My twin girls have decided that photography is their new hobby – lucky me
I’m looking for cameras for their birthday. Here’s what I want in order of importance…
[ul]
[li]Gotta be tough – I’m expecting it’ll get dropped [/li][li] good auto setting – they’ll need a simple setting to just point and shoot[/li][li]excellent image stabilization[/li][li]Good for small hands[/li][li]big sensor – well as big as I can get in the $150 range[/li][li]zoom - nice to have, wide(?) setting to take pics of family and close-ups of flowers and stuff would be cool - telephoto stuff probably not a priority [/li][li]anything else you photogs can recommend[/li][/ul]
And just to be totally unreasonable if it looks cool like a real camera and not like a toy I’ll score bonus points
OK - I know all of that is unreasonable to expect in one perfect package, but how close can we get?
Got an old phone? The picture quality I get from my iPhone 5 is amazing and good enough that my DSLR doesn’t get out much any more unless I have a project that demands a “real” camera with a professional-level lens.
Put a phone in one of those “life proof” cases and you’ve got about a third of your list covered. At ten years old, I’m assuming they’re not at the point of needing or wanting to know much about the relation between aperture and shutter speed.
I confess that I haven’t looked at point-and-shoot cameras in a couple of years, but the last time I did, most of the offerings under $300 or so were either outclassed by my phone, difficult to use, or just ornery things with a functional “grammar” and menu structure that seemed designed by housecats.
The beauty of a ‘real’ camera is that when they’re young, they can put it on the automatic mode (green square on Canons), and move into more specific auto modes as they get older, and even into manual mode.
Plus, Canon ELPH P&S cameras seem to be well-nigh indestructible- I’m on my second one, and both have multiple dents in the parts that’ll dent, and gouges/cracks in the parts that won’t. Cameras still work like the day they were bought though.
Mine is the 330 model but I swear by it and almost never at it. It takes a fair beating in amusement parks, hunting, fishing, bouncing around my saddlebags and getting vibrated to death and baked by the exhaust from that. It’s easy to use and gives good results.
One addition I suggest is a “screen cover” for it from Delkin Devices (delkin.com). It really makes the screen much easier to see (shades it while you are shooting) and provides it a lot of protection as well. Mine is the Duo 3.0"-M but they come in a variety of sizes to fit more cameras.
Exact page http://delkin.com/camera-protection/camera-protection-universal-pop-up-shade/
if either is not careful (or trainable to be such) then maybe not get a zoom lens. with some cameras, it doesn’t take much of a bump at the wrong spot to break it.
I had an old S110 (the 2000-ish model) and now have a S100 (2012 model). Both have given yeoman service, and have survived a great deal of abuse. The only complaint with the S100 is that battery life isn’t as awesome as I might like; not terrible, but lacking when compared to my T2i DSLR, which seems to have an eternal battery.
One of my daughters has an elph and managed to crack the glass on the rear display but it still works fine.
Is wifi-enabled pretty standard now at that price point? The easier to get the pictures off the camera the better.
My girls (now 12) shoot LOTS of video with whatever device they have. I was constantly on their case about storage and they’ve sort of wised up over the years but it’s always an issue.
Another issue is fingerprints on the lens, so get a bunch of cleaner stuff and show them how to use it.
When they were little we looped stretchy hair bands together so they could wear their cameras around their necks, like a strectchy camera strap. They always forget to put the loop around their wrist.
Make sure you have adequate places for off-loading and backup.
Your daughters will no doubt have lots of apps in mind for monkeying with their pictures, so be prepared for that. Some of them really suck.
Sorry, no real real recommendations, just random thoughts from the trenches.
I’ve tried the cameras intended for children and, without exception, they took crappy photos. Everybody, including the kid, was disappointed.
I’ve gotten my kids cheapie regular digital cameras. Usually what I can find on a refurb deal through Newegg, woot.com, etc. They’re rugged enough and cheap enough so it doesn’t matter much when they’re *not *rugged enough. Check out online review and reject if they have poor low-light performance. Kids want to take pics inside and having better low light performance matters there.
Refurbs are a great idea. A waterproof/shock resistant model like the Nikon S30 have been on Adorama and Cameta for around 50 bucks.
Go to Olympus USA, Nikon USA, and Canon USA for their own factory refurbs.
If the kids can be trusted wit an X-Box without breaking it, an older DSLR from several different brands can be found in the $200 - $300 range with kit lens. I’m talking models like Canon Rebels, Nikon D40/D60/D3000, etc…
Image manipulation software can also be found for as low as FREE. A quick Google search turns up several. I’ve used the Serif versions before, and they aren’t bad. Getting into the software side of photography is similar to getting into darkrooms back in the day.
