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Question of the Day: Was the Airlink flyover too low?
Digital Cameras standard these days
- Thread starter koeks
- Start date
i want nice big clear picture and a nice digital camera. the more compact point and shoot variety
Veroland
Executive Member
Get yourself a tiny imp with a paintbrush 
it all depends on what you want to shoot
high pixels are nice if you are going to start doing microstock photography or printing in large formats. by the way pixel counting is more than likely one of the most debated subjects on photography right now, so if you ask 50 different people about pixels, you will most likely get 50 different answers.
price, well unless you have a money tree growing in your back yard (if you do, can i have some seeds when it blooms) then price is always a factor
p&s offers a low to medium price with good results. dslr on the other hand is a sickness, much like a drug or alcohol additiction. you buy the camera then you want more, bigger lens, macro lens, better dslr, gadgets for your dslr, it doesn't end and there is no help out there. there will always be people pushing you on to buy more stuff for your dslr addiction. just joking...if you can afford a dslr and goodies you will not look at a p&s again, it completely opens up a whole new world to you. i would tell anyone that can swing it to go to a dslr format.
optical and digital zoom, again it depends on what you want to shoot. last year i had not purchased my nikon d60 yet and i did my annual trip to kruger. the other day i was going through some photos of last year in kruger that i shot with a fuji s5500 and i could see so much of a difference in my photos from then to now. the wildlife shots that i have done recently with the d60 are so much more clear and so much more vibrant. there really was a huge difference. so if you are going to take photos of nature then optical i would say would be a better choice. if it is family photos then i really can't help you there. it seems like bwana tends to take a lot of shots (photos) of his kids so perhaps he can help you there.
memory, i will never shoot on anything larger than a 4gig card. i've seen people buy 8 or larger gig cards and do some very stupid things and then lose all those pictures. i would stick with sd type cards, they are cheap and reliable. however i never had any problems with my xd cards when i shot with my fuji and i've read recently that fuji and olympus are starting to use a sd format in some of their cameras.
brands, there is only one brand NIKON, the rest...well hmmm. no, seriously canon, nikon, sony, olympus (sp) etc, make amazing cameras both in dslr and p&s formats. in p&s you must also consider fujifilm, those cameras can take a beating and still come through. i really would not consider a kodak even if it is a cheap p&s spend the extra cash and get a reliable p&s from one of the bigger brands.
also you might want to consider a bridge camera, fujifilm and olympus make some amazing bridge cameras. they cost as much as a dslr but you do not have the extra cost of having to buy a lens for what ever you want to shoot. they have high pixels, a lot of the same settings that are on some dslrs, their zoom ranges tend to not be half bad and i've seen some excellent pictures taken with bridge cameras. they are not cheap like a regular p&s though but some are very fine cameras.
hope this helps.
Sackboy
Executive Member
To focus on one thing. You will see features like "3x Zoom". Try and distinguish between types of zoom - digital and optical. Digital is the equivalent of using a magnifying glass, whilst optical is the actual lens seeing something up close, so that's the important spec.
To further expand on that - Digital zoom is next to worthless. It can be done in your computer (resizing) and probably with better results so switch it off in camera.
Sackboy
Executive Member
Then there are those pesky megapixels to worry about.
Beyond around 5Megapixels it's not going to make a lot of difference to you unless you're creating a poster A3 or A2 size. What's more important is the quality of the lens, the sensor type/size - this is why I recommend picking a good brand.
Useability is also important. You don't want to wait 30 seconds before the camera is ready to shoot.
Beyond around 5Megapixels it's not going to make a lot of difference to you unless you're creating a poster A3 or A2 size. What's more important is the quality of the lens, the sensor type/size - this is why I recommend picking a good brand.
Useability is also important. You don't want to wait 30 seconds before the camera is ready to shoot.