Camera questions... you're asking for it... :)

[Horizons16]

I have been looking into getting a digital camera for some time.
Im looking at the Cannon Powershot, Casio Exilim line, and the HP Photosmart lines.
I havent gotten past that step yet so I cant give model numbers or anything like that.
Just wondering what y'all thought about any of these.

Thanks
~Steve

 

[sleepyone]

I currently have an HP Photosmart 612. It takes beautifully clear pictures but, it's so slow. For example, in order to take a picture of my ds going down a slide, I have to press the shutter button while he's still climbing the ladder....seriously....not kidding! It takes about 10-15 seconds for it to turn on and pass the flash screen. In 10 seconds, I miss the event that I wanted to capture. For me, this camera sucks! I prefer my 35 mm over the HP that I have. There may be better HP's out there now but, I suggest you try it out before you buy any camera.

ETA: Can I say this camera sucks one more time?? It sucks!

 

[campinggal]

I have been looking into getting a digital camera for some time.
Im looking at the Cannon Powershot, Casio Exilim line, and the HP Photosmart lines.
I havent gotten past that step yet so I cant give model numbers or anything like that.
Just wondering what y'all thought about any of these.

Thanks
~Steve

I have had a Canon Powershot A80 (4 MPs) for two years and LOVE it. There are many versions of that out now with updates.

It has a cool 'flip out LCD' screen that works well to get tricky shots when you can have the camera in front of you. It also uses AA batteries which is convienient.

It has fully automatic mode but also can be put in manual mode if you want more control.

I have heard great things about the updated ones too- A95, A610 etc.

Happy shopping!

 

[Horizons16]

I currently have an HP Photosmart 612. It takes beautifully clear pictures but, it's so slow. For example, in order to take a picture of my ds going down a slide, I have to press the shutter button while he's still climbing the ladder....seriously....not kidding! It takes about 10-15 seconds for it to turn on and pass the flash screen. In 10 seconds, I miss the event that I wanted to capture. For me, this camera sucks! I prefer my 35 mm over the HP that I have. There may be better HP's out there now but, I suggest you try it out before you buy any camera.

ETA: Can I say this camera sucks one more time?? It sucks!

Hmm it really takes that long huh? Thats kind of cheesy.

 

[Magix]

I also have a Canon A80 and it's great. For a little point & shoot, it does a fantastic job. I'm a Canon-only kind of girl, since I have owned 4 different Canon SLR's. Canon is very, very easy to use and offers great quality.

 

[sleepyone]

Hmm it really takes that long huh? Thats kind of cheesy.

Yes, it sucks! It also takes a long time between shots.

 

[LilMamiBella]

I have a Casio. I've had it for a only a couple of months and I really like it.
It has a big lcd screen, shutter is really good, 7 mps, and it can also take movie clips--my kids love that feature!

 

[MikeL1515]

I just bought the Canon Powershot A610. Seems to be a very good camera. I did alot of research and it got very good reviews.

 

[LordAthens]

I would *HIGHLY* recommend the Casio Exilim line. As of right now, I would say the EX-Z55, Z57, Z750 or the EX-S500 would be the models to look at.

The EX-Z55 and Z57 are both 5mp, 3x optical zooms (they have a digital zoom but are about worthless, you are much better off to use a good editior and zoom & crop within that). They both also have a movie mode, do keep in mind however it's a low resolution and a fairly slow frame rate and it eats tons of memory. The only thing that seperates the two camera's is the Z55 has a 2.5" LCD w\ a tiny optical viewfinder and the Z57 has a 2.7" LCD without the optical viewfinder. For what it's worth, since neither of them will gain up the LCD at night, the optical viewfinder can come in handy at times.

However, if you are a point and shoot style of person, I would DEFINATELY say go with the EX-S500. It's basically the new version of the Z55 with a bunch of new features. The battery life is pretty good, around 200 shots (not as good as the 370+ on the Z750, Z55 or Z57), it has a auto focus illuminator (really needed for low light shots, especially of portraits) but more importantly, it has a image stabilization mode that makes hand-holding night shots actually quite doable. It also features movie mode, but worlds better than the Z50 and Z55. It encodes in an MPEG4 format at twice the resolution of the Z5x cameras and at 30fps to boot! The video quality is stunning!

Lastly if you want to consider it, is the Z750. It has all of the features of the S500, except the image stabilization. However, it has twice the battery life of the S500 and it also allows for fully manual control of the camera, which none of the other "Z" or "S" camera's do, so you can do some pretty creative things.

All of the cameras above are very fast, infact most of them are the fastest in their class. Startup time is less than 1 second (including lens extention), AF time is very quick and once you have AF, there is virtually zero shutter lag. Most small P&S digitals cannot claim that.

I personally own the EX-Z750 and the EX-S500. One is always in my pocket (usually the S500 since it's so tiny) and the other is in my bag along with my D100 and various glass, or the DGF has it in her pocket.

I've owned some of the Canon Power Shot line, a few Nikon's, a Minolta or 2 and now 6 Casio Exilim's. Canon's aren't bad, but you really get a lot more bang for the buck with the Casio's, the image quality is near identical since they are using the same glass on most of the models (yes, the Exilim's use Canon glass) (and some also use the same CCD for that matter), the Best Shot mode on the Casio's make even the worst photographer a pretty good one and the battery life is top's in it's class.

HTH!

 

[crazelion]

Don't get a HP digital camera because the darn thing die on me.

Canon or Nikon is good if looking for best.

 

[sleepyone]

Don't get a HP digital camera because the darn thing die on me.

Canon or Nikon is good if looking for best.

At least you could have a funeral. Mine is still hanging on for dear life.