Camera Advice

[frankykeno]

Okay since I can NOT live without a digital camera I need some advice. Oh and I will be buying it through WalMart since Mike works there and I get the employee discount so I've been looking at their website. This page specifically....

http://www.walmart.com/search/browse...atNavId=597467

- I want to spend at maximum about $100 dollars.

- I want a camera that will take decent close up pictures (for the snakes mostly). It doesn't have to be professional grade, just a decent clear picture.

- How many megapixels is the minimum that will do (most in that price range seem to be 5 or 6)?

- Do you need both digital and optical zoom? I'm not quite sure why some have it and some don't and what the benefits of having both are.

- WalMart carries HP, Samsung, Polaroid and Kodak in their major brand names that I recognize in this price range. Any of them preferred over others as far as a good reliable camera?

- I know I want one that will have memory cards. I am assuming when it says "internal memory" that is all the camera will do and there's no slot for extra memory cards? Is this a correct assumption since the others says "supports SD memory cards"?

- If I buy a bright pink digital camera will my husband have a fit???? (hahahahahahahaha had to toss that one in!)

Thanks for any feedback guys and gals.

[littleindiangirl]

For a decent camera, look towards spending closer to 200$. (anything less I think is crap) You want a large pixel, 7-8 is really good. I have used the kodak Easyshare (not sure exactly which one), and it has a large pixel, decent closeup, and really an all around good camera for its price. I would recommend that one for ease of use and probably best deal for your dollar. Digital zoom doesnt actually zoom in closer to the object, it's zooming in closer to the (pixel) if that makes sense, and it will lose quality quickly, but it is something nice to have.

Try and get a camera with a macro zoom on it, macro is how we get all those sweet closeups! You can buy a macro lens which is the best quality, I just dont think you'll need it for your use.

And yes, you will want one that says it supports SD memory cards if you like to take a lot of pictures like I do. You can usually buy a 2 gig card on ebay for like 15$.

Thats really all I know about cameras! Hope that helps some.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=6023120

[Ginevive]

I would highly recommend Fuji FinePics S700. I love this camera and it takes stunning macros as well as great landscapes and portraits. You could also feasably get more lenses for it down the road. I got mine at Walmart also. Mark has the older model that is just as good but it has a smaller viewing screen. Here's a macro I took out in the woods without really even trying to get it good..

[Rapture]

Hey Jo,

I bought my first digital camera about 6 years ago. It was a Sony Cybershot with 2.0 megapixels. I only paid about $199. Keep in mind this was years ago. Doesn't sound like much of a camera, but I used it for 5 years and I did get compliments on my photos. Digital zoom is preferred over optical zoom. And no matter what camera you purchase, one of the most important things to remember is when you are taking pics, make sure you hold still while taking the photo, have ample lighting, and use the auto focus.

[Ginevive]

Digital zoom is preferred over optical zoom..

That is very true. Definately something to keep in mind no matter what brand you decide to go with!

One thing I like about the Fuji (not sure how others work) is that it snaps the pic right away. some cameras I have tried take a second or two, and the moment could be over with. I could not tolerate that.

[lord jackel]

Okay since I can NOT live without a digital camera I need some advice. Oh and I will be buying it through WalMart since Mike works there and I get the employee discount so I've been looking at their website. This page specifically....

http://www.walmart.com/search/browse...atNavId=597467

- I want to spend at maximum about $100 dollars.

- I want a camera that will take decent close up pictures (for the snakes mostly). It doesn't have to be professional grade, just a decent clear picture.

- How many megapixels is the minimum that will do (most in that price range seem to be 5 or 6)?

- Do you need both digital and optical zoom? I'm not quite sure why some have it and some don't and what the benefits of having both are.

- WalMart carries HP, Samsung, Polaroid and Kodak in their major brand names that I recognize in this price range. Any of them preferred over others as far as a good reliable camera?

- I know I want one that will have memory cards. I am assuming when it says "internal memory" that is all the camera will do and there's no slot for extra memory cards? Is this a correct assumption since the others says "supports SD memory cards"?

- If I buy a bright pink digital camera will my husband have a fit???? (hahahahahahahaha had to toss that one in!)

Thanks for any feedback guys and gals.

Ok since this is what I do for a living (manufacture electronics) I will give you some pointers...I would look for retail priced camera between $150 and $200 (with your discount it would be less).

The # of megapixels is a marketing gimick (and really only comes into play when you try and take large pictures (ie. a normal 35mm 4x6 is about 3 megapixels) so a 5 or 6mp camera means you can get the same picture quality of a 35mm film camera but at about 8x10 size...make sense?) The mega pixels also help when you want to zoom in on a part of a picture and blow it up (say you want to zoom in on one in a large picture). In short, if you mainly are going to use the camera to post pics to the internet or print 4x6 images the numbers of mega pixels won't really matter.

Get the best optical zoom you can (in most cases this will be 3x). Digital zoom is nice but really will kill the pic quality (personally I never use it...it is that bad)

Brands - insider note - there are only 5 camera manufactures in the world (chinese, sony, nikon, canon, samsung (though they are new)). Polaroid and Kodak don't exist as companies any longer it is just a name on a chinese camera (same with HP, Sanyo and numerous others) - now this is not to say the camera are junk but don't think the name has anything to do with quality. I own 2 sony's and a canon (love all of them) - so personally I would lean toward one o these. Samsung has gotten very good reviews but I don't have any personal experience with them.

All cameras support some type of memory card. Unless you have other devices that use a particular type I wouldn't worry what type you get (SD is the most common, but all are about the same price and work just the same)

Some featurers that are nice to have - face recognizition (makes the camera focus on faces for better pictures that don't have the skin washed out), fast saving (the time it takes to take a picture save it to memory and be ready to take another - chinese brands are horrid at take forever - a fast camera means you can take back to back pics quicker - real benefit with snakes), out to TV (nice for sharing pics on the big screen), macro (this is what allows very up close pics - like those cool head shots we see), view finder (the little hole you look through - a lot of folks are getting away from these (people just want to look at the LCD display) but when it is windy, you are moving, the snake is moving,etc. the viewfinder really helps to stablize the image so the picture looks better.

Hope this helps...if you have any other specific questions let me know.

Sean

[lord jackel]

Digital zoom is preferred over optical zoom. .

I disagree. Digital zoom is an electronic zoom (meaning it zooms on the pixel element not the image) so you have less pixels to use meaning a less sharp picture. Optical zoom uses the lenes to focus and zoom in/out meaning all the pixels on the element are available to record the image (which means a sharper image with more pixels to work with when you start cropping and increasing the size).

[littleindiangirl]

Hey Jo,
Digital zoom is preferred over optical zoom.

Ummm. no. Digitial zoom is NOT preferred over optical zoom. Optical zoom actually moves the physical components to change the focal length.
Digital zoom just uses software to zoom in on the area of pixels you've chosen, losing quality.
http://www.1888articles.com/optical-...0c1sn8b73.html

[Rapture]

Sorry guys, I must have gotten myself confused somewhere along the lines of which type of zoom is which!

[Stewart_Reptiles]

One thing I would recommend you even though you plan on buying from Walmart check whatever camera you might be interested in on Amazon.com , you will find very useful customer reviews on most products, I know it helped me a lot picking my camera.