low end digital camera

[David]

We lost our point and shoot film camera this summer, so its time to move into the modern era and go digital.

Goals

take pictures of family
take still pictures of cars outdoors at shows
take pictures of boats, moving and still

I looked at a comparison website. The Canon Powershot A85 and A80 seem to do everything that more expensive cameras do.

Would I gain much by going more expensive?

The other goal is to make prints. What should I look for in a printer to achieve 'drugstore' quality?

[pyro]

Canon is good.

At-home prints are easy to make with a $50 inkjet printer and the appropriate paper.
The problem is, they don't last. After a couple years, the colors fade, the surface of the prints gets brittle and cracks when bent. Canon's best line of jet printers, inks and paper claim 25 year prints, but this is only when they are kept under glass with limited light exposure.

Get LARGE capacity memory cards for your new camera, so you always have an extra or two. Take your memory card to Wal-Mart or to the drugstore, just as you have always done with your film. It's easy and cheap, under 20 cents per print. The prints will be good quality, and they will last.

You can also get a dye sublimation printer to make drugstore prints at home, but the overall cost isn't any less in the long run. They're convenient when you want to make a quick single print, though.

Better cameras are faster (less start-up time when you turn it on, less shutter lag, etc.)

One thing you will need to learn to do with a point-and-shoot digital is to "pre-meter" your shots for instant pictures. The camera needs a couple seconds to analyze the scene, focus, and adjust exposure before it actually takes the picture. So if you just push the button, there will be a delay before it shoots. Most digital cameras allow you to hold the shutter button halfway down, which will lock in the autofocus and such beforehand, so when you say CHEESE and fully press the button, the picture is taken at that instant, instead of several seconds later. Some people never grasp this concept, so they push the button fully each time, and wait.

If your subject changes position or the light changes, you need to release the button and meter the exposure again, otherwise the picture will be too light or dark, or out of focus. This is a simple concept, and once you get the hang of it, you will be way ahead of where you were with the 35mm. Preview the picture after you take it. If it sucks, delete it and shoot again!

Keep your camera in the AUTO mode. Make sure you don't accidentally change it to a wierd mode by accident. Most cameras have a flash button that allows the flash to be set to auto, alwyas on, or always off. That little button is handy. Just don't forget to set it back to auto after you take your sunset pictures. :D

[Rickracer]

....it was just under $200, and came with a 128 meg memory stick. I have been very pleased with it's performance. I have yet to figure out all the features, but it is mostly point and shoot, using Pyro's instructions above, and takes very nice pics in that fashion. It also has modes for a lot of trickier stuff, like sports mode, party mode, fireworks mode, etc. I feel that you can't go wrong with one of these as a point and shooter, but then again, I'm no photographer. :cool:

[hsbob]

go to dpreview.com and compare the sutter lag timing. time between pushing the button and when the camera takes the picture. pushed the button on my wife camera of gson jumping into a pool and the camera took the picture when he came up. my d1x took 5 in that time period. best time will be under .5 second.

[pyro]

Professional cameras are the only ones that have the non-existent shutter lag.

If you're looking at cameras under $200, you should be more concerned with photo quality than shutter lag. All of the point-and-shoot cameras take a second of two to meter the exposure. When they are used as they were designed to be used, in the manner I described above, the lag won't be much of an issue.

Push the button halfway and hold it till you're ready to take the action shot. Most cameras will be instantaneous this way.

www.stevesdigicams.com

Excellent site with reviews and high-resolution sample photos.

[triple dude]

Lots of digital camera's for sale on ebay. Any cautions??

[150aintenuff]

shop the fetures before at a store so you know what you are getting ... that said cannon 520 is EXCELENT and can do 99% of everything a big pro camera does, has all the adjustments and will shoot up to ISO 800 and 1/8000th of a second.. and also if yer good can do full manual mode with a change to an adjustable aperature(think thats whatIm lookng for) all for 200 bucks or less.. works as well as my wifes rebel XT except doenst have the pixel resolution... its a 4 MP camera rather than 8

[ragtopvet]

stay away from digital corp on ebay,they sell gray market cameras,there salesmen lie,and customer service sucks:mad:

[David]

I was wondering about the burst/continuous feature for taking pictures of boats at speed. Would that work for me even if the auto focus speed is slow?

[pyro]

Ebay is not the place to buy a camera. Lots of leftovers, questionable "display models", rejects, returns, and screwed up stuff.

"When you can't sell it anywhere else, sell it on Ebay."

[sho305]

Maybe this thread is old but I got a Canon A520 for the parents and it works quite nice, so I got one for the inlaws too. It is slower in dim light where the flash has to charge and the focus is more difficult, but if you hold it half way first it is much faster. They are down close to $160 at many websites now. It will be hard to beat at the price and has many good reviews. Get rechargable batteries for it, or any camera I think, and get the better 2500 mAh or more ones.

Anyway, I just bought the cheapest camera! I wanted an older one, figured I would find one on the web cheap...not so! I wanted 4mp and some zoom, I would have gotten another A520 or a Nikon like my 35mm is but my camcorder just dumped on me. Not sure what will happen with that yet but the camera is here...its a toshiba pdr4300 from ubid, a refurb. It was $79, 92 shipped. It has less zoom then the A520 but is 4mp and has lots of manual functions. I think it was an older good camera. Has a canon lens. Have not used it much but it is bigger and heavier likely due to the 4 AA batteries in it, also has a smaller LCD than most current ones. Has a lot of features, can resize pics on the camera, set photo modes, set all manual settings, takes no sound video, has burst modes. The LCD will go dark in very low light conditions, kind of a pain. Also has a remote to trigger it, or you can hook it to a TV and show pics, advance with the remote. That works nice too.

Anyway, I can use the SD card and rechargable AA batteries in another camera, so not a bad deal if it works for a while unlike my video camera that looks to have one of those defective sony CCDs in it. It was missing the USB cable, and it uses a strange cable with a DCUP end that a few Nikons also have. They gave me $10 off or offered to take it back when the refurbisher said they could not get one, but I found one for $9+shipping. I have not yet loaded one on my PC to see how good it looks until it gets here, but you can zoom into a pic on the camera and it looks sharp. They warn that getting dirt/dust in the camera will trash it, like at a windy beach. It does have a door you close to cover the lens. There are a couple tiny scratches/wear marks on it.

The only other one I could find cheaper was the FE-100 for just over $100, otherwise I might as well have bought a current camera like the A520/etc. Why buy an old camera for $20 less? Unless it is an alltime favorite camera and none of those are leftover to sell from what I found. Problem was I could get some cameras for less here at circuit city than on the net, that was surprising. This was about $90 less than A520 though, so we will see how it works for >$100 to my door. I bought all the batteries, charger, SD card and stuff at JRs.

I don't like ebay at all, but this ubid is kind of like the ebay stores. They are all businesses though not people, and seem to be good at making sure things are taken care of. Service was nice and fast, good packaging too. Some stuff on there is same or more than one can buy it elsewhere, so pricing has to be checked (and shipping cost!). I don't know, I've bought plenty of refurb stuff if it was done by certified places...it has all the bugs worked out then. You just need to make sure the product is not junk regardless if it works well, and if it is prone to breaking again (bad reviews, design defects). Everything seems to have some returns and they go somewhere...as long as the price is right of course. This camera has a 90 day warranty from them.

I think the burst pics are assumed to have the same focus because they are done so fast? I'll have to try it on this camera, it has a 3 pic and 16 pic burst mode I have not used either yet. Just got the 512 SD yesterday.

[sho305]

A520 for $148.77 at Target stores this week, that is cheapest I have seen. Could not find it that cheap even without shipping at my previous post here...and there is no shipping at Target:) (not the website, the store)

http://weeklyad.target.com/target/circular_browse_listing_detail.asp?storeid=2400719&pagenumber=18&rapid=248132&listingid=-2095454015&

The one I bought seems to be working fine so far, got the cable and it loads to pc great and pics look as good as A520 ones. If you don't let it focus in poor light it will be fuzzy, otherwise its good. Boy when those 2700 AAs go dead they go dead. Unless its the camera, it just tanks with the lens out and everything and will not start back up. I know the high perf batteries I had in my RC car, when they ran out; they ran out right now.

[SportJ-US-1]

I have both an Olympus C-740 and an FE-100. The 740 is a $500 rig with all the regular features plus a 10X optical and 3x digital zoom. The 100 a $150 unit and is your basic camera with only a 3X optical and 4X digital zoom. Both cameras use optional memory chips, we bought the 256 chips for both. At high resolution you can take over 250 pictures with the 256 chip in the camera. Both do movies.

[hsbob]

look at pyros post above hes right on on every thing. i can only add to minor points

1 the prefocas for a boat moving a high speed may not work. the pre focused point may yeild a out of focas picture because of the moving boat. you'll need to have a low apperture setting to assist the prefocus method and expect about 10% out of focus.

2 forget about how many picture you can get on a card just get the biggest card you can or many smaller ones [dont put all you pictures in one basket]. shoot in raw if you can or using the high resolution setting on the camera. the lower setting are using a jpg compression method that wipes the polor from the picture. look at picture from a sony ponit and shoot thaken at different jpg compressions. they go too far!!!!

[tunnelmike]

[QUOTE=hsbob]look at pyros post above hes right on on every thing. i can only add to minor points

1 the prefocas for a boat moving a high speed may not work. the pre focused point may yeild a out of focas picture because of the moving boat. you'll need to have a low apperture setting to assist the prefocus method and expect about 10% out of focus.

How do you get around the prefocus thing ?? Buy a nicer camera ? Mike

[sho305]

I would check reviews, that might help. If I compare the A520 to my $80 toshiba that is older and has a canon lens....the A520 is faster and much better in low light to focus. Sometimes mine does not focus at all in a low light room...I'm sure its different, maybe has a different ccd chip too, lens/aperture size, etc. It works fast outside in daytime, even the movies look pretty good but no sound for $80.

I don't like that prefocus, though at times its nice. I prefer to take 5 pics of one thing if possible and usually one comes out...that is why you want a big card, and a faster camera is nice. I think I fit way over 300 jpg pics on my 512 at 4mp at the highest quality setting it has. Even then you just trash the bad ones once you are done shooting. Sure, there are always the shots you only get one chance at you might miss....a better camera is a better camera.

[RBT]

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1173

I just picked up one of these on ebay new for 280. Love it. My brother has had one for 6 mths and loves it.
Not a high end, but to throw in your pocket it works GREAT.

RT