Digital cameras

[DVOM]

Anyone have any advice for buying a camera? I want to spend about $300 which won't get me alot of bells and whistles but that's my budget for this project. I realize I'll have to get extra memory.

[Murf]

I use this page for a lot of research before buying a product:

CNET

[Casey820]

What do you want to do with your digital camera? Do you expect it to replace your film camera? Do you want to print all your pictures out? Use it to e-mail pictures? Put pictures on the web? Does your $300 budget include money for a larger memory card or are you willing to spend more for a card?

[DVOM]

Thanks Murf for the link.

Casey820, it's going to be just for the web and email so the pics are going to have to be fairly low res.

I've found a Sony DSC_P51 for about $250 with 2M Pixels. Which would allow for memory upgrade and extra rechargeble batteries. A local store is offering the Olympus D-250 for the same but I've found alot of refurbished for sale on the auction sites. Why so darn many refurbished? They must be failing and getting sent back to the factory.

On the other hand, there's very few Sony's on the auction sites. And I can't find a refurbished Sony anywhere which suggests they aren't failing.

[John Steven]

Hi DVOM,

Been using a Sony DSC-P50 for about a year now and haven't had a single problem. I'm no Professional Photographer, but almost every picture I've taken looks great. Do yourself a favor and buy at least a 64mb memory stick (at 1024 x 768 with a 64mb card you can put about 280 pictures on it - not bad)

Hope this helps............

[DVOM]

Thanks John, that's all I'd need for memory then. Some NiMH batteries and a recharger and I'll be good to go.

[Casey820]

If you only intend to use the camera to take pictures to send through e-mail, then $300 is serious overkill. A $100 camera will do a great job. All expensive digital cameras can do low res 640x480 shots, so if you buy a 2 mega-pixel camera, it will take pictures not only at that res but at higher resolutions as well. It's a waste of money unless you plan to print 4x6 in. pictures.

[Dickster]

Something to consider when looking for cameras is close-up capability. It is useful for photos of small objects if you sell things on eBay, for example. Most low-price cameras take lousy close-ups.

Also, optical zoom is nice. Digital zoom is pretty much a marketing gimmick, not a really useful feature.

[Running_on_Wheel]

ive had 2 sonys and have loved them both
the fd-83 and then graduated to the p-9 (which is the same body as the p-5)
do yourself a favor and spend for the optical zoom (one of the p's dosent have it not sure if its the p-5 or the p-50)

[DVOM]

Thanks all, i've been thinking optical zoom is going to be something I want. The Sony P50 has 3x and the P51 is 2x. I'm not even paying attention to the digital zoom specs, I can do that with a photo editor if need be.

Just missed a nice one last night on ebay cause their actual clock was 3 minutes off from what the web page was saying. Not even worth refreshing every minute if they're off by that much.

[John Steven]

The DSC-P50 has a Macro mode for close ups and it works quite well.........