advice on buying a digital camera

[briefs30]

I'm travelling to the US soon and since the dollar is so weak right now I'm gonna buy a digital camera there. I'm looking for a straightforward point and shoot type of thing, compact in size and reliable. I'll be using it when I travel but will also use it to take pics for this board - I'm sure the quality will be better than the web cam that I currently use. I can spend up to around $400 - any recommendations? Someone suggested to me that Fuji are probable the best for my purposes. Any advice welcome.

[HalcyonMan]

I bought an Olympus Camedia several years ago when digital was starting to become affordable. It's a little bit larger than the disposable type cameras so it is not hard to carry around. I think I spent under $300 for it about 4 years ago. It has served me faithfully especially since I travel alot. The only thing I would like is a zoom lens. Mine does have a zoom feature, but not very user friendly. For $400 you could get a lot of camera. Best thing is to look on line for reviews of various cameras. Pick out one or two brands and styles. Then shop around when you get here to the US. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and even Staples usually have competitive pricing. Good luck! Be sure to take undie pics in the US!

HalyconMan

[HalcyonMan]

I'm travelling to the US soon .


BTW. Where are you travelling to in the US?

HalcyonMan

[deusex]

The one we reccomend to all our staff here at our office is the Canon Powershot Digital ELPH SD300. 4.0 megapixels - has great digtal zoom and is really small (2" x 3.5"). fully automatic, or manual if you want to get artistic.

[briefs30]

Thanks for the advice.

I'll be in SF most of the time, but also having a couple of nights in Las Vegas. Can't wait to fly over the grand canyon :) And those freaky hotels look like fun :D

I want to stock up on new underwear so yeah, will take some shots when I'm "on location" lol

[SFOwl1977]

San Francisco eagerly awaits your arrival!

[nutnuzzler]

Thanks for the advice.

I'll be in SF most of the time, but also having a couple of nights in Las Vegas. Can't wait to fly over the grand canyon :) And those freaky hotels look like fun :D

I want to stock up on new underwear so yeah, will take some shots when I'm "on location" lol
IF you fly over the Grand Canyon, it won't be that much of a thrill -- at least it wasn't for me. The only way to really appreciate it is to be there. For one thing, the colors just don't "jump out" from the air.

The freaky hotels are a lot of fun! And there's a lot to see and "do" in S.F., of course.

As to cameras, I am thrilled to hear you are finally upgrading from that web cam. :blowme I myself have gotten into the higher end cameras, currently using a Nikon D70, so I can't really make recommendations on what you seek. But I do recommend you visit some review sites to help you make a decision, in addition to listening to the comments from real users here. Try http://www.dpreview.com/ or http://www.dcresource.com/, and there are many more that can be "googled out".

[johseb2]

I bought a digital camera recently and did my homework first. I got a Fuji FinePix S3000 and it is excellent. I found that there were really just 2 points to look out for.

1. Don't spend extra $ buying a cam with more than 3 megapixels. You just don't need them unless you are a professional photographer or wanting to print out high res prints on paper. For your average use (eg posting pix on here!) you need the images to be small files anyway.

2. Make certain that the zoom is OPTICAL not digital. This is very important. All a digital zoom does is crop the image and resize it, so you lose quality the more digital zoom you use. Whereas an optical zoom is done with a lens, so you lose no quality.

Shortly after buying my cam I invested in a power cable so that I don't wear out the batteries when uploading to the computer etc. I also got a thing for recharging the batteries. Neither was cheap but they were well worth it. Running out of battery in mid shoot is very frustrating!!

A decent image editing programme (I have Photoshop) is also really useful - it means you can tidy up your pics after you have taken them, rather than worrying too much about the brightness, composition etc when you are taking the pic. In particular you need something that will allow you to reduce the file size so that you can post them easily, email them etc.

Good luck! Let us know what you get. I'm sure we are *all* looking forward to the pics you take with it!

[nutnuzzler]

I agree with johseb2 that having some photo editing software is essential. He says he has photoshop. Unless it is one of the "light" versions, PhotoShop tends to be VERY expensive for the full feature version -- probably more than the cost of the camera itself (unless you are a "pro").

I find Jasc's Paint Shop Pro to be very excellent for all I want to do and at a fraction of the cost, it gives PhotoShop (the full blown version) a run for its money. :)

[briefs30]

Hi guys

Well I opted for a Canon Powershot A85. Loving the camera but find it a bit confusing. Like taking pics for this site. Not sure what size to take. I'm gonna try uploading one here just to see what it looks like. I'm going to read up on on the technical stuff about taking pics - like ISO, shutter speed etc etc. Here is a pic I just took of a pair of Tommy Hilfiger briefs. Set the flash to auto, and size to M1. The sizing is doing my head in! Any friendly advice gratefully received as ever :)

Okay, scrap the upload - it says size is too big! Private me if you can help - don't want to bore other people with the detail :)

I'll try posting in the user gallery section as there seems to be no limit on size.

[Unregistered]

Briefs30 -

No camera advice here, just wanted to say "welcome back" to my favorite bod in the user galleries! Hope you had a great time in my home state, even if you didn't make it to "America's Finest City"... Thanks for the latest pic - a winner as always!

A Briefs30 Fan in San Diego

[briefs30]

Thanks :D I've always wanted to visit San Diego - maybe I'll get there one day....

I'm finding the quality of pics on the new camera a bit scary - I think I prefer the trusty old web cam and it's fuzzy edge.....lol

[deusex]

What you need is a photo editing program. I use photoshop, but it's really a high end design program originally developed for print work and is very expensive. While I haven't been in the market for more consumer level programs, I do know of a few you may want to consider:

1.Paint Shop Pro (http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/?) - $95
2. Photoshop has a new consumer level program called Photoshop Elements (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/overview.html) - $99
3. ACDsee (http://www.acdsystems.com/nr/acdsee7/en/photography/index.html) - great for organizing photos and is relatively cheap and offers a free trial - $49.99

I'm sure there are many more, but ACDsee gets my vote - I don't use it to edit photos, but I do use it as my photo viewer and it's good.

For uploading photos to the board, the maximum size is 800x600pixels (i always make mine smaller than that) and/or 200 kilobytes. You need to resize the photo's dimensions (pixels), but you also need to compress it using JPG compression to reduce the file size to be smaller than the above figure. Most editors will have a "Resize" function that will take care of the dimensions, and when you "Save" the image you will generally have the option of saving it out as a JPG image with varying degrees of compression. A 800x600 saved as a JPG with 80% compression shouldn't be any more than 100k.

There's a lot to cover when it comes to photo editing, but it's fairly easy once you get the hang of it.

If you have specific questions, you can always email me - john@usg-online.com

[nutnuzzler]

Ditto that; I can always be reached by email for help. I saw the Tommys picture in the galleries; I would have given it a 10 (+!) rating, but for some reason, there wasn't a way to give a rating offered on the page.

I was thrilled to see you got the new camera at last. The Tommys picture was a vast improvement in photograpic quality over your other posts; don't ever go back to that webcam for anything other than webcamming online.

Just for the record, I worry little about size when I take pictures; I always take the best the camera allows. That way, I can pick and choose a size and cropping later, depending on how the picture is to be used.

[SmoothChris]

There seems to be a lot of difficulty with pic sizes, which really isn't necessary. I use an Olympus Camedia c-8080 which has 8 megapixel resolution and creates enormous files, but that isn't a problem so long as your hard disc has plenty of room because you're going to delete most of them anyway. Take pictures with the best resolution your camera can do, so that in future you can do anything you want with them. Photoshop Elements 3.0 is fantastic value because it can do almost everything the full program can do at many times the price. With a photo on screen, all you have to do is resize the image, and set it to around 500 pixels across. The vertical size sets itself. SaveAs a new name so you don't over-write the original, and close the image (I just add '500' to the file name). When it asks you, select maximum resolution. Now, if you click on the new image, a small window tells you the size of the new file, and as long as this is less that 190K the upload program will accept it. If not, just go round the loop again with a slightly smaller horizontal size until the file size is less than 190K. This method avoids all the problems associated with different compression ratios, and gives you the best possible picture quality for a given file size. If you don't believe me, experiment, and you will.
For pics going to the gallery, there's not much point in having images greater than 800 pixels across, because that delivers a good screen image. 1024 if you're catering for top end machines. Anything over that, and you're simply uploading redundant pixels and wasting time.
If you're using Photoshop Elements, learn how to use the basic image enhancement tools. Just optimising the brightness and contrast can make a huge improvement, and once you've got this worked out you'll never post a flat, dull picture again.
Happy snapping, and help is only this far away!

[briefs30]

Thanks for all the advice guys - appreciated. For now I've downloaded the ACDsee due to the free tial. I've not really had a proper chance to play around with it yet but will do over the next couple of weeks. I'm really excited by my camera though, and hope to get more into taking pics using the manual settings. Got to do some reading on it and thinking about taking a class. Any of you guys into photography on a professional, semi-professional or serious hobby? Wouldn't mind email exchange about the subject - long distance learning?! Oh and just to be clear I don't mean taking pics of my underwear, I'm thinking about outdoor stuff, scenic views, people shots, a mixture really. Private me if you are willing to give me critique/lessons in photography now and again :)