Digital Camera

MacLeod

I may be in the market for a new digital camera and was wondering if anybody had any opinions as I know there are quite a few photo enthusiasts on here.

I had a Sony and liked it enough so Im partial to them. Besides, I have a Vaio computer and a 128 MB and 64 MB memory stick already and can just stick em in my computer and get all my images.

Price range is about $400.

I dont require a ton of features, I just want the best possible picture quality and long battery life.

I have my eye on this one.


Grateful for any thoughts.

nadams

Those Cybershot's are nice. I have a Kodak DX7590, 5mp, 10x optical zoom. Takes great pictures. I think DangerBoy has that one with the 12x zoom you linked to there. Kodak's replacement for the 7590 was the z740, but it doesn't have the nice German lense on it.

You do have an advantage with the sony on using the memory you already have, but memory's pretty cheap these days, so it's not a huge concern.

Roy Munson

I would be interested in some opinions also as I have never owned a digital camera..like MacLeod I'm less concerned about features than I am about pq and ease of use.

janmike

I purchased a Canon 300D EOS Digital Rebel for $350. It's about one year old but if you are in the market for a SLR they are out there for a good price. I wanted a SLR so I could use my existing 35mm lenses with the digital body. The 300mm lens is now 450mm when attached to the digital body. Good luck.

Sami

janmike wrote:

The 300mm lens is now 450mm when attached to the digital body.

Yep, that's the only thing I hate about my 10D. You want to photograph something at close range and it gets very expensive. 20D does not have that problem BTW.

POLKOHOLIC

one thing to remember about the cybershots is that most if not all of the newer ones support Memory Stick Duo only. In other words...those old memory sticks are useless for new sony digital cameras.

edit: i see the one you selected supports both :rolleyes:

brettw22

I have a Nikon Coolpix 7900 that I have been VERY pleased with. The one drawback is that it only has a 3x optical zoom, but for any pictures I've taken with it, that's more than plenty. If I was out taking pictures of massive scenic far away scenes, I could understand the problem, but that's not what I use my camera for and all the images I've ever taken have come out immaculately.

I have a thing against Sony products personally. Just haven't had much luck in terms of reliability, and that one laptop purchase (that was eventually 3 different laptops) has kept me plenty far away from considering them.

EDIT: In terms of memory speed, CF is slowest, but Memory Stick is one of the slowest that I've found.

janmike

I do not have a problem shooting someone 200 ft away or 2" away. The macro lens works great.

danger boy

Mac, I have the Sony camera you are considering. the DSC-H1. I like the large LCD screen, i like the steady shot, and the good optical and digital zoom on the camera. it feels great in my hands. I'm a photographer by profession. I've used tons of different cameras over the years.

The big drawback to this camera and you may have read reviews about it.. is the soft picture quality. It's very noticeable to me. I went on the assumption that when I read the reviews on the camera.. that the softness would be very minor. Well, it's been a big bone of contention to me.. about the picture softness. I've learned to get used to it.. but I'm not pleased by that at all.

I had this camera during Polkfest05, all the photos i took and are posted in the showcase were taken with the Sony DSC-H1 camera. Check the pics out if interested.

If i had to do it over again, I'd go with a Canon or Nikon instead.

good luck, Al

Sami

janmike wrote:

I do not have a problem shooting someone 200 ft away or 2" away. The macro lens works great.

Yes but you're giving up on the macro lenses. Very undesirable, AND very OT in this thread.

"At the other end of the range though the effect may be less desirable. Your super wide-angle 20mm lens now has the coverage of only a 32mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera and 18mm becomes the equivalent of a 29mm lens on 35mm full frame."

http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/300D/EOS_300D_lenses.html

jcaut

Not to go too far off topic, but the 10D and the 20D are exactly the same as far as FOV crop. They both have the same size sensors, as does the 300D. Perhaps Sami was referring to the 20D's ability to use some of the super-wide EF-S lenses..

I'm partial to Canon, myself, and I have great respect for Nikon's cameras as well. The P&S market is very competitive. I'd personally look for something with image stabilization and a long zoom, as they're just so versatile. A huge number of pixels doesn't guarantee better picture quality, especially if you're not making big prints. It does give you more room for creative cropping.

Jason

Sami

jcaut wrote:

Not to go too far off topic, but the 10D and the 20D are exactly the same as far as FOV crop. They both have the same size sensors, as does the 300D. Perhaps Sami was referring to the 20D's ability to use some of the super-wide EF-S lenses..

No, I remembered wrong, I think it was 1D which is out of my pricerange.

jcaut

Yep, it's out of mine too!

I looked up specs on the Sony H1, and if you're partial to Sony anyway, then it's a nice camera. The Canon S2 IS and the Panasonic FZ5 are it's obvious competition. Reviews only go so far: I'd visit a camera store and try to get my hands on those three and see if anything jumps out, to make you prefer one or the other.

Jason

MacLeod

At the $400 price point, is there going to be a distinct difference in PQ between the major brands?

Also, Ive noticed Minolta is now Konica Minolta. I know in electronics, once a company is merged with another its quality seems to degrade. Is this the case with Minolta?

And lastly, from what I can gather, its not megapixels that make a good PQ but rather the lens and sensors in the camers and that one of those slim compact cameras wont have high quality lens or sensor and I should stick to SLR. That sound right?

jcaut

I'll go out on a limb and say that, no, at that price point there's not going to be a big difference in picture quality. Quality of the lens makes a difference, but again, at that price point they're all going to be pretty comparable.

The biggest influence on picture quality, IMO, in the cameras at that level has to do with the differences in in-camera processing. Level of color saturation, degree of sharpening applied, noise levels maybe.... There again, if you don't make big prints and don't view the pictures at 100%, you're not likely to see an appreciable difference.

I would advise you to shop for the features that help YOU to take the kind of pictures you like to take-- whether that means fast action (good AF performance, fast shot-to-shot time), long zoom (for wildlife, sports, etc.) good low light performance (which none of the cameras in that price range are going to be really good at), etc.. Image stabilization is a cool feature which has the potential to improve your shots in many situations.

KonicaMinolta is actually getting out of the camera business. They've not been real sucessful in the DSLR market, and the P&S market is so competitive that there's just not a lot of profit in it, so they're throwing in the towel.

SLR means single lens reflex. Those cameras will have interchangable lenses, no live preview on the LCD, etc.. They'll cost more than $400 unless you buy used. Unless you're pretty serious about photography, you might be better served by a P&S.

Jason

MacLeod

Nah, Im not super serious about it. Im very picky about my picture quality though (I never was thrilled with my current Sony's PQ) but dont have the patience to fool with a million different options. Point and shoot is more my speed.

danger boy

I guess you could always return a camera if you're not happy with it.. see what the store policy is first before buying of course. Some stores charge a restocking fee of 15 - 20% !!! @T*(&T^$%^#+!!!

I haven't tried and am not familiar with all cameras in the $400 price range.. there are to many out there.. but my older Olympus 2.1 MP camera is sharper image wise than this Sony. I love everything about the Sony, just not the PQ. Your milage may vary. ha ha ha

But yeah, sensor and optics play the biggest roll in the price and quality of camera and ultimately the photos it takes. My Olympus 2040 is "faster" then the Sony.. meaning it's better in low light then the Sony camera. It's got a f/1.8 lens on it. the Sony has a f/2.8 lens

dlew308

The fuji S series are very good for a P&S. I used to own a S7000 before going DSLR.

cam5860

I just bought the hp photosmart R 817 model about 3 months ago at circuit city for 299.00. It is a nice camera also i really like it. It's a 5.1 megapixel with a 2.5 inch screen.

Polk65

I am very pleased with the Kodak z7590 which is almost identical to the dx7590. It has the same Schneider Kreuznach lens but without the computer dock. I use the included usb cable and software to transfer photos. PQ is very good, battery life is long, and movies are limited only by your memory size. Some cameras have a time limit for the length of movies.

It requires a $25 adapter if you want to use 55mm filters or other lenses. Got mine a few weeks ago with some filters and am happy.

$239 + shipping from costco.com (shameless plug, since they have a no hassle return policy).

Mazeroth

Killer Canon camera. I will probably be buying this one in the next day or two to take on our honeymoon:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?catid=18&threadid=574824&highlight_key=y&keyword1=canon

Pablo

I just got a Pentax *st D DSLR (I don't know where they came up with that name) and I love it. It got some great reviews for an entry level DSLR. (I picked this one because I loved my old SF-10 and had a couple of lenses). The SLRs are going to give you a much better picture than anything else, but they do cost a bit. Mine ran about $600+, but if you really want the picture quality, you should consider an SLR. (also shop around, the price differences where huge).

nadams

Polk65 wrote:

I am very pleased with the Kodak z7590 which is almost identical to the dx7590. It has the same Schneider Kreuznach lens but without the computer dock. I use the included usb cable and software to transfer photos. PQ is very good, battery life is long, and movies are limited only by your memory size. Some cameras have a time limit for the length of movies.

It requires a $25 adapter if you want to use 55mm filters or other lenses. Got mine a few weeks ago with some filters and am happy.

$239 + shipping from costco.com (shameless plug, since they have a no hassle return policy).

That's a nice price on that z7590. I got my DX7590 from www.beachcamera.com for $330 with the dock. I had no problems wiht them whatsoever, and love the camera, for the same reasons as you . I have the adaptor ring as well, and a 0.7x macro lense to go with it. I want to get the telephoto soon, but at $150 it's a fair investment

BTW- I just noticed that you can also buy a 52mm adaptor ring- http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=SAKLA759052

and also the 52mm lenses, which are cheaper than the Kodak lenses.

jfb4548

Check out www.dpreview.com for any current camera. Very good testing and reviews as well as sample pictures and with most camera they will have a comparison between severl simular cameras.

ND13

I have an HP and a Fuji S5000 and haven't had any issues with either.

One thing that I highly recommend is getting one that uses SD cards over any of the others. The SD cards are becoming very inexpensive. You can get a 1 meg card for $50 now and 2 megs cards are under $100. At 1mp a 1 mb sd card will hold over 1900 pics and at 3mp over 800.

The only drawback to the Fuji is that it uses XD cards.