Digital camera question

what is the most important feature in your digital camera? Is it the megapixel's..battery useage...optical zoom....memory... I want to get one but I don't know the first thing to look for. I do know that I want to take close up shots so zoom is important to me. I don't want to spend over 300 bucks for one because I really like my manual camera. Thanks in advance, Lisa

Lisa good question. I'm a dummy when it comes to cameras!! :-) I would love one!

You should be able to get a nice camera for that price....maybe something in the 2 megapixel range. I took very nice pictures with the old 1.3 megapixel camera I had. When you post pictures on here, you should resize them down to something around 800x600 anyway. A 2 megapixel camera takes a picture at around 1600x1200...way too big to post in a forum...and even too big to view on your screen as a whole photo. What I want in a camera is 1) Quality 2) Zoom lense (optical, NOT digital zoom) 3) At least 2 megapixel or higher 4) Plenty of storage for pictures (you can buy extra memory) 5) Acceptable battery life (I use rechargables anyway...much stronger than alkaline.
When I buy something, I buy the best one I can afford because I know I'll be sorry if I didn't. There are really nice cameras in the price range you mentioned.

Here's some review sites to look at if you're planning on buying one.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM04.HTM

http://www.dpreview.com/

Here's a few cameras in your price range that have an optical zoom and at least 2 megapixel:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1763100&cat=47601&type=1&dept=5426&path=0%3A5426%3A3959%3A47601

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1587610&cat=47601&type=19&dept=5426&path=0%3A5426%3A3959%3A47601



This message was edited Sunday, May 26th 9:52 AM

Hello Louisa :-) thanks hc..what if the camera features both opticial and digital zoom feature? Photo ally has the same camera(newer model) that wal mart features and it is only a buck more. I don't understand the zoom features. Can anyone give me info on that? example: what does 3x opticial, 6x digital mean?

I have a Kodak DX3600...love it. 2.2 megapixels and has both optical and digital zoom. 8mg internal memory but it takes a memory card for additional memory (my memory card holds a couple hundred pictures, but I usually download them long before that!).
hczone6 is right about 2mg cameras taking pictures that are 1600X1200 HOWEVER on my camera I can set it to take picutres 900 X 600 also.
And get this! I bought a camera "dock" to go with mine. It sits on your desks and you just sit the camera on it, push a button and it downloads your pics. No scrambling behind the computer to plug in wires everytime you want to download. AND, the dock is also a battery charger.
Lisa, you should be able to get all those for your alloted amount of money (camera, dock, extra memory card, and software included).

Wow! I just clicked the first link given above. You can get great reviews there so I clicked on my camera. If you then click on "check prices" it gives you a nice list of vendors online and their prices. The cheapest I saw for mine was $262. There is also a calculate total price (including tax and shipping)...some of those folks had free shipping. (just type in your zipcode and they figure it up for you). You oughta check it out!
(And by the way, forgot to mention that this camera also takes videos!) ô¿ô


This message was edited Sunday, May 26th 11:38 AM

I bought and Olympus C-2100UZ recently. My big criteria was a 10X optical zoom. I see no point in having digital zoom on the camera, I do that after I am cropping and adjusting the picture on the computer. This camera senses the movements as your hands shake and repositions the imaging device so the picture is steady. Even at 10X zoom hand held photos are crisp. It uses SmartMedia cards and I added two 64Mbyte cards. At home I download images soon after I have taken them, it is when you are on vacation that the total number of images you store becomes important.One aspect of digital cameras that is not much mentioned is how fast the image is captured after you press the button. Every now and then when photographing animals or insects I miss a shot because of the lag.

The optical zoom is a REAL zoom and the digital is just a digitally altered picture to looked zoomed in. If it has both, that's ok...but you want the optical zoom for sure, if you care about zooming at all.

3x optical means that the lense itself gives you the zoom and it makes the object appear to be 3 times closer than it really is. The 6x digital means the camera will digitally zoom the photo closer so that it appears to be 6 times closer than you really are. The thing with the digital zoom is that it usually is no where no as good of quality as the optical zoom.

Lisa,

I have a $300 Sony cybershot and it's great for us. Not too expensive, but does everything we need. I've posted a number of pictures with it, so you can see for yourself. Here is a link, just to give you an idea.

http://davesgarden.com/showthread/231176.html

I have a Sony Mavica FD75 with 10X zoom. The absolute most valuable feature is that it writes pics straight to a floppy disk. An average floppy holds 40 pictures in a variety of formats. I have a direct recall and preview of the pictures - and it loads to any pc without wires or needing memory sticks. I have an extra battery and a charger - so that backup power supply is always available. I love my choice and was able to catch it on sale for $350 range. The accessory kit was a bit more, but I would'nt do without it. I have been able to shoot pictures of quality in poor lighting situations without less than desirable effects. I consider it my best investment. One other thing to plug in your thinking caps - those of you who retail or provide services - this is occupational related equipment that can be deducted on taxes! Let Uncle Sam reimburse you for your camera!

Good luck

Swoznick

good point swoznick! I forgot about that...seems we DO need a camera to take all photos of the jobs we have done ;-)to promote our business!!! Thanks!

Anytime - Good luck on your purchse!

swoznick