I am planning to buy a digital camera this weekend and I have been looking at them on the net and I am not sure what I need or what features I am looking for. I dont want to spend a million dollars on one either. Can someone give me some help on what to look for?

no one will help me?

ella731 said:

Ok, I will sell you mine for $950,000

thanks red I will deposit the money in your swiss bank account

ella731 said:

thanx ella

Get one with the most megapixels you can afford. A decent LCD is helpful too. Sweeny's got a good one, I think it's a Canon.

Mine is just a cheapy Kodak Easy Share, about £100 I think.. s'alright, does its job for what I need.

I need something that will take good pictures of my daughter in all her many phases, but it doesnt have to be anything like a photographer needs, I mean what amount of pixels is the right amount I see ones with 5.1 I think but they are maybe a little to much for what I need

LittlePill said:

More MP doesn't necessarily mean better pics. What kind of a cam you should get depends on how much money you're willing to spend and ofcourse what you plan on doing with it. Someone who plans on snapping shots every now and then of friends and family and sharing them through the internet needs a different type of product than someone who likes to make a lot of outdoor shots and plans on having them printed out on high quality photo paper.

J0eyC0c0 said:

It means she has the option of creating higher resolution pics. if she desires.

OK so....any suggestions on a type of camera, i would like to be able to do both put pictures on the net and print them out on paper, does this help at all?

ella731 said:

Things to pay attention to are how many times the optical zoom is (digital zoom is worthless as it blurs the image), adjustable flash, how many mega pixels and one thing you'll have to do is probably read a lot of online reviews. A lot of times they have a few cams in the same price range tested and pay attention to things like price/quality ratio, colors (indoors as well as outdoors), userfriendliness and ofcourse how much memory it comes with, cause a lot of times they advertise with 16MB, but you'll need at least 64MB to be able to shoot an entire afternoon without having to worry about not having enough storage.

Personally I'd go for a brand that has been making conventional cameras for many years like Nikon, Minolta, Fuji, Canon. Sony's cams seem to produce a lot of artifacts in weak lighting environment which is something I can confirm from experience. Something between 3-4 mega pix should do the trick.

LittlePill said:

Resolution does not equal quality, that all depends on which kind of CCD chip is used, quality of the lens etc etc. Really, it's just a marketing trick just like processor manufacturers likes you to believe more Mhz makes a faster computer and printers with a higher resolution make better prints etc etc. Anyway, I don't want to go off topic too much here.

J0eyC0c0 said:

Mine is OK< dont you think though, Joey? I mean the quality is pretty good.

FEDREATHERS said:

I dunno, I guess. I mean, those piggies looked disgustingly real.

thanks JOEY!!! that really does help


When did you get so damn smart?

ella731 said:

You're welcome...and you only see what I allow you to see.

J0eyC0c0 said:

All of that stuff matters...including resolution, of the camera AND the printer. Spent waaay too much time fine-tuning both at my last job, primarily because we had to shoot products for print ads, websites and brochures for most of the corporations who hired us...and we had printers and cameras out the wazoo. You notice everything has its effect, including one glossy photo paper compared to another glossy photo paper.

More than likely the type of camera she's gonna end up getting isn't going to have much of a difference in lenses...and a higher resolution will result in deeper, richer colors..perhaps not necessarily noticeable to most people, but it's definitely noticeable.

By the way, just to add in some more info, make sure to get a camera with a decent optical zoom lens, and not just digital (optical does more of a "real" zoom, as were digital tends to mainly just crop the image down)...you probably won't need anymore than 3.0 megapixels, and try to get a camera which allows you to have your optical viewfinder run thru the lens (so to speak) instead of just a plastic window that you look thru at the top of the camera. Check out cameras which have easy, user-friendly software for downloading your pics--no use in spending even a minute longer than necessary doing that mundane task if the only thing you wanna do is see your photos...and try not to spend anymore than $200 (shouldn't need to actually)...

FEDREATHERS said:

So... are ya gonna share? The pictures that is... not the camera!

J0eyC0c0 said:

Actually as a photographer and having been doing photography for a long time. I can tell you that resoulution plays a big part in quality. More so then the quality of the lense. The higher the resoultion the better your pics and the bigger you can make them. Think about it who wants all their pics to look all grainy and pixelated cause the resolution is crappy. Its not a marketing trick its how it is.

How much are you looking to spend in total?

Ella-

Here is what I can tell you and I suggest you do.


You will want something with atleast 5 mgea pixels. This will allow you to make up to 8x10 prints maybe 11x14 if you ever wanted to. 3 mega pixels is good but if you ever want big prints or anything bigger then a 5x7 its not going to happen without looking like crap.

You do want the optical zoom lense.

Also make sure you get one that will allow you to take pictures in more then one format if possible. Taking pics in JPG and Tiff files. Its better to take them in Tiff. JPG files get compressed where as Tiff files don't. Yes the files are bigger and you can get less pictures on your memory card sometimes, but in the long run you will be happier and the pics will look better cause you got the full resolution file that is uncompressed.

Granted the cameras I use everyday are 11 mega pixels and 7,000 dollars each. I get great results with them, but if you do shopping around you will be able to find something as I suggested above in a price range you will be able to afford.

If you need any other questions answered orgnote me I will be happy to help.

In addition to the comments about optical zoom and megapixels, you'll also want to test out the camera and see how fast it shoots, and how it handles in low light conditions.

Digital cameras are notorious for lagging a bit when you press the shutter button, some more than others. This might not seem like a big deal when youre trying it out in the store, but when you go to shoot an event like a birthday party or a performance, it can be nerveracking as you'll miss alot of good shots.

Also, try shooting some dark scenes with it. Digital cameras tend to produce random bright dots of color when they shoot at longer shutter speeds. Cheaper cameras will do this more.

Also, make sure the camera is intuitive to use. The on-screen menu should be easy to get around, as well as the buttons on the outside. Once again, this may not seem like such a big deal at first, but you will see how much of a problem it becomes when you try and shoot things immediately.

You'll probabbly want to pick up an additional 256mb card or higher. Some cost more than others. Spend a little extra to get the better one because some of the cheaper ones are slow, meaning you have to wait longer between shots, for the image to get saved to the card.

Tom said:

I can attest to that! I've come close on several occasions to throwing my friggin' camera against a wall because of this!

MAN all this information, thank you guys,

one more wuestion my sister bought hers online and it was 'refurbished' she got a hell of a deal on an amazing camera, or is this a bad idea it kinda gives me the willies. they are completely returnable but am I just going ot run into problems in the long run?




EvilWhiteMale said


I was thinking about $350 ish i will bend a little more if I have to

MostBeautifulGrlNTheWorld said:

Higher resulotion does not warrant better quality, that's all I said. It is a marketing trick in a way, cause the first thing they always mention is how many MP a camera has and if you go to a store they'll tell you the higher the MP, then better the quality which is not necessarily the case. In fact for consumer based products 1MP more or less rarely says anything about the increase/decrease in quality merely based on the amount of MP.

I think Byron worded it best. I also think 5MP is overkill for most people looking to shoot pics of friends and family. Most of them will not be willing to dish out the extra money for what they consider minor improvement in quality. Going from 3.2/4MP to 5MP is a big difference money wise.

J0eyC0c0 said:

Digital cameras don't really match the resolution of 35mm film until they get to the 11-13 megapixel range. Opting for a higher megapixel count is much like going from 35 to 120 film. It's recording more detail. For example, years ago I had a Nikon Coolpix 880 that was 3.2 megapixels. I switched to a Nikon 5700 that was 5.something megapixels. Same manufacturer, same quality optics, the 5mp camera captured more detail.

However two cameras with the same mp count can give you very different quality pics tho, so its worth spending a little extra for the better one.

A Holga and a Hassleblad are both medium format cameras that shoot on 120 film, for example, but they are several thousand dollars apart in price difference, and the quality of the final image is drastically different as well.

Same holds true with digital.

This is the one I have.. It is small but for me it is perfect.

http://www.bhphotovideo.c...856&is=REG



I shoot with this camera. It lags a bit when youre trying to shoot action shots, but it has a great optical zoom, a good lens, and takes great pictures. Also, its really small and light.

I paid 1,300 for this when it came out, and theyve come down on the price quite a bit compared to other models in this range.