Looking for a digital camera
Posted on November 8, 2003 @ 8:23 am
Last week’s beautiful hiking trip in Virginia and this week’s adoption of the Notorious K.I.P. have driven home the fact that my wife and I really need a digital camera to capture some of these moments in life. I’ve been doing a bit of shopping with a possible Christmas purchase in mind, and the HP PhotoSmart 735 has already caught my eye. Still, I know a decent chunk of the people who visit here have significantly more experience than I do with digital cameras, and I’d appreciate any insight you could offer concerning recommended (or unrecommended) brands, megapixels, optical/digital zooms, doohickies, and other thingamabobs. Thanks!
current music: The Vince Guaraldi Trio, “Skating”
Posted by Jess | Filed Under Geek |
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I don’t have a digital camera, but Heather does and she’s been following them closely for a few years. She’s always ready to buy the next greatest one. Thankfully she never does.
So, I asked her and she said you should go with a Canon because they always get the best reviews. She also suggested you check out Digital Photography Review for reviews of all kinds of cameras. They have the most in-depth reviews you can find. And finally, she suggested you spend as much as you can possibly afford because the extra investment now will pay off in the future.
P.S. - The Digital Photography Review Buying Guide would probably be very handy in helping you decide.
Tell Heather that I appreciate the advice! The consensus I’ve been getting from the People with Questionable Training at places like Best Buy and Circuit City is that I should stick to digital cameras from companies that are actually known for making cameras–Fuji, Canon, Nikon, and so forth. Now, it’s just a matter of finding one at the right price…
I have almost no complaints about my Olympus C-700. Mine is “only” 2.1 megapixels, but its optical zoom makes for nice close-up shots. As a point of reference, most digital cams are 3x optical.
I think the newer versions of the camera have fixed the chromatic abberation bug that occasionally shows up, just about my only complaint, and that’s rare.
You’ve probably seen this, but here are some of my better shots:
http://wiw.org/~corey/visions/
Whenever I’m looking for any electronic equipment, I always turn to Sony first. They have always offered a great and reliable product and often at a better price. This applies especially, I’ve found, to their range of digital cameras.
Personal opinions aside, I was in the market for one myself a couple of weeks ago and used Imaging Resource as my guide. After buying my Sony camera, I’ve found that their review on it was spot-on.
Good luck.
Thanks for the advice, guys!
Check out epinions.com before you buy to see what other consumers have thought.
I’ve got this Nikon Coolpix; really old model. It eats batteries like only god knows, but the picture quality is great, and it swivels (the shooting part from the view screen part), which I find to be worth the cost of batteries. AC adapters are availble too.
My best advice is to first decide what you are going to be using your camera for first before you start really looking. Do you want something with a long shutter speed so you can get good night pics? Do you want a very small focal length so you can get pictures of teeny tiny things? Is a higher megapixel rating important to you? Are you going to ever need to make a 10X13 print of something? How much are you into photography? Do you want something with manual settings as well, so you can make your own executive decisions?
I have a pentax optio 330GG (um, I think, I’m not looking at it), and I’ve been very happy with it. Good luck trying to find one though… It took me quite a bit of online searching to find someone who first of all sold it, and secondly had it for a reasonable price.