My long-serving Pentax recently packed up on me. So I figure it’s about time I got myself a digital camera.
My budget is NT$10 - 14 000. I’m figuring I should stick with with a brand that’s been making cameras prior to the digital era (ie. Pentax, Fuji, Canon, Olympus), but I stand to be corrected.
The Nikon Coolpix range looks like a good bet, as does the Olympus my housemate has. My colleague has a T1 which he raves about.
Most important for me is that when it’s time to actually print some pics, they’re of a quality near or matching those taken by a decent film camera.
Your suggestions and advice please. I’m in Taichung - if you know of a good shop, with good deals, tell me about it, including tel. number and address.
I purchased my 1st digital camera last year and I chose a Canon Power Shot S50. It has been an excellent camera and has/is serving me very well.
Fully featured (much more than I will probably ever use), durable and convienent to carry along almost everywhere.
I think the model series is now S60 or maybe even S70 now.
Its worth looking at.
Uses Compact Flash cards, 5.0 resolution stuff(variable choice for shooting preference), very good User manuals, good software (although I use Adobe Elements mostly and PhotoShop Album Stater sometimes) and very good battery life. I also bought a couple of 256 CF cards and have never needed more than one - you can chose how much resolution you desire which will extend your card useage.
Might be worth your consideration.
Also might mention that I have had considerable photo background. 35mm, 2 1/4, 4x5’s and even some 8x10 work. Color and B&W. Digital so far has been a fun experience. There are a lot of good choices out on the market.
Also, Windows XP makes it very very easy to do the transfer.
You will find all you need to know about any particular Digital Camera, with plenty of user opinions. It’s a good idea to narrow down your choice to 2 or 3 models BEFORE you go to the shops, otherwise you might end up with something you don’t really want/need and a price you didn’t really want to pay.
can’t recommend olympus. they might make good film cameras but their digital ones suck. difficult to navigate menus, wierd unintuitive functions to do simple things. Been playing with a friend’s Canon and it is very easy to use. Also Sony are good.
I’d probably agree with 914 and truant. I got a G-1 when the first came out and I wouldn’t mind having a G-6. The only problem I see is that the lens isn’t very wide (only equal to a 35mm at its widest). But if you do, try and get the black model. Black has a much better resell value in Taiwan.
be wise to the fact that if a new model is out, it might not be too much more $$$ than the old model. i wanted to buy the G3 a few years back, but i searched camera road in taipei unitl i finally found one. he wanted 2,500 NT less than he wnted for the G5, which had been out for a few months at that time. to me, the upgrade was worth it.
just something to keep in mind when you are choosing …
yes absolutely. As newer models are released, the productions costs are generally lower than the previous model (due to use of common parts) so the wholesale cost of the older model can be more than the newer one.
That’s what a retailer friend told me in Singapore anyway. That’s why they like to keep stock moving even if they only make $500NT or less to get rid of an old model.
Either way, the consumer is better off to go for the newer model if there’s not much in it.
They are up to G7 now, and when I mentioned my G3, I was referring to the G series in general. I love the options, in particular, Point & Shoot if you want it, but also, Full Aperture and Shutter speed control, focus , and a fairly decent zoom etc. Also having a fold away screen is really a good feature for two reasons: 1 it’s handy to swivel the screen if you need to shoot from an outstretched arm (or self portraits) and 2. It folds away for protection in your rucksack - and damaged LCDs is the main repair sought on digital cameras.
You can get teleconverters for Canon G cameras also. 2x and a Wide Angle.
I finally broke down and bought a digital camera a few months ago…The Canon Powershot A95.
It’s not my FM3A for picture quality, but it takes decent pictures, has many manual features, and actually feels like a camera in your hand.
It’s a 5.0megapixel camera with a 38mm-114mm lens. Very user friendly.
It can also take standard Akaline batteries but I’ve found this is a mixed blessing as it eats them like candy. But it does have a flip out screen, which is nice for shooting over the heads of other people, and laying the camera on the ground for Macro stuff.
[quote=“MJB”]I finally broke down and bought a digital camera a few months ago…The Canon Powershot A95…
It can also take standard Akaline batteries but I’ve found this is a mixed blessing as it eats them like candy.[/quote]Canons are good. My first digital camera is a Canon and it’s very easy to use and takes good pictures. I got a bargain because I bought last year’s model which is basically the same as this years model minus one button which I don’t need anyway.
Re. the batteries, you need to get a set or two of high-power rechargeables; I think they’re Nimh or something like that.
You can buy high-power lithium disposable batteries which do last a long time, but they’re expensive and bad for the environment.
It’s been a few years since I worked in the online photo industry so I have not looked at specific camera models in a while. But here are a few things to keep in mind.
If you want to print the images at a photo lab, these are the minimum resolutions:
3 x 5 reprint - 640 x 427 pixels
4 x 6 reprint - 640 x 427 pixels
5 x 7 reprint - 800 x 571 pixels
8 x 10 reprint - 1024 x 819 pixels
So pretty much any 1.3 megapixel camera allows you to print a decent 8x10.
You should also consider how you want to use the camera. If you want something small to keep in pocket, you might want to consider something in the Canon Elph family. If you want something with more functions and higher optical zoom, you would have to get a larger camera. Digital zoom just makes the picture look bad.
[quote=“markshih”]…So pretty much any 1.3 megapixel camera allows you to print a decent 8x10[/quote]Really? I think you’d see some grain if you did that. And you certainly wouldn’t want to do much cropping of pictures at that resolution. My 3 megapixel camera makes fine prints if I use all those pixels, but if I do too much cropping they start to look grainy.
[quote=“markshih”]…Digital zoom just makes the picture look bad.[/quote]You could look on digital zoom as a method of “pre-cropping”. Obviously if you use digital zoom on a 6 megapixel camera it will look better than on a 2 megapixel one.
[quote=“joesax”][quote=“markshih”]…So pretty much any 1.3 megapixel camera allows you to print a decent 8x10[/quote]Really? I think you’d see some grain if you did that. And you certainly wouldn’t want to do much cropping of pictures at that resolution. My 3 megapixel camera makes fine prints if I use all those pixels, but if I do too much cropping they start to look grainy.
When travelling, I set the G3 to take about 1.9 megapixel shots (1600X1200), even tho the camera handles upto 4. I can then fit about 400-450 shots onto my 256mb card and that is about a weeks worth. Some shots have been blown up to A4 size are no grain is apparent, in fact they look fantastic.
I would like to get a bigger card or one of those portable HDD/Card reader so I can set the shots higher because I know eventually I will have a shot that I want to blow up huge and then the grain will come in.
My experience with Digital zoom is not favorable either. I’d now avoid it, and digital zoom on handycams is useless too. I think it’s just a gimmick.
So far I was able to take a look at 2 different cameras, one was the Sony T1 and the other a Canon Ixus 400, or so. I did not really like the Sony, the image quality seemed worth than the Canon. Of course the large display is nice. Both cameras seem to take a long time to boot up, so quick snapshots are not possible as I am used to from my Film SLR. Between those 2, I would choose the Canon, it also used the inexpensive compact flash card, where the Sony asks for Memorysticks.
[quote=“ratlung”]Both cameras seem to take a long time to boot up, so quick snapshots are not possible as I am used to from my Film SLR.[/quote]My camera doesn’t have optical zoom which isn’t so good in some ways, but on the plus side it’s light and starts up quickly (on some zoom cameras the lens has to extend a bit when you power up, taking time).
Yes, that is a big downside, if I would look for a digital camera, I would get one with a fixed lens, that does not need extension, but then those cameras are either bulky, or the image quality as for the T1 is not so good. I believe you need the extra distance to have the light rays hit more parallel onto the CCD, which reduces artifacts.
As for the T1, if I remember correctly, it does not extend any lens, but the boot up time is still slower than my SLR, but shorter than the Canon with extendable lens. It shows some nonsense splash screen, and who knows what else it does. I did not explore the menu in depth, so you might be able to turn of the splash screen, but if it does reduce the boot up time I am not sure.
[quote=“joesax”][quote=“markshih”]…So pretty much any 1.3 megapixel camera allows you to print a decent 8x10[/quote]Really? I think you’d see some grain if you did that. And you certainly wouldn’t want to do much cropping of pictures at that resolution. My 3 megapixel camera makes fine prints if I use all those pixels, but if I do too much cropping they start to look grainy.
You are not understanding the whole process. If you crop an image (let say 1024x760) and expand the reduced image back to 1024x760, you will see pixelation due to the expansion of the image. The pixelation will be more pronounced the more that you crop and expand. If you crop the image and do not expand to compensate, the image will not pixelate and you are left with a smaller image(let say 800x640). Digital zooming is basically doing the crop and expand way and that causes pixelation. It’s noticed quickly in lower resolutions because there are fewer pixels to expand. Programs like photoshop can do crop and expand better than a digital camera so it’s better not to use digital zoom. The higher resolution image is used to compensate for the lack of optical zoom. Pretty much a 8x10 only needs 1024x819 pixels of information to produce a picture. If you take an image taken with a 6 megapixel camera and crop it down to 800x640 and then expand it to 1024x819 to print a 8x10, the print will look pixelated. A 6 megapixel image untouched put into a 8x10 print will look good because there is enough information for the print. Photo lab prints are smaller pixel wise than computer resolutions so every photo lab has some way to crop an image to make it fit. That’s why if you compare a digital image to the print, there will be some part of it cropped.