What’s the best combination of price, quality, and capacity these days?
Durability’s a plus, too: it’s for an architectural firm and will be used on job sites.
Company money, so bottom-of-the-line dirt cheap is not the primary goal, but obviously a good overlap between good and cheap is desirable.
I’d say the priorities are:
Man, what’s with me and preview? Whenever I preview it feels like a waste of time; whenever I don’t, I reveal my inner retard. Could a passing mod please add an “a” to the end of the thread title?
Thanks.
Capacity is a matter of memory card, it has nothing really to do with the camera. You can buy very large memory cards of all types for relatively little money, so don’t let this factor into your decision.
You’ll need to give more information to get a really good recommendation. For example, most standard point and shoot cameras come with a 3x zoom lens (ignore digital zoom, it’s worthless). You can also by ultra-zoom cameras with 8x to 12x zooms which will get you a lot closer to your subject. Is that important for your needs?
What are you going to do with the images? If you are just using them for smaller prints (8x11 and smaller) or using in email or web then 3-4 megapixel will do. Other needs requirer larger image resolution, but not always.
Do you want manual controls or is point and shoot all that is required?
There are many good cameras by Nikon, Olympus, Cannon, and Sony, for example, that offer good quality images at a reasonable price. Check out http://www.dpreview.com/ and/or http://www.dcresource.com/ for reviews.
Point and shoot. These are architects; they’re retawded.
These will not be used as “final” photographs–we hire pros for that. This is to record the project, to track progress, or to aid in the drawings. Very low aesthetic values. Zoom is not important; these are mostly pictures of buildings, or walls; very rarely of specific features. That said, hi-res is good, so that features can be zoomed in on, onscreen, if necessary.
That said, occasionally we need pics of a finished project sooner than the professional photog has had a go, so we have used it for portfolio shots. Not always award winners, but still.
So a retard-proof, durable, not-too-zoomy.
Yeah, I wanna hear about retard-proof digital cameras, too. I’ve been wanting to get one for personal use–family gatherings, recording my quilts, that sort of thing. A nice sturdy one, please, that won’t die the first time ol’ Butterfingers here drops it. (Trust me, ol’ Butterfingers will drop it at least once.) A basic point and shoot one would probably do me just fine. I’m not averse to manual controls, but I’m far too lazy to bother adjusting everything for just the right shot. Dr.J would be far more likely to fool with all that stuff, if we had it.
We’re not looking to spend a great deal of money, but we don’t want a piece of cheap crap you can’t do anything with, either. I guess what I’m looking for is the digital equivalent of my Advantix–clutz-proof, idiot-proof, and nice but not horribly expensive.
I had excellent luck with my Olympus C-700. 10X optical zoom, good optics, 3.11 Mpixels, built-in flash for about $300-$350. It has options if needed, but is a good PHD (push here dummy) camera. The only reason I don’t use it anymore is because I bought a Nikon D100 digital SLR. 
I understand the Nikon “Coolpix” are good P&S cameras, also.
I would look at the Nikon Coolpix 2200 and 3200, simple, easy to use, high quality, good value. Also the Cannon A70 and A75, the Sony P71, and P72. There are others, but these are good ones to start with.
Important features in my opinion for easy to use cameras are a good Auto-Focus assist lamp, AA batteries (you’ll need to buy NiMH rechargables but alkalines will work in a pinch), and easy to use interface. Not too small, as they are hard to work when the camera is tiny. Buy a card reader and never worry about hooking the camera up to the computer.
As to robust, sorry, digital cameras don’t like being dropped. There’s too much to go wrong inside and frankly they aren’t valuable enough to repair. Take care of them as best you can, buy a padded case, and expect to replace it after a few years.
I just bought a Nikon 2200 and it’s been great for me. Very simple point-and-shoot, plus more features to explore if I ever get adventurous. They make more expensive versions of the same camera with higher quality also.
The above Nikon was the one I bought after extensive research, but another one that I heard good things about was the Canon A70 series. Either that or the Nikon’s should work well for your purposes. Simple, and good photos.
Regardless of what you buy, make SURE to get rechargable batteries, and probably a big memory card as well. That way you can store up to several hundred photos (varies depending on megapixels of camera and size of card, of course) before you have to transfer them to a computer.
Oh, and if you get the cheaper Nikon, make sure to buy a case with it. Usually costs 10 bucks, and offers a lot more protection than the little string they give you with it… :rolleyes:
Sony CD Mavica, the new model is 5 Megapixel, it’s idiot proof (I run mine with no problems) and NO MEMORY CARDS!!!
My Olympus C-700 has just 2.1 megapixels … where did yours get all those extra pixels?
Y’know, I’ve heard very good things about those. That one and the 3 Megapixel model. The only reason I didn’t get it is because it tends to be bulky and a bit heavy. Since you didn’t mention portability in the OP, this might be a good choice (though I’ll admit I also don’t know about it’s durability, since it hasn’t been out too long).
I would say quality-for-price, you should go with the Nikon D70. You can find it body-only for about $1000, but it’s more commonly sold with a 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S lens.
It’s got a 6-megapixel CCD sensor, which produces an excellent file size and high quality for large reproductions. If you go to the right digital lab, you can easily get 30 by 40 inch prints made which are virtually indistinguishable from prints.
All Nikon lenses will work on this camera (although you may not be able to use all of the D70’s functionality [such as autofocus and Matrix light metering] on older lenses.)
Storage capacity has little to do with the camera itself. The D70 uses Compact Flash cards, so you can buy up to 4GB (or possibly more) Microdrive cards. When you shoot in fine quality mode, compressed, that should give you well over 3,500 photos per card. Personally, I find 512 MB cards suit me welll; I just carry eight of them with me. Storage is not a problem.
I think bang-for-buck, this is one of the best digital cameras out there. (As long as you’re not shooting anything with too much action. Its frame rate is about 3 frames a second, which is fairly slow.)
::runs to check camera::
D’oh! You’re right, I misremembered. You know how some men are, always bragging about the size of their pixels.
While the D70 is a great camera, it isn’t idiot proof, there’s way more to go wrong and/or break, and they’d never use the capabilities based on the description in the OP. It just wouldn’t be worth it to take pictures of walls.
I’d stay away from the Mavica CD cameras. Due to the complexity and bulk of the CD mechanism, the cameras are bulky, slow, and have poorer optics than memory card cameras at the same price. They have a niche, but for general purpose use you can do much better by way of price-performance. Sony is the only manufacturer who makes a CD camera and there’s a good reason, memory cards are a much better option in 99% time. Finally, if durability is a major concern, this camera has the most moving parts of any digital camera on the market.
I put my Sony CD400 through a torture test when it was new, I fell face down on a sidewalk in London with it around my neck and it bore the full force of the fall (I am 300 pounds) and it was only slightly cosmetically damaged (and besides what kind of idiot puts a step at the bottom of a ramp anyway). It is a bit large, but I carried mine all over Europe last year on vacatoin and it was never a problem.
Unclviny (who took 1200 photo’s in 16 days, man I love! old motorcycles!)
I too am in the market for a digital camera. My trust 35 mm is the Yashica T4, with the Zeiss Tessar lens. Does anybody know if they make a digital version of this camera? It is a perfect compromise…you get japanese reliability with te unsurpassed Zeiss optics.
Help!
I have a 3.2 Mpx Canon A-70, it has the panorama assist mode and comes bundled with photostitching software, which I think you’ll find handy for your stated function (take lots of pics and put them together in a larger pic). I highly recommend it (well, the almost identical A-75 since the A-70 is discontinued) - nice lens, not too bulky, has lots of features for a camera of it’s price. Also, check out dpreview.com for lots of tech specs including price. Their comparitive search function is great.
It all depends on how serious they are with their architecture photos. The D70 is definitely a serious amateur or back-up pro’s camera. If all you’re doing is taking snapshots, then the D70 is certainly overkill. If you have no photography experience whatsoever, then the D70 is probably not for you either.
I agree. This is the camer to buy for the amatuer.
I’m in the market as well and was wondering if anyone has experience with the Canon S410. I have read some good reviews but would like to hear if anyone has experience with it. Also, are there any other recomendations for a good digital camera?