Tell me about your digital camera!

In My Humble Opinion
21

I have an Olympus Camedia C-3030, which is a 3.3 MP camera and I think it’s great.

I print on a Canon Bubblejet printer and the results are very good. (You have to use photo paper - prints on plain paper are never be better than mediocre, IMO.)

I can take 163 photos on a 128MB Smart Media card. I’d recommend getting at least a 64 MB storage medium.

The only thing I don’t like about my camera is the lag when I press the shutter. It’s about 1/2 to 3/4 of a second. But it’s only really annoying when trying to catch action.

22

Lone Minolta user checking in.
I use a Minolta F100, I like it. Cost me less than $500 on eBay.
Feature-wise, the one thing I would recommend above all others is the ability to do a custom white balance. This means you “pre-shoot” a blank white or grey surface, and the camera uses this to determine what qualifies as “white”. Eliminates the pink cast you get from some indoor lighting, and blue you get from flourescent.
If you want to see some pictures (ok, a lot of pictures) I’ve taken, you can check em out here:
http://www.pbase.com/plavacek

As for printing, I would highly recommend a dye sublimation printer instead of any ink jet. Reason: without archival ink, an ink/bubble jet picture fades, some faster than others. Dye sub doesn’t.

23

I have a Kodak DX-3900, with 96Mb flash card. It’s absolutely great. I can control the shutter speed and film speed. It also has a “burst” mode where it will take 8 shots over 3 seconds. It has a 3.1MP 2x optical and 3x digital zoom (the zoom is its only real failing as far as I’m concerned). You can see pics I’ve taken with it at my web page - www.maxxxie.net

I don’t print my photos so can’t really help you there… it’s great for my purposes, which are basically to put stuff on my web page.

Max.

24

Actually, the current breed of ink jet photo printers do come with inks that are archival. Dye sub is not worth the expense at this point (IMO) and they are getting harder to find at the consumer level.

Epson inks on Epson high quality paper will last 50-75 years in current tests. That sounds good enough for me. You will not be able to tell any difference in print quality, the current crop of photo printers are really amazing, at a cost of under $100.

25

Yeah, but the beauty of digital is if one print fades, it’s not hard to print another. When the prices come down they might be worth buying.

Another thing I wanted to comment on:

Until I got a digital, my photography sucked. I improved 100% because if my digital picture doesn’t come out good, I retake it until it does. With film, I wasted a lot of money and time developing totally awful pictures. Digital cameras are capable of taking excellent pictures, I’d never go back to film. The results I get are as different as night and day.

If you are like me, you might find that only 1 out of 100 pictures is worth printing. When I want to share my digital pictures, I burn them onto CD-R and give them away. I stopped thinking along the lines of everything needs to be printed (when most printed pictures end up in a box somewhere) and I know I look at my pictures more often on my computer.

26

Unless you need a professional SLR-type camera the way forward is the Canon G2/G3 at 4 mp. Acquire some photoshop skills and your film days will seem like a distant nightmare. The G2 is my second digicam from Canon and the people at Canon have a loyal customer for life!

27

I have a Canon PowerShot S110 Digital ELPH. Absolutely the best digital camera for me.

Not because of any special features or anything- it’s 2.1 megapixel and 2x optical/5x digital zoom.

The reason I love it so much is its size. It’s 2" high, 3 3/8" wide, and 1" thick. That makes it small enough to fit in my pants pocket while remaining comfortable and not standing out.

After all, the best camera in the world isn’t worth squat if you don’t have it with you to take the shots!

And, despite what Telemark says, 2 megapixels is WAY overkill for online use- a full-size picture from a 2 mp camera is 1600x1200 and roughly 1 megabyte in size. That’s generally much too big for emailing to people, and is generally considered fine for printing an 8x10" print (citation).

If I were you, I’d save the money on the 3 mp and above cameras and get a 2 that you like- take special consideration as to size and ease of use- they’re far more important than resolution and zoom!

28

Ah, but I crop a lot. Yes, you can get a great online image from a 1 MP camera, but I take mainly outdoors, wildlife, and scenery shots where getting a good image size is important. I often forget that most people taking images for online are taking indoors snapshots and photos of items that are close.

I’ve printed many 2 MP 8x10s, and 3 is better. I can really see the difference on my Epson Photo printer. You can get good 8x10 prints from a 2MP image, even a 1.3 MP image, but unless everything is perfect you can tell the difference. Especially if you crop the image. The FAQ you pointed to is a general guide, but in the discussion boards on dcresource you’ll find that people usually recommend 3MP if you plan on printing more than occasional 8x10s.

I went to 3MP due to the limitations of my 2 MP camera (and the fact that I left it on a train in Paris) and it was worth it for me. Depending on your needs, you may be fine with a 2MP camera. I’d even recommend getting a relatively inexpensive model that you can get good pictures with and decide later if you want to spend more money. Prices are constantly dropping, you’ll want a new camera eventually, no matter what you buy.

And I really agree with bump about the best camera is one you take with you. I’d love it if I could get all the features I want in a camera the size of my Olympus Stylus Epic, which is a sweet 35mm P&S. I may get a second digital like the Canon you mentioned just to carry it around at all times. My Olympus C-720 is great but a little bulky.

29

How important is zoom? Does anyone feel constrained by the 3x optical zoom that is typical of many digital cameras?

I’m still leaning toward the HP Photosmart 850, and the higher zoom is a big factor. However, I’d like to know if it really is a factor, or if 3x is good enough for most uses.

30

What kind of photos do you typically take? I switched to a 3x zoom because I take lots of pictures while hiking and my subjects are often quite far away. When taking pictures indoors I rarely use the far end of the zoom lens.

If you plan on taking lots of pictures indoors you should also check the speed of the lens, ie, how much light you’ll need to take clear pictures. Many zoom lenses eat up a lot of light and require you to use flash more often. I don’t know about the HP camera, but you should check out the Fuji, Olympus, Sony, and Canon cameras that also have a large zoom. They generally have a better reputation than HP for digital cameras.

For my use, a large zoom was important, even though I’ve had to give up some low light ability.

31

Make that “switched to an 8x from a 3x zoom”.

32

Telemark, thanks for the reply. We take a lot of hiking and outdoors pictures, as well as a lot of travel photos. So, the 8x sounds useful in those situations. How constraining is just having a 3x for those situations? Did you find yourself unable to take photos that you wanted to take, or having to do a lot of cropping later on?

I read the reviews of comparable Fuji, Olympus, Sony, Nikon, and Canon models on dcresource.com, most of which look to be outside my price range. The Olympus 730 looked promising (my wife currently has a 35 mm Olympus that she really likes), but the reviewer does complain about higher than average levels of noise in the image, and even compares it head to head against the HP image quality, and it is more expensive.

So, I figure the choice is either go with the HP, which has an 8x optical zoom and is still within my budget, or forego the high optical zoom to get a better brand or more portability.

From the reviews, it wasn’t clear what the lens speed is. (Or rather, I don’t know what lens speed is, and the reviews didn’t explicitly spell it out for me.) They have “ISO speed” (100, 200 for the HP and 100,200,400 for the Olympus 730), and shutter speed (can set between 16 and 1/2000 sec).

33

When I mentioned lens speed, it is the F-stop of the lens. Someone else can hopefully come by and explain it in greater detail, but basically the higher the F-stop of the lens, the more light it needs. For example, a lens listed as F1.2 can take pictures in low light much better than a lens which is F5.0.

The lens on the HP is f 2.8-3.1, it changes depending on how much zoom you are using. The Olympus is f 2.8, unchanging throughout the range of zoom. I don’t think this is a big difference. To compare to the Olympus 4040, a 3x zoom, the lens is f 1.8-2.6, ie the lens is faster. Can someone stop by and explain how that relates to available light in an easy to explain manner? I’m over my head.

You can play games with ISO, and it does work well, but you are giving up clarity just like with film. Running the camera at ASA 400 will give you grainier images, but you’ll be able to take shots in lower light without resorting to flash. I believe it turns up the “gain” on the CCD, but I’m not sure what that means.

I have the Oly 720, very similar to the 730. My biggest complaint is that there is no IR illuminator, so at low light it has difficulty focusing correctly. This is regardless of flash, the camera just can’t focus on the subject in low light. Pain in the ass, I wish they’d add this feature.

I did fine with my 3x model (Oly D-490) for a year before I lost it on a train. Would I have bought a new camera if I hadn’t lost it? Eventually, but not right away. I could take most everything I wanted, but now that I have the 8x I can take shots I didn’t know I was missing. And for printing and cropping, I’m glad I have 3MP.

My advise would be to buy a cheaper 2MP camera with 3x zoom and decide if you like it. Prices are dropping rapidly, and all cameras are obsolete in 1 year anyways (at least from a sales POV, they continue to work just fine). Spend some time getting used to digital, find the right software, printer, etc, and once you have more info and experience, look for a more serious one. You may find that you’ll be fine with a $200 unit, or you may love digital so much that you go for a $2000 SLR unit.