I can purchase one quite cheap, 3MP even. However it ONLY has 3x digital zoom, NO optical zoom. Is this a good/bad thing?
Digital zoom is worthless. Can you tell me more about the camera?
It’s either a Kodak 3.2 MP EasyShare CX4310 or CX4300. I may take some outdoor shots but mainly indoor shots from about 18" (macro) I’m intrigued as it “only” costs $99.
I have the 4300 and what pulykamell says about digital zoom is pretty true. However the camera does take good shots. If you would like to see some pictures I have taken with it just email me. Most are close ups but I also have some deent outdoor pictures I have taken. I believe I got the camera at Walmart or Target about a year ago for $150.
If you just want it for snapshot-type stuff it should be fine for you. The fact that it doesn’t have optical zoom doesn’t mean it’s bad or anything. Just that you’re stuck with one focal length.
The reason digital zoom is crap is because it doesn’t do anything. It just doubles pixels or whatnot. It’s not recording any extra information, just multiplying it. You can achieve the same result in Photoshop by taking a normal photograph, cropping into the part you want blown up, and then changing the image size to the size of the original.
For snapshot stuff, I’m personally a big fan of the Canon PowerShot series. I’m not sure what number they’re on now, but I still have their first-generation 2.1 megapixel S100, and I have to say, it is amazing for what it is. Exactly the size of a pack of cigarettes, great resolution, and the equivalent of about a 35-70 zoom (in 35mm terms). They go for about $150 on EBay. They take great macro photos, too. The only problem is they go low on batteries quickly if you’re using flash, so buy extra battery packs.
If you’re interested in seeing samples, feel free to email me privately.
Does the number of megapixels really matter?
Yes. MP is the amount of information captured in the image. This is very important if you need to crop the image, since what is left may be only a small part of the original image. If you take a 1 MP image and crop it down to a quarter of its original size, you end up with .25 MP image, which you can’t print at any reasonable size without it being very grainy. If you started with a 4 MP image, you still have 1MP left, which is probably good enough for a nice 4x6 image.
If you are just sharing images on the net, more MP isn’t a huge matter after you have enough. A 2 MP camera will give you a fine online image.
If you are printing images, more MP allows you to print larger images without losing quality. A 2 MP image at 8x10 is somewhat grainy, while a 4 MP will still look very sharp.
Two megapixels is way more than fine for an online image.
A 2.1 megapixel camera will give you a decent 5x7, although 8x10s are slightly stretching it. If you use a program like Genuine Fractals, you can stretch the 2 megapix to get a decent 300 dpi 8x10.
Megapixels are important, but the more megapixels is not necessarily the better. The optics of the camera are quite important, too. I have a 2.7 megapixel Nikon D1, and it beats the pants off a 3-4 megapixel consumer-level camera because the optics are so much better (and many other reasons, but I won’t be too technical.)
That Genuine Fractals software sounds pretty intriguing, if a little pricey! Anyway, slight hijack:
I have a 2MP Olympus. I print most of my shots at 8x10, and although they’re not great, they’re okay as long as you don’t get too close 
I was wondering, though: when stretching the limits like this, would you get a better picture by just printing the raw image at its native resolution, or instead using Photoshop first to blow up the image to a resolution around 700 or 1400 dpi?
“Digital zoom” is a fraud when they call it that, but it isn’t actually worthless. They ought to call it “in-camera cropping” because what it does is throw away all but the central region of image data (more or less of the central region, depending on how far you “zoom”).
It is a little bit worthwhile in the sense that if you already know how much you are eventually going to crop your photos, you can save storage space in the camera by doing it when you take the picture.
It is also a little bit worthwhile in the sense that if you usually take pictures at a lower-than-maximum resolution setting, you can get approximately the same resolution for the central region, which is what an optical zoom would let you do. In other words, for somebody that never uses full resolution, “digital zoom” might actually yield the same photos with the same average resolution as optical zoom. Of course, somebody that never uses full resolution could have saved $$$ by buying a lower resolution camera to start with, so I’m stretching a bit here.
In my opinion, they shouldn’t use the word “zoom” to describe this feature, but it would be a somewhat useful and very cheap cropping feature to include in cameras that were already pretty complicated and required significantly educated users. It requires processor and program space and has to have a control available somewhere in the menus or on the buttons, but adding it doesn’t actually require any new parts per se.
But I have to say, calling it “digital zoom” is a stupid fraud, and they should be ashamed of themselves. And, having a true optical zoom sure is nice - I think it’s way more useful than any other feature a camera could have.
I’ll start right off and say that I would never buy a camera without an optical zoom lens and the extent of digital zoom isn’t a buying factor with me.
However, I will defend the concept of digital zoom for low priced cameras. If you are building for a price target that prohibits a true optical zoom lens, a digital zoom feature is of some value, especially since many people use the cameras for computer use where the full resolution is often not needed. The cameras use an interpolation process of examining adjacent pixels which is better than just cropping the photo. If you use digital zoom on a 2 MP camera, you will still get a 2MP image and, unless you look very closely, you probably won’t notice that the image has been resampled.
That said, if I want to take a small part of a digital image and blow it up, I would use the max optical zoom and then crop and resample in Photoshop since I think the intrepolation will be more sophisticated with an image editing program.
I believe there is an adaptor for kodak dx cameras so you can hook up normal camera lenses to it. Somday I’m going to get a wide angle lens for my dx 4900.
Here are some other things to consider.
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If the camera uses regular batteries, you might want to apply the cost of batteries towards a better camera with a rechargeable battery. In other words, you can spend $100 on batteries or put $100 towards a nicer camera with a rechargeable battery.
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Make sure you can buy the flash memory at a store nearby. If the camera uses a specific type of flash, and Kodak stops making it, you might get stuck.
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You can always use a throw away camera. On some trips, my nice camera stays at home because I’m afraid it might get stolen. I wouldn’t hesitate to take a $99 camera anywhere.
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If you can write it off as a business expense, does a better camera make more sense?
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If cost is the main issue, do you have a USB connection with Windows 2000 or later at home or work? That’s the least you’ll need. You might want to consider some other expenses: photo editing software to reduce the image size for e-mailing, a CD burner so you can burn CDs immediately after a family event, a printer, and ink for the printer. A local camera store might be able burn CDs and print pictures for you, but if you want the convenience of doing it all at home, you must factor in the other costs.
AA NiMH batteries are necessary for any digital camera that uses AAs. A set of 4 with an excellent recharger costs around $30, so it shouldn’t affect your choice. If you get a camera with a propriatary rechargable battery, add the cost of a second one as you will most likely want a backup, some of them are quite expensive.
Only Sony uses a proprietary memory card, and they aren’t going away any time soon. Some may go away (mainly Smart Media which is on the way out) but the others (CF, xD, MMC) all seem pretty sold and are available from a variety of makers.