Topic: Let's talk cameras..

[toytuff]

This should be interesting. 

I am in the market for a new camera. I'm a point and shoot kinda guy. Know nothing about photography. What lens did you say? 

There are tiny ones and big ones. 12 megapixels, 16 and blah..I'm really confused.  The more I read the more I don't understand.

OK, I have one in my phone. I have another that is several years old but works for me. A Casio Elilim 5 meg. I would like to go up to a 16 meg camera with some sort of zoom to it. I do like Sony products and am looking at two (2) models. With the Holidays coming up now might be the time to upgrade.

From Sony:

DSC-HX9V. 16.2 meg, 16X zoom.

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666290110

DSC-HX100V. 16.2 meg, 30X zoom.

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666297852

Not sure if I would ever need more, like a DSLR camera fron Nikon etc. or this one that is 12 meg.

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=prod2720095&iid=CRSJ300

I'm sure there are members here who are really into this stuff. I'm not sure if I need a high end camera. Did I say I was confused? What did you go with?

tt

[Bob Wessner]

What do you plan on doing with images? How much to you plan to enlarge them when printing? The optical zoom is important as apposed to interpolated zooming, but at 16-30X zooming, unless the cameras include image stabilization, you will have a difficult time using the max zooming.

[Stev-o]

Oh no, we're confused even more now! (I would like to upgrade as well)

[toytuff]

Oh no, we're confused even more now! (I would like to upgrade as well)

Told ya! 

Yeah, this is worse than shopping for a car!

I have read good reviews on several cameras but it always seems "there is one little thing they did not like".

tt

[faux fiddy]

Ask me anything about old school cameras.  New ones not so sure.


A friend got a new one that can do a panorama (ala WiDelux cameras).  I thought that woud be a feature I would look for, I'm not sure if he got a nikon or sony.

[johnny]

I've owned a Leica D-Lux 3 for several years and have been quite pleased with it. The Leica lenses in particular have a stellar reputation. They are used in Panasonic cameras also - which are generally cheaper in price.
The current issue of Consumer Reports rates the following subcompact digital cameras very highly:
Nikon Coolpix P300
Canon Powershot S95
Casio Exilim EX-ZR10
Nikon Coolpix S8100

Highly rated compact cameras:
Canon Powershot SX130 IS
Casio Exilim EX-FH100

I hope that helps. Good luck!

P.S. - If you have a Facebook account, I have a public album of photos I took this Summer at a local bike show using the Leica.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2157897070621.2130900.1342339303&type=1&l=8bd3bd5824

[333]

Just as real estate has the 3 important factors(location, location, location), with cameras it's lens, lens, lens.  Granted, as resolution gets higher, it's less obvious in the final product.  It used to be that with a 3.8mp camera, when the camera zoomed digitally, the picture suffered painfully.  So my message here is to make you look for the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom.  My current point and shoot is a Sony DSC-TX10, and it has only digital zoom.  I didn't pick it out, so I can't complain too loud.  She may hear me.   But past that, I love the camera.  I just can't zoom in close enough sometimes. 

[toytuff]

Thanks everyone. Getting better. 

Yup, the zoom is what I am after. Optical eh? 

More reading to do I see.

tt

[tramp]

unless you're going to expand more than a 8 by 12, 10 mega pixals is more than enough
point and shoots are nice but stay with the optical zoom
digital zoom just expands the picture
also watch how fast they react to changes to light
some take a long time to settle down

[Don R]

My daughter got one like the middle choice sony. She took it to a wildlife photo class and the instructor loved it. She has taken some amazing wildlife pictures. She did recently get a bigger lens for it too.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

I use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 that has the Leica 10X optical zoom lens that was mentioned. Digital on top of that.  It's 7mp. I bought it about 3 years ago. Never had a point and shoot digital. Main reason I ended up with it was it had an underwater housing available and I was heading for a dive trip in Palau. While it's OK for daytime above water it leaves things to be desired. Low light it sux. Underwater it needs color filtering so everything isn't aqua green. It has many automatic settings but NO manual settings and that is very limiting as you're guessing as to the appropriate settings. Main problem may simply be the processor quality. The video actually works better than the photo mode I think but you can't zoom DURING video shooting, just before. Just some things you may want to think about when shopping. My buddies Canon (more expensive) makes it look bad and has more features. For that matter his iPhone camera, while it has few features, really smokes it in low light.     

[Bob Wessner]

Though this explanation uses video as a basis, the same applies to still cam images. In short, ignore any claims regarding digital zoom or interpolated imaging.

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/camera/zoom/digital-vs-optical.html