking pictures through the viewfinder:

Don't.

Use the LCD screen, even though it'll use up the batteries faster. The viewfinders on most digital cameras are not very accurate. They're more of an afterthought than anything.

[Sweed]

I too have been looking at digital cameras and have found this thread to be very interesting. To the guys in the know that say to stick with optical zoom I have a question. I have looked at many ads for cameras that say something like this in the features

3.0xoptical\3.2x digital zoom


may seem like a stupid question but does this mean the camera has both options for zoom? Is this the type of camera you are recomending or should it just say 3.0x optical zoom?

[Senator]

I have a Sony Mavica 3.2 that I use for times when the camera could get beat up or I have limited room.

My other one is a Sony Cybershot 6.0 that cost a little, but has some real features and takes some amazing pictures.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by Sweed
I too have been looking at digital cameras and have found this thread to be very interesting. To the guys in the know that say to stick with optical zoom I have a question. I have looked at many ads for cameras that say something like this in the features

3.0xoptical\3.2x digital zoom


may seem like a stupid question but does this mean the camera has both options for zoom? Is this the type of camera you are recomending or should it just say 3.0x optical zoom?

When you see something like the above, it means that the camera supports both optical and digital zoom. I would venture to say that practically all digital cameras support digital zoom. The idea is that you really need the optical zoom. As long as it says optical zoom, you're fine. It doesn't matter whether it also says digital zoom or not.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by Pumpy Tudors
With regard to the above, here's my advice about taking pictures through the viewfinder:

Don't.

Use the LCD screen, even though it'll use up the batteries faster. The viewfinders on most digital cameras are not very accurate. They're more of an afterthought than anything.

Sorry, that's what I meant- I just used the wrong term. I mean, think about it- practically all cameras prior to digital used a viewfinder and using the LCD instead will be different.

Originally posted by Sweed
I too have been looking at digital cameras and have found this thread to be very interesting. To the guys in the know that say to stick with optical zoom I have a question. I have looked at many ads for cameras that say something like this in the features

3.0xoptical\3.2x digital zoom


may seem like a stupid question but does this mean the camera has both options for zoom? Is this the type of camera you are recomending or should it just say 3.0x optical zoom?

For zoom, you might as well completely disregard digital zoom unless you don't have any paint program. Optical is what matters as digital is just the same as the "zoom in" function in Photoshop.

SI

[Wolfpack]

I have a Canon PowerShot G3 (4 megapixel) camera and love it. Granted, in the seven or so months since I bought it, I think it's been superceded twice. Even so, it takes great pictures.

Digital zoom is only useful if you are taking the best quality pictures you can with your pictures (highest, sharpest resolutions) and you are using a camera with a lot of megapixels. The principle of digital zoom is that it "stretches" the pixels to fill in the picture at the higher digital zoom, thus it becomes a bit more pixelated. As a result, the higher the resolution, the less space-filling the camera needs to do. My old 1.2 MP point-and-shoot had digital zoom to 4x, but the pictures always looked bad. The new camera has a digital zoom to 14x and because the resolution is 2200x1800 (or something like that) a reduction in resolution should produce a viable 3x5 or 4x6 photo.