Advice re digital camera purchase

[frankykeno]

I've been thinking of looking at ebay for a decent digital camera but know nada about them. Any advice folks as far as what will take a half-decent picture and not cost me the earth. Is there like camera resolutions (pixels) or anything to consider?


~~Joanna~~

[BallPythonBabe448]

All I know is dont get a HP M407 ! Mine takes descent scenery pics and stuff, but for pics of animals and close ups and such, its AWFUL!

[pumba]

O.K. First let me qualify my coment on this post. I am in no way a professional, and have very limited experience with digital camera's however my opinion follows....

I have used both the Kodak easy share and the H.P. Photosmart 733. I like my hp way better. It is a 3.2 mega pixel which means it will take fairly good pictures that you can zoom in on and the resalution is quite good. It also has good shutter speed (That is supposing that is what you call it on the digital) providing you use the correct setting. The settings are changed easily and if you read your manual it is pretty simple. It also has 3x optical zoom which uses a pentax zoom lens along with the digital zoom. This lets you take some good pics. Oh yes and it is fairly rugged as well. Mine has taken some spills. It also comes with pretty good software for your pictures (Cut/crop, zooming, blowing up, resizeing) The best thing is You can get into one at Wal Mart for under $200.00.

As far as the Kodak easy share, it takes o.k. pictures, but I have found trouble with card formating. If you forget to format your card everytime before use, It will not allow you to download to the computer and when you do format, it looses your pictures. I found this the hard way. The worst thing is that was the camera we used at the office to take crime scene pics. Luckally for me it was not a very big or important case (Well all are important but this one was low on the list.)

So my advice is the H.P. photosmart 733. But with my opinion and .50 cent, you can make a phone call..lol.

Good luck and be sure to shop around before you buy.

Cheers
Ray

[BallPythonBabe448]

Hmm.. is 4.1 Mega Pixels better or worse than 3.2?

[normballpython2]

well how much are ya willing to pay? the new digi cm i got is a canon power shot with 3.2 mega pizel resolution. and has 4x optical zoom lens. cost 183$ to get here(gotta love credit discounts) but it would have been 230$. so the camera itself was 200$.

Brian

[pumba]

The more mega pixel's the better. To let you understand it a bit better let me explain a bit.

Picture the mail boxes at your local post office. Each individual box is a mega pixel. If you take a wall and cover it with 10 boxes the boxes will be pretty big. (Bear with me) now you take the same wall and put 100 boxes on it. That will make the boxes much smaller. (Hang in there I will have a point.)

Now you want to paint a picture on your wall of boxes. The trouble is, you can only put one color on each box face. Using the wall with only 10 boxes, your picture will be grainy and obscured, and you will not be able to have a good picture. As far as the wall with 100 boxes, you can do way more with that wall and have a tighter picture and a more clear picture.

Your photo is set up like the mail boxes. Each box is a pixel and can only hold one color. (Of course we are talking about millions of boxes on a small wall) the more pixels you have, the more acurate and fine the lines and colors will be in your picture. This is because on the same amount of space, your colored boxes that make you picture are smaller and tighter.

This means a couple of different things.
1. the more mega pixel, the larger you can make the picture without it becoming distorted. You can easily make a poster size picture with a 3.2 mega pixel shot. but then again how many of us make posters out of our pics? Anyway, with the 4.1 M/P your poster shot would be that much clear. If you went with a say 2.0 m/P you wouldn't be able to print anythind over a 8x10 and that would not look great. Hopefully I have not lost you yet.

2. The more m/p you have, the better to zoom in and on your pics. You will be able to take a picture of someone, and then in your picture program, zoom in on say just thier face, Cut that portion out, and print only that portion rather than the whole picture. When you zoom in like that it is called the "Digital Zoom" With regular pictures, or ones from camera's with few m/p, the pic becomes griny, this is because by zooming in and making the picture bigger, you inlarged the pixels,(Went from 100 boxes on the wall to 10) if you only started with 2 million pixels, and only used 10% of the shot taken, you just made that shot a 200 thousand pixel shot. And them 200k pixels will have to get bigger to fill the same (For example) 5x7 picture.

The easier way to remember, is the more m/p you have, the better quality of picture you will get. Also the more m/p you have the more $$$ you will spend. Like I said, the 3.2 will take o.k. pics that you can make a poster out of, but I wouldn't. Of course the 4.1 would make a good poster. But the botom line is, how many posters are you going to make. Therefore, unless you plan on doing alot of work in your photo shop or whatever photo software you have, (zooming, cropping,ect.) or unless you are taking professional photo's, it is not necessarily worth the extra $$ for the 4.1 over the 3.2 then again, if the cost is close, go with more m/p. I have taken some great landscape pics as well as portrats with my 3.2 and have made great prints from 8x10 and smaller.I have even done a good bit of cropping and cutting with good success.

Hope I didn't mix things up too terrably bad for you.
Cheers
Ray

[JamminJonah]

wow! Nice work with the mailboxes good way to explain pixels! I'm impressed.

now don't forget about lense quality! haha.

[invadertoast]

You should totally buy my broken one so I can afford a replacement

[pumba]

wow! Nice work with the mailboxes good way to explain pixels! I'm impressed.

now don't forget about lense quality! haha.

I don't know much about the lenz quality thing other than the better quality of lenz, the better the pic will be...lol. I have no idea what lenz is better than the other. Someone else will have to take care of that one.

[frankykeno]

Wow Ray thanks! That explanation was wonderful! I'm the visual sort of person so explaining it that way made total sense to me.

So look for the highest mega pixel I can afford.....gotcha.

Anything else? Somone pls explain the 4x optical lens please, please.

Basically I'll be doing mostly close-up shots of the snakes, the kids, etc. Not much of big panorama type views (like I get to travel and see panorama type views a whooooole lot and most people aren't all that impressed with...."hey want to see my big shots of exciting downtown Boyne City, Michigan!!!!").

All input is appreciated as it will be awhile yet before I purchase a digital camera. It's unfortunately a bit low down on the priority list but I do want to spend our money wisely.


~~Joanna~~