going to buy a new digital camera..input?

[wendigirl]

i am looking for a lower cost digital camera..

easy it must be....

suggestions?

thanx

[swouper2]

I really like the Cannon Power shot cameras - We've had two (one got pulverized by toddlers for three whole years - so I still think it was a good solid camera)

You can get an older model for pretty inexpensive - and the pictures are great.

[swouper2]

Try checking out the reviews and info from The Shopping Bags (great show!!!)

http://www.wnetwork.com/tv_shows/sho...=31&View=INTRO

They've never led me wrong!

[wendigirl]

thanx guys...

[travelgeek]

yup I've only bought Canon cameras so far.

[ryanmike]

Ok...so I have tried Kodak...upgraded to the Canon S4IS and now have the Panasonic Lumix tz5. All have their pros and cons....but in my opinion the Lumix far surpasses the others in ease of use. The Canon S5IS just came out and is very close to an SLR lots of bells and whistles but has a large price tag to match. The crispness of the photos is a huge selling point if you are wanting to spend the money.

I absolutley love my Lumix and my husband agreed that it is the easiest camera he has ever used. It has something like 16 preset settings.....sports, fireworks, nature, snow, candlelight, portrait, baby, vivid, underwater, landscape, self portrait, starry night, to name a few.
The first time I used the camera, I was taking action shots at my sons football game. Not one of the photos were blurry. Never before have I been able to take action shot with such ease.

What is cool about the camera is it has an intelligent auto mode that automatically tells what type of photo is being taken and it adjusts all the settings. For example, if you are taking a picture of a flower and you are close to it...it will automatically put the camera in macro mode. Also it will take in all the elements in the picture and decide wheter it is a landscape or portrait photo.

Now each one of these cameras had a steep price tag of about $400....but you get what you pay for. The higher the Megapixels, Optical Zoom and amount of presets the higher the price.

If you are just using the camera for general photos..then any camera will do. I would suggest something in the range of 5 megapixels, at least 5x optical zoom and 3x digital zoom.

I have come to find out that digital zoom sucks! Look for cameras with a high optical zoom. I do not use digital zoom at all. Optical zoom magnifies the image resulting in more pixels in the image...whereas digital zoom magnifies the pixel resulting in the same amount of pixels but the pixels are larger....this makes the photo fuzzy.

Also, for general photo taking....you do not need anything larger than a 5 megapixel camera. That is sufficient to print a decent 8x10.

I have found amazon.com to be a great tool in researching cameras as the people who have purchased them rate and review them.
Hope that helps

[ryanmike]

Here is a good site that has rated differnet cameras according to different criteria...

http://www.imaging-resource.com/WB/WB.HTM?view=dp_all

[wendigirl]

thanx soooo much for all the infor

[Scooter]

Here also is an article from The Source on what to look for in a camera and how to choose:

http://www.thesource.ca/estore/learn...en-CA&ref=1251

[roseofblack25]

I have a sony camera (contest win) and a kodak camera
I love my sony one I also won a sony camera and gave it to my sister. It has a touch screen and a ton of really cool features built in like you can draw on your pics LOL and you can add clipart to pics its really fun to play around with, it also takes really good pics for such a small camera.

[ergo2]

not sure what dollar value you have in mind , but i have a Canon S5 IS. Its much cheaper now than when i bought mine and you can check my album out to see what kind of quality to expect.

here is a link as to its features: http://blackphotostore.com/english/p...l.asp?sku=2330

[wendigirl]

thank u all

[smb127]

I loved my Kodak and it cheap, less then $200, but then I only take pics of the kids and vacation photos. Unforunatly I somehow lst the camera, I am sure it is in the house somewhere but I can't find it. the one thing I did like about it ws that I did not have to use the screen. I could turn it off and use the camera the old fashion way, by looking though the view finder. Saved on batteries. You can see the pics I took on my albums on SC, the vacation ones.

I bought anouth camera, also under $200 (I am cheap - lol) I like it too, it was easy to use and I can make videos with it (Kodak did too). It is an Olympus FE-280 8 megapixel. Does have a veiw finder but does have a rechargable battery. You can see the pics from it under my pets album. I like it, only somehow I messed up the screen. It looks like it was shattered, but isn't. Someone told me it was noise. I have taken some pics since this has happened but I have not uploaded them yet so I don't know if the screen will affect the pics.

Good luck with camera buying.