The great camera debate!

[SpongeBuell]

Ok, big deal, I'm polling this... but I'd do the same for you guys... honestly!

Anyway, I'm looking at a digital camera. Something that takes good pictures, lasts a while, and is an overall good camera to use. Also, it'll have to work well for a college student. My price range target is $250, with a $300 max. Now, I'm looking for a camera. So far, here is my first debate: small, but lower quality, or big (almost as big as a dSLR) but can take awesome pictures?

I'm not so sure what I'd like to get if I would get a small one (my dad has a Canon PowerShot SD630 that he loves, but it costs $330) but if I got a bigger one, I think I know the one I want... the Fujifilm S5200. Ok, so it's a bit bigger, but I'm drooling over its quality! Heck, look at this zoom!


Goes to this when zoomed in all the way (10x optical)


Sounds perfect, right? Well, as you can probably see, it's not exactly the most portable thing in the world. Not that it's hard to carry around, but it's not exactly something you can throw in your pocket, either.

Any suggestions are appreciated, especially for the smaller point-and-shoot models. If you have the camera, some random (untouched) photo would be awesome, so I can get an idea how the quality is.

Thanks,
SpongeBuell

[Triton]

my dream digicam thats in that price range is the konica minalta dimage 5, its an amazing dSLR 3.3mp camera with a i think 8x optican zoom (can get telephoto lense too) the one i realy want is the dimage 7 which is 5.5mp. as far as point and shoot DO NOT get a olympus camerawe have a d540 and it SUCKS, i absolutly hate it

[blackbox_dev]

If it was me, I'd go with the bigger one because of the quality of the shots. Of course, that's just me.

[bicostp]

4 megapixels will print out nearly perfect 8x10s

I think 2 megapixels will print out perfect pictures up to 4x6. After that you start to notice JPEG artifacts.

We have a Canon Powershot z80, 4.5 MP I think, and ith as soemthing like 8x optical zoom. We got a wide angle lens, too, for outdoor shots and cute pictures of animals up close.

I'd get a camera that takes regular AAs, and easily obtainable memory. My dad pulled a bunch of 192 MB CompactFlash cards out of discarded equipment at work, so we got a digital camera that takes CF. I think it can also use MicroDrives. (even though they're essentially the same, MicroDrives have a much highter capacity and the camera's software may not be able to recognize it.) So we have rechargeable batteries and flash memory. I thinbk the last film we bought was in a disposable camera for a class trip.

Go for at least 4.5 MP, maybe more. Make sure you leave aside some cash for a USB card reader, I find that to be much easier than hooking up the camera to the computer.

[legoboy]

I'm thinking of getting a Nikon D 50. Actually I think that soon it will be replaced with a smaller, less expensive, just as good (if not better) D 30. Then I'd get that.

[timmeh87]

We used to have a canon powershot S40, which was 4 megapixels, and had many many manual settings, things like aperture and "F" (whatever that is) and shutter speed and stuff.

it was an awesome camera, and then it got stolen

This month we got a canon powershot A700, and it too is an awesome camera. it has all the same kinds of manual settings (and indeed, most of the same buttons in the same places), but its 6mp and has 6x optical zoom. it has optical image stabilization, movie mode, and a cool, weird mode called "color replace" (+many other cool things).

It takes SD cards, which seem to be the new CF. we got a 2 gig card for less than $100 canadian, im sure you can find a reasonable 512 meg card in the states for pretty cheap.

It also has the ability to accept 3 different lenses (not a standard lens connector though, they are special lenses made for powershots. sold separately) : telephoto, wide angle... and something else.

It has a 2.5" LCD too... XD

canon Powershot cameras are awesome. the A700 might be a bit out of your price range, but consider the A620, which actually has more megapixels (7mp), but less features or something (only 4x optical zoom).

oh yeah, the A series takes 2 'AA' batteries.

[Triton]

the f number or f-stop is the aperture jsut fyi, i love cameras, im a decent photographer but i need to learn how to better use manual settigns, my all time favorite film camera is my zeiss ikon contessa, i have a nice pentax zx50 too, and about 40 other cameras

[demonofaj]

Aha, I got this Fujifilm 6.3 MP SLR camera from Costco for 500, thanks dad.

[timmeh87]

hm. interesting. why is it called the f-stop?

[Triton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_stop

[Gamelver]

Sorry, sponge, but you got tricked....they didn't actually zoom in...they just walked over to the statue! *sigh*, some people are so gullible.....

Anyway, something that will take decent pictures and is small is good enough for me .

[cowsgoquack101]

I have a small 4 megapixel Casio that takes great photos. Just go with something reasonably priced and can take regular AA's. I used it to take pictures for the

WORLD'S FIRST ODYSSEY PORTABLE!!!

[Harshboy]

Neither... allow me to explain below!

As above....A Macbook. I can play games on it, and surf the web Not to forget it can take pictures

[usbcd36]

If it were me, I'd get either a Nikon D70 or a Canon EOS Digital Rebel. Problem with that is they both run around $800 now, so I don't recommend that for you.

What I do recommend for you is the Canon PowerShot A95. Its predecessor (the A85) received excellent reviews, and all the A95 is is an incremental upgrade of the A85 (4.0 MP -> 5.0 MP, flippable LCD similar to that of camcorders, etc…). After investigating it (and not getting it), I found that my sister and her husband had bought one when their old CyberShot DSC-S75 broke (…which I then fixed and received). I messed around with it a little and definitely like it. It even has manual modes! Only complaint is that it does not support RAW format (few consumer-level models do, but numbers are increasing!). If you have decent photo-editing software, RAW format is the true key to getting good photos. If you don't have the expensive stuff, free RAW stuff generally comes with RAW-capable cameras anyway.

Oh, and it takes AAs too. Rechargeable too if you want.

[SpongeBuell]

Neither... allow me to explain below!

As above....A Macbook. I can play games on it, and surf the web Not to forget it can take pictures

Not only is that way above my budget, but the pictures aren't as good as a normal camera... plus, I'll be getting a laptop anyway