Cool Pix 7600?

[SnoWhiteRabbit]

Please help! I dropped my camera today taking pictures of my DS3 dressed as Peter Pan at his preschool! It broke the battery door latch, and it seems I may need a new camera (Argh...can't wait to tell DH! We just spent $500 on CD and DVD players in the minivan for the drvie down... ) Now, I may need to scramble and buy a new camera before Wednesday!!

I had the Nikon Cool Pix 4 mo camera. I liked the camera, but did not love the quality of the images. I saw pictures taken with an 8 mp camera and the quality was phenominal - like sharp film quality, defineitley not digital like at all. That's what I'm going for. Will I be satisifed with the 7mp Nikon? Anyone have it and can tell me about print qulaity -- especially someone who is obsessive about image/print quality. I love using a digital camera, but I want ultra sharp "film" quality prints. Any suggestions?

Thanks!



What a great idea for a board!! I was about to post this on the Theme Parks board, but saw the post for this board. Awesome!

 

[Goofyish]

People often ask me to recommend a digital camera for them, and I always avoid specifying a particular make/model because one person may love one camara, but another may find it uncomfortable hold, or the menus/functions may not suit them.

My advice is to decide on your budget. Read up on the latest reviews of cameras on the market that meet you budget and have the resolution, lens, memory card type, battery type and functions you think you need, then go to a local camera store and actually hold the cameras. Try out the menus to see if you find them intuative - nothing worse than having to dig out the instructual manual everytime you want to delete a photos or change a setting

Camera resolution alone does not effect the final print quality. The more pixels you have enables you to print larger photos, or crop your photos more and still get decent size prints.
Do you get prints from a photostore, or do you print them yourself using an injet or similar printer? If you print at home what printer have you got?

 

[SnoWhiteRabbit]

Goofyish -
Thanks so much for the reply. I order prints online (ofoto, shutterfly...). I crop some photos, but not all. They just have a digital look to them. I usually try to use the "best" setting on my camera, too.

Anyhow, I totally understand about not wanting to make recomendations for a specific camera. Let me phrase my question this way...will I be satisfied with 7 mp?

And good point about the budget, but I usually tend to think "budget smudget" a little too often. If I 'need' a camera, then I'm going to want to spend whatever (almost) it takes to get what I want. Actually, I would have a hard time spending $500 or more. I could replace my camera for about $200, but would easily spend $350 to upgrade. And would be willing to stretch further if it would really make a difference.

I guess my final questions would be --
How much difference would I find between 7 mp and 8 mp?
Does going SLR make a difference in the print quality?

Thanks for any more feedback you can give me! I know what I like and what I want, but I don't have the technical knowledge to make the best choice.

 

[goofymom/pop]

well I am absolutely no expert but I can tell you that my old digital had 5mp and my new one 8mp....and I think under some conditions the old one took sharper/clearer images. My brother has a 5mp HP850 and took it to Aspen for NY Eve last year, he blew up lots of shots to 8x10 and they are awesome. And I am super picky about print quality. Ask at your local camera store if they have any samples of actual photos taken with the cameras in your budget area. Also, I think if your not sure some of the stores like Best buy have return policies, so you can try it and see if you like it. Hubby and i took our little SD cards with us to the stores and took pics with the different display cameras, brought them home and compared the print quality. We ended up buying the Nikon from Cord Camera and returning it after I wasn't happy with the print quality. May have been just that particular camera as I still hear rave reviews about the D70. Thankfully they had a holiday return policy and gave us a month to play with the camera. Very nice of them. I ended up with the Rebel XT which I do love, and so far the pix have been good. Better on manual settings, which makes me struggle to learn to use them instead of all auto focus. Good luck in your search.

 

[AZ JazzyJ]

Unless you are planning to make prints larger than 11x14, the difference between a 5 megapixel and an 8 megapixel will be negligible. What is more important is how the camera will allow you to adjust color saturation, white balance, and contrast. You would be better off finding a camera that gives you the option to adjust these parameters to what looks good to you. Many times tweaking the white balance (telling the camera what really is white to you) and contrast will make the photos seem more 3-dimensional and vivid. To that extent, a lot of the cameras now have this capability stuck in their menu system to give you the freedom to have the camera adapt to you rather than vice versa.


Oh, and when you tell your husband? Remember to tell him that you know how much he loves playing with new toys and you just didn't want him to be bored during this trip so getting a new camera was actually a bonus.


Jeff