Calling all photographers......

[my2boys1821]

Hi, I hope I am posting this in the right place. I always get great answers here so I thought I'd start with you.

I am a photographer junkie. My main subjects, my 2 boys! I have an old Sony Cyber-shot 1.3 mp digital camera. My birthday is in May and I want dh to buy me a new one.

What I want out of my camera is to be able to print pictures as large as 8x10 maybe a little bigger without losing quality of the photo. I want to be able to fast shot pictures (sports). I want to be able to use the flash and not have to wait 5 seconds for the camera to reboot for the next picture. Those are my must haves. I am looking for a good quality camera. We are going to Disney in June and I don't want my camera to slow me down where I miss shots of the kids expressions. Right now, I find when I take indoor shots, my flash slows me down tremendously and the kids get frustrated and I never get the picture. I also want to be able to take fast action shot pictures. I would also like to be able to use 2 "AA" batteries instead of the other batteries.

Can you wonderful photographers guide me in the right direction? There are so many cameras out there. I tried searching this morning I just don't have a clue where to begin. One I found that has everything I'm looking for is the Canon Powershot A610 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom.

Thanks in advance!

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

You may want to post this on the photography board.

One of my cameras is a Kodak z740 and I love it. It has settings for close ups, fireworks, action, etc. It has 10x optical zoom, is 5mp, and uses 2 AA batteries.

 

[jenny2]

Definitely post this on the Photography board, too.

I have the Powershot A620 and let me tell you - it takes just as good pictures as my Digital SLR... sometimes better! I was the same as you before I got this camera - my older digital camera was sooooo slow I'd have to press the shutter button, tell my kids to say cheese... and still wait for it to take the picture! The A620 is practically instantaneous. Did I say I love this camera?

And it takes 4 AA batteries that last forever!

Yep... I love this camera, lol!

 

[MichelleVW]

Can you wonderful photographers guide me in the right direction? There are so many cameras out there. I tried searching this morning I just don't have a clue where to begin. One I found that has everything I'm looking for is the Canon Powershot A610 5MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom.

Thanks in advance!

I have a Canon A510 which is the older model but similar to the A610, I LOVE MY CAMERA....here, check out my webshots album and you can see all that this camera can do. Mine is a 3.2 megapixels and with a 5 MP you will have no problem blowing pics up to 8 x 10 or larger

Here's the link to my webshots album..

http://community.webshots.com/user/michellevw

if you go to the second page of the album you can see pictures of some horse shows I went too, and you can see that they take good action shots too with out blur.

 

[rpbert1]

i bought myself a Panasonic DMC FZ5 and am more than pleased with it check out the Panasonic website for it and some other models, has 12 opticial zoom with OIS and the usual settings for different situations, i am not to hot on photography so wanted a good camera that was simple enough to use

 

[poohraedopey]

One of my cameras is a Kodak z740 and I love it. It has settings for close ups, fireworks, action, etc. It has 10x optical zoom, is 5mp, and uses 2 AA batteries.

I received this camera for Christmas and love it! In fact I've sold two friends on them since then LOL. I can't wait to take her to Disney! I replaced an older Sony Cybershot with it and am soooo much happier.

 

[Quinn222]

Let me add a vote for the Canon A620, it's fantastic. Here's an example (I'm not posting the actual photograph because it's large. This is not even the finest quality setting:
http://www.kinnetik.org/personal/photos/hibiscus.jpg

 

[handicap18]

Definatly post this in the photography board as well. It is under Just For Fun.

Typically if you want to have large prints made with no distortion then you need large megapixels. I'm guessing somewhere in the range over 5 or 6MP and that is if you don't crop the picture at all. My older 3.2MP canon produced some excellent pictures. A few I enlarged to 8x10 and you can see a difference in quality compared to the same image at 4x6.

There are web sites out there that give a very good guideline for megapixels vs enlargment size. I don't have them readily available right now though.

 

[my2boys1821]

Wow, those action shots of the horse running are spectacular. Thanks so much you are making my decision much easier. Tracy

 

[my2boys1821]

Wow that's beautiful! thanks for sharing.

 

[katelynsmommy2001]

I received this camera for Christmas and love it! In fact I've sold two friends on them since then LOL. I can't wait to take her to Disney! I replaced an older Sony Cybershot with it and am soooo much happier.

I third that camera!!11 I got mine for Christmas as well!! We just got back from DW and I had intentions of using my 35mm SLR, but after I saw the beauty-ful pics with my z740, I only used 35mm for Sea World (hard to get dolphins jumpin with digital) and the beach!!!

I tried to post a pic, but it was HUGE!!

 

[LisaBi]

Stay away from the Sony DSC-H1. It does FANTASTIC outdoors, but indoors can't adjust right. It seems to have a focusing problem. You either get blur or too much flash. (It thinks it needs flash when it doesn't. If you turn flash off, the pic is blurry. If you leave it on, it's overeexposed.) I've had some luck manually covering/holding down flash.

As a result of this camera, I have NO pics of DS and Mickey from our last trip!

I find myself going back to my old Sony DSC-S85 for reliably good snapshots.

LisaB

 

[JCTurner]

Let me add a vote for the Canon A620, it's fantastic. Here's an example (I'm not posting the actual photograph because it's large. This is not even the finest quality setting:
http://www.kinnetik.org/personal/photos/hibiscus.jpg

Another vote for the A620 - just bought one myself to go with my RebelXT

 

[MareSINY]

Another option you should look into is the Minolta Dimage line of cameras. They have rapid shutter fire, and I mean rapid, you can hold down the button and shoot picture after picture without a delay. It powers up quickly so you can turn it on and catch your kids doing something crazy before they move on to something else.

 

[YEKCIM]

Look here, for reviews of digital cameras.

www.dpreview.com
www.steves-forums.com

Once you have decided upon what features are most important to you, including your budget, you can make an educated decison on the best camera for you. If you are planning on shopping online, you may want to check these sites:

www.pricegrabber.com
www.resellerratings.com

We have three digicams: a Canon A75, a Canon Optura 30 MiniDV camcorder, which makes 2MP digital stills, and a just-purchased Fujifilm S5200. If you would like to see what the Optura is capable of, please feel free to visit my DisneyWorld gallery: http://photobucket.com/albums/j11/fasteddiew/DisneyWorld/

Lastly, I would be hesitant to buy a Konica/Minolta right now, as K/M has announced that they are quitting the camera business, so support may be an issue in the future.

~YEKCIM

 

[jenny2]

Another vote for the A620 - just bought one myself to go with my RebelXT

LOL... A620 and XT... that's my combination too! I love both of them