Digital cameras?

I'm in the market for a digital camera. I've been holding off on getting one mainly because there are so many out there the choices seem overwhelming. I figured some of you that peruse the boards might offer a few suggestions. From what I've researched, the higher the megapixel count the better image quality so I'm thinking something in the 4-5 MP count would be sufficient for my needs. I'd also be looking to purchase a compatible docking station so any suggestions on those would be appreciated also.

Thanks!

I might suggest you look at the Kodaks with the printer docks... The 4-5mp with the printer dock start at less than $200.

I have two Kodaks and I love the ease of the use.

.....

Ask yourself what kind of pictures you want to take? Close up or night photography, for instance. Do you want a simple point and shoot camera, or more serious program, aperture, and manual mode input? Do you want something that will allow future growth as you learn more about photography? Then ask how much money you want to spend.

Check out sites like dpreview.com for in-depth reviews and user forums and their input to get an idea of which camera maker you prefer.

Hi mssweetangellina
I'm new here - this is my second post and I've a lot to find out about this place, but thought I could help a bit with your query.

You're right - there is a huge choice - ridiculuously so, and new models coming out all the time.
The trick with most of this stuff - computers, cameras printers etc, is to get something that does what *you* want, without being fooled into paying for higher end features that sound good at the time, but you never use.

You need to consider what you're going to want to photograph. To just do pics for literotica for instance, the lower end cameras available now, are generally not bad quality - 3 Mega pixels is way more than you'd need.
But to do decent prints, and to be able to crop into pictures without losing too much detail you want to be in the 4-6 MP area.
Someone else mentioned zooms - 3x or 4x are pretty standard unless you are wanting or happy to pay more, but always check that it is optical zoom you are being quoted - digital zoom is an advertising trick
Other thing with lenses is how wide can it go - some cameras start at 35mm (or the equivalent in comparison with a film-based camera), but you'll find that if you are in a small room, that might not be wide enough to capture a scene without knocking down a wall or two. 28mm is much better, but sometimes the camera you pick for every other reason, will have this deficiency and you just have to compromise.
Some other tips - do you want to use a tripod - then make sure the camera has a standard screw fitting for most tripods.
Do you want to take pics of yourself, handheld - get one with a large viewfinder that can swivel around such that you can point the camera at yourself and see what the camera is seeing (figured that one out by experience )
Also - check how easy it is to invoke the self-timer - sometimes the feature you want to use is so badly buried in menus and submenus that you just never use it - camera software designers appear not to try their stuff out on real people before they release them to the world.

Don't get talked into extending the features of a camera with expensive add-ons (eg wide-angle addon lenses) without considering the extra price you will pay, and whether it wouldn't be better to look at another camera first. For example, some manufacturers charge almost the price of a camera for some of those addon lenses.

Final tip for the day - quiz the sales person (or go online and find a review) to find out the time delay the camera introduces - there is nothing worse than pressing the shutter release and waiting 1/2 second for the pic to be taken (sometimes you can get round this by selecting a smaller size pic to be taken - but if you pay for 8 Mp and have to settle for 4Mp to get rid of the delay, what was the purpose in getting it)

Final final tip of the day - many of the fancier cameras come with a 100 page or more manual. In my experience, to actually use the features, you have to read *and* understand this and refer back to it until you are familiar with the camera enough to remember where all the settings are hidden - if you're not the sort of person that likes studying this stuff in detail, then go for a simpler working camera, but if you are the sort of person who knows what they want to do and will persevere, a more feature-rich model may be good.

You should try going to www.komando.com and searching for her digital camera tips. She gets a lot of questions about them but I've never listened since I already have one. She definitely knows what she's talking about!

There are lots of choices. We have a 5 megapixel Canon and we're very happy with it. You might want to find something online with camera ratings, from a magazine. I have no idea of the websites addresses.

There are tons of features on our camera that I haven't even begun to decipher. Good luck!

The Canon 5 MP SLR is an awesoem camera for teh money.. and a good place to get real user reviews is http://www.epinions.com/ .. I look there about a lot of items I'm lookign to buy

I found the reviews at www.imaging-resources.com to be extrememly useful. Plus they break down comeras into different catagories( such as for beginners, for hobbyists, etc)
In my huntings and talkin' with people I've heard a few excellent suggestions.
1) get a camera that takes AA size batteries, then buy two sets of Nickel Metal halide rechargables and you'll be set for power.
2) buy a card reader, they're from $6- $30 and then you don't need a docking station and you don't have to leave your camera on while transfering files.
3) make sure the camera has a autofocus assist light, this will let your camera adjust for darklighting situation better. some cameras will use the same light as the selftimer light, but make sure it specifically says it has autofocus assist.
I use a kodak easyshare c340. I didn't choose it though, It's a work camera, so I can't complain. it's 5MP and the software has settings to automatically crop to picture sizes (4x6,5x7,8x10, etc) the flash will wash out almost everything, so to take decent pictures in less than ideal lighting you have to adjust the white balance. luckily this is very easy on this camera as the +/- buttons beside the screen allow you to do it.
Personally I like Nikon products and since we've got this digital camera at work, I just kind of quit looking for one.

Contrary to popular belief, big megapixels does NOT make for better quality pictures. Just that you can print the pictures bigger. For the average person, this is not an issue, but for retailers, they can make extra money by selling a higher number.

5MP is more than enough unless you're printing BIG.

Budget is also an important point. A good point and shoot will cost anywhere from $300-500. Check out the Canon S-series or A-series. They should meet your needs for a relatively good price, and take pretty good pictures to boot

for starters, visit http://dpreview.com/, they have a tool where you can check off features that you are looking for, and will give you a list of cameras that meet those requirements, then you can compare what they come up with...they also have a nice glossary that will tell you what all the terms are

as far as a "docking station" goes, do you mean for printing? I've had a digital camera for years, and I rarely print pictures, so think real hard about whether that will determine the camera you get...personally, I think it's cheaper & easier to have yuour pics printed elsewhere, either from some company online, or hitting the kiosk at CVS or something...printer ink & photo paper can get expensive pretty quickly

considering the website you're posting this on, I can only assume that you'll be using your camera for a little bit of home pornography, so the best little bit of advice I can give you for that is to buy a digital camera that comes with a wireless remote...not sure how many models there are that actually have them, but I have been extremely satisfied with my canon powershot g5

I just got a Pentax 5mp 3X zoom hoping to learn how to plat and post some pics.

Well, I just got a Canon SD30, the black one...it's awesome. 5MP, over 70 different shooting modes, comes with a docking station, has excellent battery life, uses an SD card, and is so intuitive I enjoy it. It's almost like it anticipates what you want to do. The interface is kind of complex, but it gets easy to understand very quickly if you decide to change something in the shooting mode that the camera can't anticipate. I got mine for around $400 just after Christmas, so I bet it's gone down in price...

mssweetangelina said:

I'm in the market for a digital camera. I've been holding off on getting one mainly because there are so many out there the choices seem overwhelming. I figured some of you that peruse the boards might offer a few suggestions. From what I've researched, the higher the megapixel count the better image quality so I'm thinking something in the 4-5 MP count would be sufficient for my needs. I'd also be looking to purchase a compatible docking station so any suggestions on those would be appreciated also.

Thanks!

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The advise re the Kodak is good advise. I just bought the 740, it is rated for 5+ MP's and works w the docking station, which I do not have yet. You can get ti on sale I would imagine for about $250.00 now.

first I would see how much you are willing to spend. If you have $600-800 get a DSLR by Canon rebel or Nikon D50. You will not be sorry.

Also, If you have any memory prefrences. I like to stick to one format, compact flash, cheap and fast. Avoid sony, they use Memory stick....$$$.

Decide on features you are looking for. remember DSLR can not take movies like a PS can.

Also check out dpreview as mentioned above. There is a wealth of information. May seem overwhelming.

watch out for high MP cameras that interpolate, fugi did/does that. basically they take a 3mp detector then extrapolate up to 5mp. not good.

good luck in your deciaion making,
Boris

Well, I think for all this good (and free) advice, I think we need a little payback. Whatever you get, you should start a pic thread to pay us back.

P.S. My advice about the camera: get one with an optical zoom that goes up to at least 135mm (in 35 mm equivalent). Anything shorter than that and you're apt to get some distortion when taking pictures of people. By "distortion" I mean that the proportion of the body parts won't be true, this is especially true in facial features.

Well after a lot of diggign and lookign I think I found my next digital Camera.. The Kodak Z760. 6.1 megapixels, 3x optical zoom and works like a charm takes great pics.. easy to use and I found it online for $129..
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuer...?pq-path=6770&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=5647

cellis said:

I might suggest you look at the Kodaks with the printer docks... The 4-5mp with the printer dock start at less than $200.

I have two Kodaks and I love the ease of the use.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean. I got a Kodak Easyshare and I can't do much with it because the program
won't load in my 'puter; I keep getting error messages, and Kodak no longer supports Easyshare.
PLEASE, CAN SOMEONE HELP WITH THIS PROBLEM?!

Resurrecting a 2006 thread is an intriguing way of asking a question

Kodac went bankrupt in 2012

But all is not lost
How to transfer pictures from camera to computer without EASYSHARE Software:
http://support.en.kodak.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/48148/selected/true

Last version of Easyshare - worked with Windows 7
Kodak EasyShare Software 8.3.0
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/kodak_easyshare_software.html
Use the links under "Download Locations"

holy resurection batman!

I thought the thread was new, and was wondering if cameras were making a resurgence..Ive wanted a very good one. The price had been coming down until suddenly NO ONE was buying any at all when cellphones hit 8 megapixels.

The optics aren't the same though.

SO......

as long as this has been resurrected.... What is the best value in a used DSLR.

I want to find one that will take the conventional optics from old 35mm film cameras of which I know even less.

I think even the earlier generations with what? 12megapixels are fine.

Anyone care to point me to a source to learn about raster (sp?) capability and whether I want or need that?

The gang had a shit-fit when I resurrected old threads. Got nasty about it. I think LADY G even made a guest appearance.

query said:

Anyone care to point me to a source to learn about raster (sp?) capability and whether I want or need that?

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I'm not familiar with 'raster capability' in terms of photography, but it sounds like marketing to me for 'can use rasters'... which really shouldn't be anything special at all for a digital camera.

A 'raster' is a method of making a digital image by creating it pixel by pixel - if you zoom in, you can see pixels making it up. Another kind of method is called 'vector' in which the image is made by creating a series of points that are in continuous, smooth lines, all of them mathematically related to each other.

Digital photographs are best when they're created and stored in raster format, not converted to vector, because you can store a lot of detail in a raster, and you can get right down to pixel level to edit them one by one. Every JPEG, every BMP, every PNG, every GIF, and very TIFF and PSD you've ever seen have all been created and stored in raster format.

You'll see people talking about raster and vector in graphic design, and computer mapping (GIS).

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2012/08/12/how-to-explain-raster-vs-vector-to-your-clients/

Hope this helps a bit!

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

The gang had a shit-fit when I resurrected old threads. Got nasty about it. I think LADY G even made a guest appearance.

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tmock had a valid question that, despite oddly tagging it on an old thread, was current and may well be of interest to other people wanting to migrate up to a new operating system and finding their trusty kodac software no longer working. You were just stroking your ego and offered nothing.

NightL said:

tmock had a valid question that, despite oddly tagging it on an old thread, was current and may well be of interest to other people wanting to migrate up to a new operating system and finding their trusty kodac software no longer working. You were just stroking your ego and offered nothing.

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Sure. Youre a bum and got exposed.

tmock said:

I know what you mean. I got a Kodak Easyshare and I can't do much with it because the program
won't load in my 'puter; I keep getting error messages, and Kodak no longer supports Easyshare.
PLEASE, CAN SOMEONE HELP WITH THIS PROBLEM?!

Click to expand...

You might look for another Kodak Easyshare CD on eBay or somewhere similar.

Kodak is dead. I have four Kodak digital cameras but my Easyshare software still works.

The real answer: Buy another camera, not Kodak.