I need a new digital cam. I want to minimize the delay when taking pics and have good quality. What should I get? My main subject is my always on the go One Year Old.
Please provide price range and how much Optical Zoom you want.
I like Nikons, Cannons & Panasonics.
The Cannons and Panasonics have the best picture speed from the reviews I have studied.
Jim
You want something with fast autofocus, small shutter lag and an optical viewfinder. I’d say a Canon EOS D20 or Nikon D200.
If those are too expensive, you’d better tell us what your budget is.
Too many questions you’ll need to answer first before anyone can make a decent recommendation.
How much are you willing to spend? What size/format camera? What features are you looking for? How much zoom? How many megapixels?
Take a look at DCResource or DPreview and learn about what is out there and what you are looking for in a camera.
I’m guessing that you are looking for a 4-5 MP compact camera with good lowlight and action funtionality. Look at the Canon SD610 or 620, the Fuji F10 or F11 to start and see what you like. Go to a Best Buy or Circuit City and play with the cameras there for a while and see what feels good in your hands.
I’m not worried about budget at this point, I’m trying to find a good Christmas gift from the 'rents right now. They want more pics of the 1st grandson, I need a better camera. I just want to know what the Dopers think is the best so I have some ammo to go in with.
This is one of the fastest camera’s with the best zoom that won’t break you.
Draw backs: It runs $400 to $500 and weighs a lot.
I takes movies in addition.
Uses inexpensive Memory but comes with too small of a card.
It is the Elite of the super-zooms and has excellent image stabilization for those of us without the best camera skills.
It is on sale here for $389.
http://www2.butterflyphoto.com/shop/product.aspx?ref=pricegrabber&sku=PANDMCFZ20K
Jim
I think you really want an SLR for this. I’ve always found it difficult to photograph animals with point & shoot digital cameras. SLR have optical viewfinders so there’s no delay there. SLRs usually have very short shutter lag. And SLR lenses have manual zoom, which is much faster to operate than electronic zoom. And you can use an external flash with a swivel head, which is invaluable for indoor shots - just bounce the light off the ceiling to get a natural, soft light.
If you don’t have any SLR lenses already, take a look at Nikon and Canon digital SLRs. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them. If you already have Nikon or Canon lenses, you might as well stick with it and get a digital body from that company. I currently have a Nikon D70 with an SB-800 flash and I’m very happy with it. Here are my dog photos - older photos at the top. Do you see the quality suddenly improved on the 5th row? That’s when I got the external flash.
Certainly, a dSLR will do everything better than a P&S or ultrazoom, but at the cost of expense, complexity, loss of movie mode or shooting through the LCD, plus the added choice of lenses and flash. They’re great cameras, but not need just to get photos of the kids.
The Canons with the Digic-II chip (S2 IS, A610, A620) the Panasonics with IS (FZ-30, FX-7 and FX-9), the Fuji and Olypmus models with high ISO (F-10, F-11, Stylus 600 and 800) will all allow you to get fast photos of moving objects in low light without all the tradeoffs of a dSLR.
I love dSLRs, but they’re just not practical for most people.
A DLSR might be the solution but the yet to be released D200 and 20D are borderline professional cameras and are priced accordingly. There are DSLR body and lens kits for under a thousand dollars from Pentax and Olympus.
The Nikon D80 is under $1000.