Antimatter
06-30-2006, 10:20 PM
Okay I'm an relative newbie to the digital camera market, although I'm a decent camera shooter, and has had done some work when I was younger with an film camera myself. Anyway I'm looking for some suggestion and/or ideas on good digital cameras for below $400 dollar or so, I've done a bit of researching, and has compiled a little list of few cameras that I've seen recommended on various threads on this forum, and other websites.
Sony DSC-W100 ---- someone warned to stay away from it
Sony DSC-S600
Canon S3 IS
Nikon D50
Olympus SP-350
Panasonic DMC-TZ1 ---- noisy at high ISO level/ sensitive to lights
Canon A610 or A620 ---- no image stabilization, no ISO over 400
Canon SD630
Canon A700
Panasonic FZ20
Fuji Finepix F10
Panasonic lumix FX8 ---- Very grainy at high ISO
Anyway here's the feature list and/or requirement I would like to have on the camera, now quite a few of the features are flexible, its not strictly MUST have types of features, if someone can point me out a good reason why to have, or why not to have a certain feature I'll consider it.
Usage:
- Mainly Point and shoot pictures of friends
- Landscape pictures (eg: sunset, city lights, mountains, etc)
- Couple others like pictures of events, nature, etc...
Controls:
- Mainly auto for the point/shoot type of stuff
- Would like some manual control for landscape pictures and playing around with
Price: Preferably $400 and less
Brand: Open to any good brand
Size: Open to most size, but if its an SLR like size, it probably would get left at home most of the time, and be only bought for certain events or when I know I'll be taking pictures, and the Ultra-compacts are nice, but probably would be way out of my price league and/or lacking in features, so I suppose mostly compact to medium size
Resolution:
- Will mainly be saving pictures at 1600x1200 resolution, or approximately that, because that's my desktop size and I like that size so i guess 4-5+ Mega-pixel or so, but I'm flexible on this one
Features:
- Optical zoom, would like to have some for landscape picture, but its not mandatory, but I would like something akin to 4-5x or higher?
- Display Size, hmm 2 inch or up would probably be fine
- Automatic/Manual controls would be nice, I would like to have automatic for point and shoot, but manual for playing around with and landscape type of pictures
- Battery Type, Would prefer the standard AA rechargeable battery, but if can't really get this, other types are fine, but would strongly prefer AA so I can replace them on the road.
- Digital Zoom, not really crazy of this feature, probably won't ever really use it
- Storage Format, Any good and relatively cheap/decent storage format, some sort of format that i can get up to like a gigabyte per card, probably will buy a few cards
- Image Stabilization, It would be nice for those point and shoot picture, but for landscape pictures I'll probably try my best to be a tripod, or get a cheap/decent tripod.
- Video and others, I am not that crazy about video, or any other stuff that cameras can do, but if it can do video that would be great, if not, oh well, no big loss.
Thanks!
Sony DSC-W100 ---- someone warned to stay away from it
Sony DSC-S600
Canon S3 IS
Nikon D50
Olympus SP-350
Panasonic DMC-TZ1 ---- noisy at high ISO level/ sensitive to lights
Canon A610 or A620 ---- no image stabilization, no ISO over 400
Canon SD630
Canon A700
Panasonic FZ20
Fuji Finepix F10
Panasonic lumix FX8 ---- Very grainy at high ISO
Anyway here's the feature list and/or requirement I would like to have on the camera, now quite a few of the features are flexible, its not strictly MUST have types of features, if someone can point me out a good reason why to have, or why not to have a certain feature I'll consider it.
Usage:
- Mainly Point and shoot pictures of friends
- Landscape pictures (eg: sunset, city lights, mountains, etc)
- Couple others like pictures of events, nature, etc...
Controls:
- Mainly auto for the point/shoot type of stuff
- Would like some manual control for landscape pictures and playing around with
Price: Preferably $400 and less
Brand: Open to any good brand
Size: Open to most size, but if its an SLR like size, it probably would get left at home most of the time, and be only bought for certain events or when I know I'll be taking pictures, and the Ultra-compacts are nice, but probably would be way out of my price league and/or lacking in features, so I suppose mostly compact to medium size
Resolution:
- Will mainly be saving pictures at 1600x1200 resolution, or approximately that, because that's my desktop size and I like that size so i guess 4-5+ Mega-pixel or so, but I'm flexible on this one
Features:
- Optical zoom, would like to have some for landscape picture, but its not mandatory, but I would like something akin to 4-5x or higher?
- Display Size, hmm 2 inch or up would probably be fine
- Automatic/Manual controls would be nice, I would like to have automatic for point and shoot, but manual for playing around with and landscape type of pictures
- Battery Type, Would prefer the standard AA rechargeable battery, but if can't really get this, other types are fine, but would strongly prefer AA so I can replace them on the road.
- Digital Zoom, not really crazy of this feature, probably won't ever really use it
- Storage Format, Any good and relatively cheap/decent storage format, some sort of format that i can get up to like a gigabyte per card, probably will buy a few cards
- Image Stabilization, It would be nice for those point and shoot picture, but for landscape pictures I'll probably try my best to be a tripod, or get a cheap/decent tripod.
- Video and others, I am not that crazy about video, or any other stuff that cameras can do, but if it can do video that would be great, if not, oh well, no big loss.
Thanks!