I need a Digital Camera! can anyone help me pick one???
 

I went out looking at Digital Cameras today and WOW talk about confusing...

Can some of the resident experts with Digital cameras PLEASE tell me the specs, Brand names, and prices, on what I need to take pics of my truck project as it progresses.

I would like to take pics to make prints to go in a photo album, size would probably be 4"x5", also pics to post on the web page etc etc.

The objective is to get good CLEAN CLEAR PICTURES like I see on this board, and on some of your web pages.

KEY Words are CHEAP AS POSSIBLE.

Thanx to all who reply, it is greatly appreciated, as I am totaly confused by salesmen in camera shops who only know how to try and upsell.

cheap as possible is not good. i went that way and bought a kodak cheapie($130) and the camera sucks.


http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a40-30/index.html

canon a40, thats the one i currently want, great pictures, and not to expensive

A disposable camera works pretty good. I took these with a one time use camera. To put them on the web, I just scanned them. I have some nice pictures for my photo album and pics for the web. Cheapest way I know. I also have a cam corder that can take pictures. I've seen a $39 pen camera take some awsome pictures too. It's all really in the lighting. My preference is probably the Sony line of cameras.

If you want digital, Olympus has good picture quality. I found a refurbished D100 for $110, takes good pictures.

Olympus Camedia C-3030 3.3 megapixel,

bought mine used 1 1/2 years ago for $ 100.00, takes awsome pics, my job depends on it.

Bill

http://www.unlimited2u.com/plane.jpg

Here's a pic with my Vivitar Vivicam 3625. Cost me about $140 at Wal-Mart. One thing I love about this is the camera has a small LCD screen on the back to show the pics you've already taken as well as what the camera sees. It can takes 8MB of pics or video. The pic I attached is set on a medium setting rather than a high pixel setting. The spot on the cleaner lid is from the reflection of the sun. http://www.southernbowties.com/Brandon/IMAG0016.JPG

I have a Fujifilm MX1200 and have had it for 3 years. Nice picture quality, lot's of options for selecting picture quality, takes abuse pretty well, but hate waiting for the photo's to download. Time is rather extreme. It takes a Smart Media card which is nice because extra cards are cheap. I have 3 cards that hold 32 meg total and can take anywhere from 60 pics at fine quality to 120pics at high quality and can hold. It also lets you pre select the file size that you want your photo to be which is nice here because you are limited to a certain file size when you post photos.

Camera
 

Here's a normal quality, 640x480 size photo I just took with my Fujifilm MX1200. The white dots are snowflakes. Lots of them!

i use a Sony DSC S30. Slightly older model, only about 1.3 megapixels I believe. great camera, never failed.

you want to get a camera that has the most megapixels you can afford really. the more pixels, the higher the resolution and quality of the pic.

features are dependent on you. most will not give you more than a 3x-6x zoom. most have timers. some will offer moveable video screen, others are stationary.

a big consideration is the media used. there are several different types of flash cards that these cameras use, the brand will determine the type used. Sony uses the memory stick. Others use Flash or whatever. Some you need an adapter to plug in the computer, some you can plug right into USB and just load some software drivers. Sony is USB w/software. pretty easy. Other flash cards can plug right into a printer if you have the higher end HP's and a few others. Basically, get one that is most compatible with what you have and you can afford.

hope this helps. good luck!

79BIG10: nice motor!

I would agree about the megapixels also look at the zoom like 6x, 4x and so on. I just bought a sony mpegmovieHQX model #mvc-cd400. It's a great camera. Has the view finder in the back and you can also make movies with it. The picture quality is awsome. The best part is it use's the CD disk insteed of the memory stick. The CD holds about 85 pictures where the memory sticks hold about 8 pictures and with the memory stick you have to purchess add ons just to load them into your puter. The CD you just put in your cd drive and down load them. My camera has a 6x with 4.0 megapixels. Cost 900.00 but well worth the price. You could get a cheaper one but you get what you pay for. Just my 2 cents. Look at the picutres of my truck i posted on here.

Jason

I've got a canon powershot s10, it's a older model but there are some new model with the same features. takes real nice pics and is easy to use with a small LCD on the back. Use a compactflash memorycard. From factory it came with a 8 mb card but I've bought a 64 mb card and can make about 150 pics on it depending on the quality chosen. It uses a USB cable to connect to the computer. Photoshop reconizes this camera so you can import your pics directly into the program. It also comes with all kinds of software to edit your pics. If you use the supplied software it is quite fast in downloading your pics to your computer.

Remember that a digital camera needs more light than a regular camera and the flashers on a digital cameras aren't always the most powerfull ones so if you are going to buy one, do some tests with it in the shop and see if it has a powerfull flasher. Just make a picture in a darker part of the shop and take a look at the result using the LCD on the back.

I love my Canon A40. It costs about $250 and I love it. The menus are very easy to use. The camera is built to last, everything is built pretty tough and designed in a manner to lessen the chances that something breaks on accident. You can even shoot video footage with it. The video is very clean and doesnt require a powerful computer to upload the video from camera to PC. I would highly recommend this camera to anybody!
Also another great feature to have on a digital camera is the option to plug it into your TV and watch videos/pictures on your TV screen. Alot of cameras do this now, and I think its a must! All you need is RCA inputs on your VCR or TV and you can view with everyone in the room.

Get the most megapixel's you can afford!

Check out cnet.com they have lots of info and prices. I really like the reviews on the cameras that are done buy people that bought them.

Some cameras in the cheaper price range will have high megapixel, but low image quality.