Digital camera questions

Factual Questions
1

I need a good pocket sized digital camera for $250-$350. I’m looking to get certain features, have the best quality camera for the price, and answer some questions about camera related things I don’t know enough about, as well as steer clear of any cameras that may look nice but turned out to be duds for one reason or another.

I was the first on my block with a digital camera which means I now have the most obsolete one - a Sony Cybershot 2.1. It’s way too big with too little megapixels, but I kind of like the general interface, so I wouldn’t mind getting the newest version of it or something comparable. I’ve also played around briefly with my brother’s Canon Power Shot SD600 and the Sony Cybershot DSCW100 at work and they both seemed easy to use with a decent feature set. Some friends have heard vaguely good things about the Lumix FX07, Nikon Coolpix L3 or S50, the Canon SD line, the Canon PowerShot A630 (flip screen), and the Canon Powershot SD30 Elph. Altho one friend didn’t like the lack of lithium battery in her coolpix.

Things I require in my camera:
[ul]
[li] quick recovery time - I want to be able to take a bunch of pictures in a row without waiting for the camera to save each one before being able to take another[/li][li] decent auto levels in video mode - I hate that on my old camera it makes everything look bright on the screen but doesn’t apply the lightness levels to the video file that results, so when I open the video it can end up much darker[/li][li] decent sound (microphone) with video[/li][li] in camera ability to convert video between landscape and portrait[/li][li] decent battery life[/li][li] mac compatible[/li][li] decent megapixel (at least 8x10)[/li][li] good picture, not too grainy[/li][li] decent hardiness - can survive a drop on the floor or a sprinkle of water[/li][li] decent scene presets[/li][li] fits in pocket[/li][/ul]

Things that aren’t required but would be nifty:
[ul]
[li] picture stabilizer, other intelligent-like picture improving features[/li][li] compressed tiff setting[/li][li] auto portrait/landscape sensor[/li][li] wide angle[/li][li] HDR mode (auto bracket)[/li][li] rotational panorama mode[/li][li] usable as webcam[/li][li] stop motion settings[/li][li] time lapse settings[/li][li] auto daylight savings adjust (prefer ability to manually adjust which dates since they changed and might change back)[/li][li] gps metadata[/li][li] continuous flash[/li][li] flip around screen[/li][li] self closing lens cover[/li][li] decent in built memory[/li][li] decent optical zoom[/li][/ul]

Things I don’t know enough about:
[ul]
[li] batteries - are different types better / longer lasting? are different methods of charging more convenient? what do I need to know about batteries?[/li][li] memory - what do I need to know about flash cards? are some more universal vs proprietary? are some cheaper, and if so is there any downside? are there speed differences that would affect picture recovery time? is it better to get one big card or a bunch of little ones? anything else I need to know?[/li][li] any vital accessories?[/li][/ul]

I’d like to find out the best digital camera for around $250-$350 that fits my requirements and as many of the extras as possible. Also interested in any positive and negative comments about cameras dopers own or have heard about. And information about what I need to know about batteries, memory cards, and accessories. Thanks for your help!

2

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare.asp is your friend.

3

Here’s the bible of camera reviews

Start there.
I noticed that you wanted to be able to take a lot of picutres in a row quickly. In the price range and size of camera you’re looking for, that’s going to be the most restictive option. (I just went though this buying my wife a camera, I bought her one a few years ago, but it wasn’t fast enough so I got her a new one).
So, look though reviews of cameras in your price range. For each camera go to “Steve’s Conclusion” in the drop down box and look though the conclusion for where he mentions the delay between pictures. He always mentions the delay with and without the flash so seaching the page for “flash” will find that section pretty quickly. If the camera has an acceptable delay between pictures, write it down and check the next one, once you’ve gone though all the cameras in your price range then you can compare the ones you wrote down and go from there. Doing it this way will bring your search down to about 5 or 6 cameras with a delay of less then 5 or so seconds (with flash and about 2 seconds without it). Everything else is going to be in the 7 or 8 second range which probably isn’t what your looking for.
Oh and at this price range you won’t find a nikon with a short delay, so don’t bother.

4

I would reccomend that you stay away from cameras with a built in battery pack. The Lipo battery packs do have a longer charge life, but what happens if you’re on vacation and forget your charger? Or if you’re out camping for a weekend without electricity?

My camera uses rechargeable AA’s. I usually just recharge the batteries without a problem, but if I ever did find myself without a charger or electricity, I can by AA’s anywhere. I also keep a pair of brand new AA’s in my camera bag as a back up.

5

I sold cameras at Circuit City for about seven months. My internet is going to slow to look up newer cameras now, but I’ll tell you what I noticed playing with the cameras there.

The Canon SD series is pretty much my favorite. Small, easy to use manual features, quick, cute/cool. They take SD cards too, which are usually the cheapest and most cameras take them. The SD800 was my favorite, but last I knew it was around $400. All of them were nice, from the SD550 on up. I have an old Canon SD10 and it’s still pretty sweet, even at 4 mp and no optical zoom! They all take rechargable batteries and standard mini USB cables. I recommend Canon to everyone. The newer ones have lots of scene presets too. I love Canon because their manual features are easy to manipulate and if you don’t know what they do, playing with them will help you learn quick, since the menu pops up on screen running down the left side and bottom, so you see your scene change in the LCD. The SD800 in particular wowed me in picture quality. And unless they decide to change soon, once you learn a Canon, you know them all - my 3 year old Canon’s menus are the same as the current ones. And most of them are encased in a metal or metal like covering. But still try not to drop it, and a small case will be helpful in keeping the LCD from scratching. I’ve dropped my camera but really it’s the luck of the draw whether or not it breaks.

Some of the Sonys we had were pretty nice - the W100 in particular. But they take Sony’s proprietary memory card, the Memory Stick or whatever, and are usually more expensive. The W series overall are their coolest ones - some of the flashy ones with the click down front got horrible ratings. They also seem to always use proprietary or less common USB cables, you if you lose it you will have to pay more to replace it. So even if the camera is a bit cheaper, you will pay more for memory and replacement stuff - some of their camera batteries are like $60, compared to $40 or so for Canon replacements.

Nikon does better in DSRLs than point and shoots. Was never impressed with any of them. But we also didn’t have a great selection of them. Most took AA and were cheap we had in stock. I have a Nikon DSLR though and love it.

If you end up getting a larger megapixel camera (7+), and you get a SD card capable camera, look into getting a high speed one. They aren’t necessary but they will help the camera work to its speed potential. Sandisk Ultra II is the one I have for my Nikon. You can often find very cheap memory online. If you plan on taking lots of pics at once, just go ahead and at least get a 1GB card - it’s more cost effective and you don’t have to worry about losing cards or filling them up too quickly. If you want to swing for 2GB that would also be a good idea, in case you go on vacation and don’t want to bring your laptop. I would always rather have too much memory than not enough! Also think about a viewfinder - sometimes when it’s sunny you can hardly see the LCD to frame your pictures correctly and a viewfinder can help - but you’ll be trading LCD size for a viewfinder usually.

And I have a Mac and just plug the camera in and iPhoto pops up, ready to import from whatever camera. I did not install any camera specific software. I also know that when I plug my Nikon in, a drive pops up on the desktop so I can just drag the pics off - but I do not know if any point and shoots will do this.

So basically, I dig the Canon SDs the most. Easy to use, quick, good battery life, good picture quality, take standard SD memory, small. Out of the SD550 - SD1000 I liked the SD800 the best. The SD30/40 are pretty much just show though - tiny as hell and less features than their 3 and 4 digit counterparts. Get a small case for your camera - hard or soft is up to you.

Try going to a store if you can and trying some out. Don’t buy from a big box store if you can help it (you will pay more, ESPECIALLY for accessories) but it’s good to play.

Hopefully that made sense.

6

It’s a good consideration but, unfortunately, most of the decent compact digital cameras have proprietary batteries. Plus a lot of them are two small to carry AAs. I can’t think of a single point and shoot that I like that takes AAs. If you’re out camping, either buy an extra battery or bring a power inverter along for the cigarette lighter in your car (assuming you drove up to camp).

I have a Canon SD700. myskepticsight is right. The SD series is great. The camera I really wanted to buy, though, was the Fuji F30 (now they have an F31). It’s the only compact digital I’ve seen that produces acceptable results at 800ISO. If you want the flexibility to take low light pictures without flash, the F30 is a good buy, and a bargain at the price, I think. The Canon does have image stabilization, though, which is an important feature. However, if your subject is moving, IS won’t help you much, whereas the ability to pump up the ISO a stop will. Just a consideration. You won’t go wrong with either camera, and the Canon is better designed, in my opinion.

7

jackdavinci, would you please post what you end up with? I’m interested to know what you get. thanks!

8

If you camp for many days (like I do) get a camera with an optical viewfinder and turn of the LCD. The batteries will last much longer. I can go for 3-4 days with just 1 backup battery for my SD300.

I don’t think any cameras switch from portrait to landscape video, that’s what computers are for. All images are compatible with macs, so this is a non-issue. No camera is going to survive a 4’ drop onto a hard floor reliably. If it does, it’s a fluke. Work on not dropping your camera. Most camera can deal easily with a drop of water. It’s dirt and grit than will kill extending lenses.

For 8x10s you need somewhere around 4-5 MP. You don’t need much beyond that although it can be nice to have if you want to crop. But more MP doesn’t mean better images, it just means more pixels. With the tiny sensors on most compact cameras, more MP often just means more noise.

For shot-to-shot speed check out the burst (or continuous) modes on the cameras. I use this for shooting action, my cameras range from 2-3 fps and it’s a life saver.

If you really want pocket sized, you’re going to have to give up some things, mainly in your “nifty” category. I have an older Canon SD300 and I like the series. Of the ones available today I like the SD700 and SD800. I think the SD900 and SD1000 don’t deliver as well.

Bottom line is that all cameras from the major makers are pretty darn good and will out perform your old Sony. They’ll also be far out-of-date in 6 months, so don’t sweat the details. Buy a camera and start shooting.

9

One feature you did not mention is waterproof.

For a small waterproof point and shoot, I love the Pentax W series. The newest one is the Optio W30. Here’s the link to the feature set on DPReview.

I and my family have about four of these.
I have a 4 Gig card for mine.
Pentax has made several generations of these and the W30 is new as of April, so plenty of experience improving them.

I carry it with me everywhere and never worry about rain or sand or crap in the bottom of my briefcase.

Takes pretty good movies, too.

For pure picture quality you can find cameras thought to be better. My W20 takes great pictures. For size and waterproof, and overall feature set, I think it’s worth a look. In the end the camera that will get the best picture is the one you have with you (size) no matter what the conditions (waterproof).

10

I can’t say too much at this point because I just bought it a few hours ago. But I decided to go with the Canon 800 IS ($350). Also got a SanDiskUltra II 2.0GB SD card for $60, a small case for $10 and a gorillapod (kind of a clamping/clutching camera mount) for about $20.

I was originally thinking about Canon powershot sd600 or Sony Cybershot DSCW100 which I’ve played around with and have familiar interfaces to my old camera. I was a little concerned about the cybershot because I had trouble getting good photos in dim light, even on a tripod in night mode with normal store lighting after dark. I was considering just getting a newer sd model than the 600, but most of the reviews seem to indicate the picture quality really declined in the 900 and 1000 models for some reason. Then I came upon the 800 IS. It got generally good review, similar to the sd600. But more megapixels (7.1) and a wide angle. Plus some cool scene settings. Lithium battery. And image stabilizing.

So I got it.

Few things I discovered that were pleasant surprises: Even though I had played around with it in the store, it still seemed smaller when I took it out of the box (I guess without the locking cord). There’s an optional albeit expensive accesory you can buy which waterproofs the entire camera in water depths to several meters. It automatically senses the orientation of the camera. It has a kick ass panarama photo montage stitching mode and application. It takes pictures in succession fairly quickly (this may be due in part ot me buying a fast SD card).

There are a few things that could be improved: 1) The on button is a little too recessed and the dial setting is a little hard to rotate 2) while the case seems pretty hardy, the compartment doors seem more flimsy in material and hinge strength 3) The instructions say not to leave the battery charging for too long 4) I haven’t figured out how to save the movie files in a mac compatible format yet (if anyone can help with this one, please reply!)

But overall I like it a lot so far. I’m going on vacation so I’ll be taking lots of pictures, and will probably have some time on the plane to read through the manual and play with the various settings and features. I’m going snorkeling, so I’d love to get the waterproof case but it’s expensive and I’m not sure if any stores by me have it in stock. I’ll try and post again when I’ve played with it some more. Thanks for all the advice!

11

Good choice on the SD800. The only time that the speed of the SD card is going to have an impact on picture taking with this camera is in burst (continuous) mode with full image sizes. Otherwise, the camera just isn’t stressing the memory transfer very much. It will save on the download speeds to your computer.

One last accessory I’d buy is a memory card reader. You can just plug the camera into the computer, but card readers are faster and simpler, and only cost $10. You may want a second battery as well. I wouldn’t worry about leaving the battery in the charger for extended periods. I leave mine in overnight all the time, and it hasn’t had any impact.