What Camera should I buy?

[Jimmy Jones]

Please let me know if it's worth buying a model a little over my $250 minumum.

Thanks for all the help;

JJ

PS- I'm going to use this as a personal camera. Not motion camera.

 

[WildBird]

Try the HP line of digital cams. Office Depot has them for good prices and they go on sale. I would look at the HP 620 model and up. The controls are easy and much like a film camera. The HP software that comes with it is excellent for editing/ downloading/ email. You can get an optionl "docking station" that makes it easy to download pics and I think recharges batteries. I have an older model with less resolution (2.1mp) and it takes super pics and I can make excellent quality prints 8x10 and smaller. The HP printers are great too if you want to print your own. Also, you can upload your pics from your computer directly to places that will make your prints for you. Walmart does it for 26 cents for 4x6 prints. Once you go digital you will be hooked for sure. WB

 

[TxCowboy]

I am assuming that you are talking about buying a digital, so I will give my advice based on that assumption.

My personal preference is Olympus digitals. I have nothing bad to say about other brands but I've had wonderful luck with my Olympus digitals and 35mm's. I own a D-490 and I recently purchased the discontinued C-2100. If you want an all around good camera for general use, I'd go with the Olympus D-series. The D-490 I have is discontinued now but I like it so much that I've decided to keep it, even though I've upgraded. I think you can get some good deals on the D-490 on Ebay. It is a 2.1 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom. If it had a bigger zoom I wouldn't have upgraded. But the C-2100's 10x optical zoom won me over.

The current D-series camera is the D-550. It avg. $299 but I think you will be able to get it for $250 very soon. It is a nice camera but doesn't seem quite as nice as the D-460 and D-490's. Just my opinion. Sony also makes great cameras, but I honestly don't know much about them.

A few things to remember when buying a digital.....

1) the higher the megapixels the better. I wouldn't buy anything less than 2.1 but no more is really needed for the amature photographer.

2) Pay no attention to "digital" zoom. For the most part it is useless and makes your photos grainy and ugly. The optical zoom is what is important. I wouldn't buy a camera without at least a 3x optical zoom, that is standard.

3) when you find a camera you are interested in, go to www.steves-digicams.com and read about it and look it over. You will learn more about it then the sales guy can ever tell you.

Just my advice!!!

 

[Jimmy Jones]

Just wanted to take a few secs to thank you TexCowboy for your respose. Thanks a lot.

Both of your posts were very helpful

JJ

 

[TxCowboy]

No problem. That's what this board if for. Let us know what you get if you decide to buy a new camera. We won't mind if you didn't take our advice, no one else does.

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jimmy,

TX is sending you down the wrong road!!!

Ok maybe not

He is telling you all the right things when picking up a digital. For your price tag, you can get great shots from an OLY, HP or Kodak camera.

I have owned both the OLY and the Kodak. The Kodak was easier to take good shots with, but the OLY was better at taking great shots.

Enjoy.. and teh number one thing TX said was true, stay away from digital zoom. Buy it for optical zoom only. Digital is a plus that you probably won't use.

Jim