The Best Digital Camera

[Selena_Kitt]

Ok, I'm looking for a REALLY good digital camera. My basic requirements: excellent zoom, macro, and the ability to bounce the flash (can you do that with digitals? I'm looking to switch from my old film-taking Maxxum, and it's scary! )

So, you digital camera aficionados... give it to me! What do you use? What's the best?

 

[tolyk]

Ok, I'm looking for a REALLY good digital camera. My basic requirements: excellent zoom, macro, and the ability to bounce the flash (can you do that with digitals? I'm looking to switch from my old film-taking Maxxum, and it's scary! )

So, you digital camera aficionados... give it to me! What do you use? What's the best?

There is no best.. just people's biased opinions of the best

Are you wanting a high grade point and shoot, or an SLR ? If it's an SLR then zoom doesn't matter.. But if you're going P&S or SLR-like then Sony, Canon or Nikkon are probably your best choice.. anything over 5 megapixels and you're good to go, you can print off a good quality 8 by 10 with that many pixels.

A good place to compare cameras is dpreview.com

Anything more you need to know?

 

[Halo_n_horns]

I've got a Nikon CoolPix 8800 and a Nikon D200 and I love them both. They're both fully digital. As Tolyk pointed out, you're only going to get biased opinions from the users as to which is the best. A lot of it also depends on hwat you want to shoot and to what quality. Tolyk referenced using anything that's 5 MP or higher, but you can get out of a little Olympus Camedia C-5000. I know because I have one of those as well. If you're planning to do some real quality work, the professionals will recommend a bare minimum of 8 MP. That's what my CoolPix is and there's many other cameras out there that can easily match that minimum.

Then there's the money you wanna spend. My CoolPix with everything that I've accumilated for it is topping out at about $1200.00 +/- a few hundred. My D200 is at about $5200.00 and climbing in the not-too-distant future. I found both of them through online dealers and I highly recommend doing that over going to some local mom-n-pop place where you'll get raped because they don't get the big dealer discounts. On my CoolPix I saved approx. $800-$1000. On my D200 I've saved between $2000-$3000.

Also, if your going to be doing any action shots, you'll really want to read the reviews and get educated on the cameras. Pretty much all digitals have a shortcoming when it comes to action shots to one degree or another.

Do your homework on these things.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Do your homework on these things.

Well I was hoping to get some idea of where to start... the market is too huge!

I do birth photography, and I'd like to upgrade to digital, but I love the effects I get with my old Maxxum 7000. I like the ability to bounce the flash, and I have macro lenses so I can take closeups of little baby feet and hands...

So how are action shots different on a digital?

 

[Halo_n_horns]

Well I was hoping to get some idea of where to start... the market is too huge!

I do birth photography, and I'd like to upgrade to digital, but I love the effects I get with my old Maxxum 7000. I like the ability to bounce the flash, and I have macro lenses so I can take closeups of little baby feet and hands...

So how are action shots different on a digital?

Depending on what camera you get there's a whole slew of flash options you'll be able to use. There's also options on the better cameras for adjust you're lights and shadows just by pressing a button and/or turning a dial. I found with these options that there were a great deal of shots that I no longer needed the flash for because it was simply too much light no matter how it was controlled. These are obviously things that will be up to you to decide when you're in the moment.

As far as the action shots are concerned, every fully digital camera out there has shutter lag to one degree or another. If you want really good action shots from a digital you'll be needing something that's really close to the top of the line. There's a lot of sites out there where people have posted reviews of how their digitals work in different conditions. When I was looking for my next camera I went to Google and typed in the model number and, for instance, "action shots." This gave me a lot of good information from professionals as well as average Joes like myself.

Back to the shutter lag; this is caused, basically, by all the things that a fully digital camera has to think about at the time that the button is pressed. Its not a bad idea to get a digital that can snap off anywhere between 4 and 10 shots a second to help get those action shots. When the digitals do this they're giving priority to the shutter release rather than everything else like focus, lighting, etc. Those shots go into a buffer until that buffer is full. The other day I rattled off 31 shutter releases in just a few seconds and got some really good shots out of it.

 

[Quoll]

There is some good info on cameras in this thread, just take a flak jacket with you.
Cam wars

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

I've just started taking serious photos again after a very long gap. I'm a real techie, and know a lot about the technicalities of photography. But I'm bamboozled, not to say irritated, by the choice of features offered in modern digital cameras. I can't afford a pro camera. I guess $600 is tops for me.

I'm trying to find a good camera with a vertical viewfinder that I can look down into, like the Hasselblads and Bronica cameras. I find I can get candid shots of people up close that way. My old Sony DSC F505, which is now discontinued, has a swivelling zoom lens (a big one, like on a 35mm SLR camera, which allows me to do this. But the spec of the camera is too low.

Does anyone know if I can get something like it, with a better spec?

 

[Munachi]

oh i know how confusing it is... i was thinking about getting a digital camera for a long time... since i was using a nikon before (an f60) i had kind of thought that something similar might be good, just because i am more used to it, but i wasn't sure... was always thinking a d50 or d70 because i had met people that had those and they seemed to be happy with them, but one friend said i should get a coolpix instead... in the end, now, i got a d70 though, but that was more because someone i knew was selling it (he had bought it for someone in his family who ended up never using it) - so i got it for 500 euros which i don't know how good or bad it is, but other friends of mine said it is quite okay...

anyway, i guess i am not really being helpful here, just wanted to say, i can relate to your confusion...

 

[neonlyte]

I've just started taking serious photos again after a very long gap. I'm a real techie, and know a lot about the technicalities of photography. But I'm bamboozled, not to say irritated, by the choice of features offered in modern digital cameras. I can't afford a pro camera. I guess $600 is tops for me.

I'm trying to find a good camera with a vertical viewfinder that I can look down into, like the Hasselblads and Bronica cameras. I find I can get candid shots of people up close that way. My old Sony DSC F505, which is now discontinued, has a swivelling zoom lens (a big one, like on a 35mm SLR camera, which allows me to do this. But the spec of the camera is too low.

Does anyone know if I can get something like it, with a better spec?

Fuji 9600 has a tilting screen (in addition to traditional viewfinder) which allows down viewing and up viewing for overhead shots. Good 8m+ pixel resolution + raw image processing allows A2 print size of acceptable quality. We've had ours about 3 months, still learning

 

[O2]

SelenaKittyn......

Have you made a choice?

So many cameras are out now.....dpreview.com is very good place to start....

How much do you want to spend?

I have a Nikon D50 (lots of lenses) used to have an coolpix 8700 but the batteries didn't last long at all.

I have a coolpix 4600 that I take and use at work...

You can't go wrong with Canon or Nikon.....

 

[eyeretinaeye]

Selena

I have and still do work in the digital world and have used digital cameras since 1984, choice is easy.

How much do you want to spend
How big of a print are you going to need
How much control do you want when capturing images

After you get those questions answered the rest will be easy. Your choice can be as hard to make as you want or it can be easy. The bounce flash is no problem, just requires a stand alone flash unit or you could just add another and hookup a slave to trigger it (no pun intended with the slave word).

The key to great images is knowing what you are wanting before you ever step out with your camera to capture the image. Think about what is in the image and what you don't want; powerlines, telephone poles, parked cars, billboards, etc.

An expensive camera does not make a better or pleasing image. I can go out with a less then 100 USD camera and out shoot a 5000 USD camera. It's the person whom is wielding the camera that counts. This link is not a bad place to start for reviews .............

http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html


Once you have answered those basic 3 questions at the start of this message and are still wanting advice; feel free to contact me.

Good Luck