Digital Cameras

[Lare Kikkeli]

I've been meaning to buy a digicam for a while now, i've just been waiting for a good sale.

 

 

 

The Samsung Digimax L50 is off 50% at 200 €

 

 

Ditto for The A7.

 

 

Now which one should i get? I need a basic camera for nature photos and myspace(lol) stuff, but with enough megapixels so i can do schoolwork too (photoshop and stuff).

 

 

Anyone familiar with Samsung cameras?

 

 

 

There's also a Sony Cybershot T5 for 230 €, i could afford that.

Edited September 20, 2006 by Lare Kikkeli

[LostStraw]

Something I've noticed on a lot of the lower end digital cameras is that they only allow the pictures to be saved as JPGs. It's not bad for regular photo use (normal sized photos), but I've found the JPG compression artifacts to be a pain when editing them.

 

I don't really have any experience with cameras beyond that though -- just commenting that being able to save in a lossless format (bmp, etc..) might be a feature you'd want to look out for.

[Lare Kikkeli]

man, i never thought of that. yeah it would be great if the camera saved the pictures in .tiff or .bmp. i can only afford spending ~200 € though, so those three are pretty much my options.

[mkreku]

I would recommend the Fujifilm Finepix F11 (if you can find it). It usually sells for around

[Lare Kikkeli]

how is the Lumix DMC-LZ3? I found it fairly cheap from PIXmania. No luck with FX3

[mkreku]

The FX3 isn't supposed to be released until the end of this month (September). I don't know much about the LZ3 unfortunately. The camera I'm setting my sights on is the DMC-TZ1. A compact 10x optical zoom camera. It won the TIPA 2006 Superzoom award. A bit expensive though.

[Lare Kikkeli]

ouch, 400

[LadyCrimson]

I like Canon's. In that price range, the Canon Powershot.

 

http://www.steves-digicams.com/best_cameras.html (scroll down to "4 Megapixel" and "Entry Level")

 

I'd like to add that megapixels here is not the main thing to be looking at. All that pretty much means is that you can have images at larger resolutions. 4megapixels is really all you need on consumer digicams.

 

Edit: In the price range, brand isn't that big a deal anymore - pick one that feels comfortable in your hand and where the controls and their locations feel ok to you.

In terms of the jpg compression thing - I kinda doubt it'll be too big a deal for most of the things you might use it for, as long as the image resolution is high enough. Just always keep the original and work from a copy or crop, if that makes sense, thus preserving the original jpg's quality every time you edit it.

[LadyCrimson]

Oh, on that page, click on the actual name, not the red shop button, to get the review. It's a little confusing.

[mkreku]

I was under the impression that most cameras used .jpg with 0% compression, thus making them artifact-less. They use it out of convenience (most image viewers can handle jpg, unlike RAW) and not out of compression/file size reasons.

[Lare Kikkeli]

depends on what quality you choose to take the pictures i guess.

 

 

i'm torn between lumix and canon. i guess i'm going to forget about those samsungs, all the reviews i've read have been negative. same with the sony one.

[LadyCrimson]

I think the size of the sensor is more important than jpg vs RAW in terms of the original picture quality. Smaller sensor, lesser quality.

 

RAW's advantage has to do more with the much greater ability to fine-tune picture/WB settings after the picture has been shot than picture quality. If you set a custom white balance (assuming that's possible on your camera) to get a consistent color, medium/large jpg's are fine for the original shot. Most consumer digicms today do what...around 2000+ or so resolution jpgs? That's more than enough for most folks.

[metadigital]

I bought a Sony Cybershot two months ago for c.

[angshuman]

CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON CANON

[mkreku]

I can't argue against THAT

[Diamond]

I have a CyberShot too and it is good enough for an amateur, the only problem with Sony cameras is that they use MemoryStick exclusively, so it makes sense to get it if you have/are planning to get more Sony products.

[metadigital]

[Fenghuang]

Every Canon digicam I've fiddled with has been very nice.

 

I've also messed with a Nikon Coolpix camera, also excellent.

 

I don't currently own one of my own, last one got busted and I haven't been able to accrue a proper amount of funds since.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm not sure what meta's pictures are supposed to represent/show us. :ph34r:

 

Canon and Nikon are pretty big consumer rivals - at least in the high-end digiSLR market. Many like one over the other almost exclusively. If I was rich right now, I'd so buy the Canon 16.7-megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II. Sigh.

[Diamond]

I'm not sure what meta's pictures are supposed to represent/show us.  :ph34r:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is a book in the first photo titled "How to become CEO". He wants to be a new Obsidian CEO.

[angshuman]

I'm not sure what meta's pictures are supposed to represent/show us.  :ph34r:

 

Canon and Nikon are pretty big consumer rivals - at least in the high-end digiSLR market. Many like one over the other almost exclusively. If I was rich right now, I'd so buy the Canon 16.7-megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II. Sigh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Full-frame sensors...

[metadigital]

I'm not sure what meta's pictures are supposed to represent/show us.  :ph34r:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They are two cropped and shrunk photos from my lovely 8.1Mp Sony Cybershot DSC-N1: one of the originals was over 13MB.

[LadyCrimson]

Take a macro picture of a quarter, I'd be curious.

[taks]

i've done quite a bit of research on cameras recently and most of the pseudo-professional review sites tend to favor the sony dsc-h2. it's about $300 in the states. 6 mp, super-zoom (i.e. 10x optical zoom, maybe 12x) with stabilization. it's also got an slr-style body. i intend to buy either that, or the dsc-h5 for xmas.

 

taks

[taks]

oh, by "favor the sony dsc-h2" i mean given the value range of the camera, i.e 6 mp, $200-$400, etc. obviously true slr 6 mp cameras are preferred. they're just too expensive (then you look at nikon).

 

taks