Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: aldo_14 on July 11, 2005, 05:36:14 am
-
Me and my brother (or 'my brother and I' for the pedants) are looking to buy my dad a digital camera for his 60th on Friday; to be honest I don't a clue about them, so does anyone have any advice on good brands of specific models?
We're looking to spend probably around £200 (at the most). It's not going to be used for any advanced photography; just the usual family/holiday snaps and soforth.
-
The Canon Ixus range are exceptional for that sort of thing... for instance the Digital IXUS 50. Here's some stuff on it:
http://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/product_finder/cameras/digital/digital_ixus_50/index.asp
I think that might be over your price range by about £20 but it's a example anyhow. The Digital IXUS 40 is a lower spec camera but is around £193 which is certainly within your price range.
-
So what sort of specs should I be looking at?
-
Canons are good. Olympus is also good.
You should be looking at Megapixels mostly. Anything in the 3.0 megapixel range is very decent and can be had for a decent price.
Also consider into the price an extra memory card as the ones that come with are usually very tiny.
-
Does your dad do photography at all? If so, what kinds of photography does he normally do? Just plain record-keeping, family pics and that sort of thing? More specialized, nature/artistic stuff? Would he be looking at printing these photos?
-
I have always been partial to the Rebel XT. I have heard great things about it. It only cost $1000 US :p
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
Me and my brother (or 'my brother and I' for the pedants)
To be truly pedantic, you have to say "My brother and myself are" for proper parallelism. Alternatively, you could say, "I--and my brother--am looking": the parenthetical phrase does not affect subject verb agreement. You might also say "We are" as it removes the possibility of syntactic confusion at the cost of introducing a little ambiguity. The best possible case is to remove the brother (not by stabbing or other foul means, mind you) entirely and just say "I am looking...". After all, it doesn't matter for the purposes of your question.
Originally posted by aldo_14
We're looking to spend probably around £200 (at the most). It's not going to be used for any advanced photography; just the usual family/holiday snaps and soforth.
As for the camera, if its just for taking snaps, and not for doing Photography, then I'm going to recommend the Canon Powershot S70. A decent number of megapixels for the price. Its pretty fast, uses CF media, and uses fairly standard battery packs. You're looing at about US$450, which is what? 275 pounds?
-
Thundfireth and Steak are our resident snappers - they're probably the ones who can give the best advice. Those Canon IXUS compacts seem to get very good reviews from what I've read, but I don't own one so I can't comment further. The best I've got is a 1.3MP Olympus something-or-other. It's about 4 years old, is huge and bulky, and is temperamental at best....
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
Does your dad do photography at all? If so, what kinds of photography does he normally do? Just plain record-keeping, family pics and that sort of thing? More specialized, nature/artistic stuff? Would he be looking at printing these photos?
Family pics. Not serious or artistic stuff; just bog standard holiday snaps and soforth.
We'll *probably* get a printer to go with the camera.
-
Well, I still think the Ixus is a good bet - it's a compact camera with a good megapixel rating.
But if you're looking at others, I think the most important things are:
The lens:
Canon use exceptional lenses in their cameras - as do Nikon a lot of the time. Other (less well known) but no doubt cheaper brands may use lower quality glass and lets face it - that's what you're taking the picture with.
Megapixels:
You should be alright with a 3MP camera - but I'd go for a 4MP or more camera just to be sure. Anything below 3MP will show degradation and although you're not doing art photography with this thing, you don't want crappy family pictures either. That's why I picked out the 5MP Ixus at first.
Zoom?
You might not need zoom... but you should look for a camera with at least a 3x optical zoom with it. Digital is no good as the camera "guesses" what colors should be where in the image. Most cameras have a 3x optical zoom these days anyhow.
Battery Life:
Nobody likes carting around tonnes of batteries - or buying them - or constantly worrying around them. It's a good idea to make sure you can take a decent amount of photos with the camera before the battery dies. Also... you can think about rechargable batteries, propriotory batteries that can't be bought in most stores like AA batteries can. If the camera can only take 20 pictures then dies on you, and you can't buy a new set of batteries or recharge the ones you have for some time, you're screwed. So it's best to be safe!
Those are the main things that spring to mind at this stage. Of course there are other things like size to consider as well as whether the camera comes with any special features you might especially want. But it's a start :)
-
Originally posted by mikhael
To be truly pedantic, you have to say "My brother and myself are" for proper parallelism. Alternatively, you could say, "I--and my brother--am looking": the parenthetical phrase does not affect subject verb agreement. You might also say "We are" as it removes the possibility of syntactic confusion at the cost of introducing a little ambiguity. The best possible case is to remove the brother (not by stabbing or other foul means, mind you) entirely and just say "I am looking...". After all, it doesn't matter for the purposes of your question.
Goober? Is that you??
Originally posted by aldo_14
Family pics. Not serious or artistic stuff; just bog standard holiday snaps and soforth.
We'll *probably* get a printer to go with the camera.
I can heartily recommend pretty much any Sony camera (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/) for the picture quality; they certainly have a wide gamut of cameras for every budget. Both Eddie and I have the DSC-V1 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscv1.asp), which definitely can hold its own against most cameras even today, and yet is already discontinued due to newer models having come out. :p
And trust me - once you get a digital camera, you'll want to play around with the photos a bit. And if you get a lowest-end camera, you'll be upgrading far sooner than you'd expect.
-
Heheheheheheh....
Well, something that I actually know quite a bit about for once.
Here is a good guide for you digital photo takers...
1MP - Decent 4X6-inch prints, and thats about it.
2MP - Reasonabally good 4X6 inch prints, you could also get a 5X7 or 6X8 out of it, but it will come out like crap, and extremely mediocre 8X10/8X12 prints.
3MP - Excellent 4X6 prints, good 5X7 and 6X8 prints. Will make a decent 8X10/8X12.
4MP - Amazing 4X6, 5X7, 6X8 prints and very good 8X10/8X12 prints.
5MP and up, if you got the money, by all means go for a camera that has these resoluitions, but they are not very practical for the average picture taker.
Also, avoid digital zooms on cameras like the plague. They cause more trouble than they are worth. Optical zoom is the way to go, no matter what.
And some tips for setting up your camera, for the best possible pictures on your camera, have it at the highest resoluition setting, You can decrease the settings to fit more onto a memory card, but you lose image quality bigtime. The average user has a 3.25MP camera, and a 128mbit card wich can hold 145 images set at max resoluition which is good for most casual picture takers.
-
Well, i'm looking into buying one for myself too, and well, my researches have narrowed to a handful of modes, mostly from Rollei (the DK 4010, the dr5 and the dr5100). They all get excellent reviews in tests (well, Rollei seems pretty well known by professionals), and I'll probably get one of those 3... tho I have difficulties choosing ~~
I have no idea what 200 pounds make, the three aboves are around 300 euros (you know, 299 ~~), the 5100 is a bit cheaper.
-
Fuji
I have an E500 - it's very small, but has a good lens, 4MP, some video function, and really good macro for close-ups. Simple to use on full auto mode too. Check out my pics here:
http://www.altgame.net/scotland/scotstart.html
NB: the pics are about half the size that you get from the camera.
The only downside is XD memory, which is a tad expensive, but other than that I love Fuji cameras...:yes:
-
Funny, we just had a very similar thread in the admin forum. ;)
The guys have covered pretty much all the essential points above. I'd like to add a couple of things, though: noting that your old man's 60, you want to keep a special eye out for ease-of-use in the model that you get. Great stats are vital to look for, but never underestimate the impact of a really poorly designed body or menus. An excellent camera will simply gather dust if it's not easy to learn. I can commend Sony for having some quality cameras that novices can pick up very quickly and use out of the box. The newer models also have a trend for having huge, very readable LCDs - very handy for older folk who are losing a bit of their vision.
Also, I say this to everyone who buys a camera, and it's related to my earlier point: never ever purchase a model solely based on its numbers (megapixels, zoom). You really need to go in and pick up the model that you're thinking of and see how it feels in your hands. Unless it's a surprise, ideally you want to get your dad to pick it up himself to see if he's comfortable with it. It's going to spend a lot of time in the hands of its owner - it better sit well and feel solid while you hold it!
Originally posted by Sandwich
I can heartily recommend pretty much any Sony camera (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/) for the picture quality; they certainly have a wide gamut of cameras for every budget. Both Eddie and I have the DSC-V1 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscv1.asp), which definitely can hold its own against most cameras even today, and yet is already discontinued due to newer models having come out. :p
:nod: Agreed on all counts. Man, that V3 sure looks good, doesn't it? ;)
-
I'm looking at either a Fuji FinePix F610, Sony DSCW12 or Kodak CX6445 at the moment. The latter because it comes with a free printer dock.
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
I can heartily recommend pretty much any Sony camera (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/) for the picture quality; they certainly have a wide gamut of cameras for every budget. Both Eddie and I have the DSC-V1 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscv1.asp), which definitely can hold its own against most cameras even today, and yet is already discontinued due to newer models having come out. :p
How well does it manage with night pictures? Say, night skies and stuff?
-
Originally posted by Setekh
Man, that V3 sure looks good, doesn't it? ;)
...V3? :confused:
Originally posted by Nico
How well does it manage with night pictures? Say, night skies and stuff?
Lemme post a pic of Orion I took out in the desert. ;)
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
...V3? :confused:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscv3.asp
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
Lemme post a pic of Orion I took out in the desert. ;)
Go ahead :)
As for macro shots, I remember pics from steak, so I know already.
I really need a digital camera, will make texture making easier.
-
Nico - if you're taking night shots - I really really recommend a tripod. It'll make a whole load of difference to what you can do with the camera. You can pick up a cheap one fairly easily - as long as it holds the camera still while it takes the shot - that's the point!
-
Originally posted by vyper
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscv3.asp
Now how'd I miss that?? *blames the heat*
Anyway, I can't find the pic I have of Orion (the constellation), so I ope to compensate with this (http://www.brainzipper.com/night_pics/).
-
It's a bit grainy, imho...
-
Welcome to the world of low-light photography. ;) If you want better, you'll have to get something more along the lines of the DSC-H1 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dsch1.asp), the DSC-828 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscf828.asp), or something else with a large lens (I mean large in diameter, not in zoom).
-
Like I'm gonna put 800 USD in a camera :p
-
I'll be putting a little over $1300 into a digital camera in the near future I think.
one thing though: it won't be a Sony. I don't like the Sony lockin for media. Nearly nothing but Sony hardware uses the Sony memory sticks. I stick with CF and SD for everything. Of course, if you have lots of Sony hardware, it makes sense.
Again, I reiterate my support of the Canon Powershot S70. 7mp on the cheap, baby.
-
The EOS cameras are meant to be excellent. You could probably find a 300 on the cheap, now that the 350's out...
-
Originally posted by mikhael
one thing though: it won't be a Sony. I don't like the Sony lockin for media. Nearly nothing but Sony hardware uses the Sony memory sticks. I stick with CF and SD for everything. Of course, if you have lots of Sony hardware, it makes sense.
I'd have to agree with you there; A the time I got the DSC-V1, Sony was still making Clie (Palm) devices, and I was planning on getting one. I was pleasently surprised, however, to discover that my dream Sony camera, the DSC-828 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscf828.asp). has CF I & II support... IBM Microdrive, anyone? ;)
-
Originally posted by Sandwich
I'd have to agree with you there; A the time I got the DSC-V1, Sony was still making Clie (Palm) devices, and I was planning on getting one. I was pleasently surprised, however, to discover that my dream Sony camera, the DSC-828 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscf828.asp). has CF I & II support... IBM Microdrive, anyone? ;)
Beat me to it. Can't record 30 FPS video onto the CF, but I don't think people will complain that much. I hope Sony builds more CF support into their later models. :yes:
-
Actually, you CAN if you get the right kind of CF, Steak and the camera has a fast enough data bus. I've got a 512mb CF card in my PDA right now that is rated for 480mb/sec (about firewire speed)
-
That may be - don't know if disabling 30fps video to a CF card is just due to hardware limitations (that would be / have been overcome), or because they disabled it in the BIOS (to prevent people complaining that their 30fps video recorded to CF is skipping).