Going to buy my 1st digital camera.

[lisaross]

i've been thinking about buying one. I now have a Kodak APS camera which i love, but i'm getting tired of buying expensive film then paying for developing etc. So i'm thinking its time to take the plunge. I don't want an expensive camera was reading the post below and i'm thinking of

Canon Powershot A610 $224.00 at circuit city.

Is this the best price?

does it have all of the below (my cousin suggested this is what i need)

AA or AAA batteries
SD chips or XD chips
Optical zoom atleast 3x
4.5 MP
2.0 lcd display or bigger

i'm just not sure if it has the sd chips whatever that is.

So my other questions, how many pictures can i keep in this camera? If i'm going to Disney for a week will i need to buy anything extra to hold pictures? add'l chips?

thanx

lisa

 

[toyotaae86lg]

I'll tell you what I love love canon but I found the Casio EX-Z600 to be an amazing camera for it's price. Its a 6 megapixel camera and it has image stabiliztion for the shaky hand. I actually got to shoot a few pictures before I bought it and the pictures were awesome. Its super compact so your not lugging around this bulky camera. It also has a 2.7in lcd screen for ease of use. i would highly recommend looking into this camera. When I was looking into it I was like "casio doesn't make good cameras" but boy was I wrong. Try it out...on some of the forums I looked on they literally said the ex-z600 was going to be the best subcompact camera of the year. Have fun!!!

 

[Jeanne B]

i've been thinking about buying one. I now have a Kodak APS camera which i love, but i'm getting tired of buying expensive film then paying for developing etc. So i'm thinking its time to take the plunge. I don't want an expensive camera was reading the post below and i'm thinking of

Canon Powershot A610 $224.00 at circuit city.

Is this the best price?

does it have all of the below (my cousin suggested this is what i need)

AA or AAA batteries
SD chips or XD chips
Optical zoom atleast 3x
4.5 MP
2.0 lcd display or bigger

i'm just not sure if it has the sd chips whatever that is.

So my other questions, how many pictures can i keep in this camera? If i'm going to Disney for a week will i need to buy anything extra to hold pictures? add'l chips?

thanx

lisa

Lisa-

I bought my A610 from buydig.com but they seem to be out of them at the moment. Amazon is selling it right now for $206.95 (free shipping/no tax). It's a terrific camera and it has all the requirements you've listed above....it uses AA batteries, SD cards, has 4x zoom, 5MP and 2.0" LCD (swivel LCD at that). The amount of pictures you can take depends on the size of the SD card you have and the picture quality setting you choose in the camera. I usually bring two or three 512MB cards with me but I know there are others on here that use larger cards (1 or 2 GB). When we went to WDW a few weeks ago I had 2 cards with me and I took about 300 shots if I recall and I still had room left on my second card. If you shop around you can usually get good deals on memory cards (I always buy SanDisk brand cards and I paid $14.95 for my last 512mb from Staples last month).

Hope this helps!!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

does it have all of the below (my cousin suggested this is what i need)

AA or AAA batteries
SD chips or XD chips
Optical zoom atleast 3x
4.5 MP
2.0 lcd display or bigger

i'm just not sure if it has the sd chips whatever that is.

lisa

Lisaross,

your cousing needs to be hit in the head. Good thing that there is no camera uses AAA batteries. You'll be broke before you know it (AAA batteries, both used-once or rechargeables are more expensive than AA and also drains much faster; about 65% faster)

XD card is far more expensive than comparable-quality SD card.

Althougn 2.0" LCD display is good or larger is good. The larger the LCD the more it drains battery.

Regardless, the current pricing on a good quality 2 GB SD cards are around $90 for Sandisk Ultra II. That will hold about 600 pictures from a 6 MP camera at the highest resolution.

 

[lisaross]

i just ordered the A610 cannon powershot. Now what add'l SD chip shall i buy???

thanx.

lisa

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Sandisk Ultra II 2 Gb that's enough for approximately 600+ highest resolution shots.

 

[lisaross]

now what if i don't want to spend that much, could i get the 1 GB?

does the brand matter?

I want to buy it from circuit city, because i have a $50.00 gift card i'd like to get rid of. Originally i ordered my camera from them, but i went to amazon it was 206.00 and i saved another 30 for opening a credit card. Circuit city would not match the 206 price since it was an internet site not a store so now i have to return the camera when i receive it from circuit city to get my 50 gift card back so i just want to spend it and not deal with that store again -- i really think they should of matched the price!

so can i buy any brand SD card?

how many pictures will a 1 gb hold on my 5mp camera?

thank you so much for all the info.

lisa

 

[Kelly Grannell]

2 Gb = 600 pics
1 Gb = 1/2 x 2 Gb = 1/2 x 1 Gb = 300 pics

It's best to buy name-brand brands. You don't want to skimp just to realize later that you get card error and you'll lose your trip memories.

PS: Casio does not actually use anti shake technology, it uses DSP engine to approximate the picture blur to make it un-blur. Almost like using sharpening tool on Photoshop.

 

[toyotaae86lg]

Yeah DSP engine...thats it I love it so much!!!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

To my VERY limited experience with slim credit-card style cameras, the best ones came from Casio. I don't think anybody can beat Casio in that department. They manage the balance between quality vs thickness in check at all times.

Actually, now I remember that my very very first digital camera was a Casio. Cost me near $1,000 for a camera with a resolution of 800x600. At the time, everybody else can only make 640x480.

 

[captaincrash]

One of my favorite sites for info, comparison and opinions is DP Review...

... and they did a full review and evaluation on the A620 but not the A-610. HOwever, the 620 review should be very comparable in their findings as these 2 models are near identical twins with merely differences in sensor size, exterior finish and price. Here's a link to the exhaustive review on the A-620 .... http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona620/

Below is a quote from what DP review said on page 11 about how the Canon A-620 compared against the Casio EXZ-750... the nearest Casio contemporary....

The Casio EX-Z750 remains one of the most highly specified 7MP cameras on the market today, and it's certainly the most sophisticated of the 'ultra compact' models (it's a lot, lot smaller than the PowerShot A620). As you can see from these side-by-side shots there's not a significant difference in the amount of detail captured, although the Z750 does have a slightly higher measurable resolution. The main differences are again in the processing - the Z750's over-saturated and over-sharpened results have been well-documented, and the default saturation has apparently been reduced in the latest firmware version (these shots were taken with the original firmware), but once again which you prefer will come down to personal taste - you've got 7 million pixels to play with, so unless you are regularly printing posters the minor differences in detail and sharpness simply won't be visible. That said, as I've said before I prefer a slightly soft image that I can sharpen myself than an over-processed picture that leaves me little room for manouevre once I've loaded it into Photoshop, so my preference would be for the A620 shot.

<and at ISO 400>

At ISO 400 the difference between Canon's fairly subtle and Casio's sledgehammer approach to noise reduction has widened the gap significantly. There's more detail in the A620 image, yet despite the Z750's heavier noise reduction it still looks noisy - with nasty blotches in all areas of solid color. Few small sensor compacts perform that well at ISO 400, but the A620 is amongst the better.

Note: as mentioned previously, the Casio shots were taken with the original firmware, we are assured that the default saturation is lower if you use the latest firmware, so the results won't look quite so over-blown, color-wise.

Overall conclusion

The PowerShot A95 was one of the most successful 5MP compacts due to its compelling combination of features, image quality and value for money. But it was not a camera without problems - mainly performance and speed issues, most of which we - and all the people who bought it - put down to the inevitable compromise involved in getting so many features at such a keen price. The PowerShot A620, though externally pretty similar, is a very different kettle of fish. Not only does it boast a much better sensor, but the use of the latest DIGIC II processor means it's a lot, lot faster in operation too. There is very little here to suggest a 'budget' model at all; image quality is excellent, it's very well built, it handles well and it has a real wealth of photographic features that make it suitable for everyone from the absolute beginner to the more experienced photographer wanting lots of control over the picture taking process. And like the A95 it's a great first camera for anyone wanting to learn the craft of photography, being both affordable and well-specified enough to grow with you as your knowledge and experience increases.

Of course it's not perfect; there are some exposure issues (though these are fairly rare), it's fairly chunky and hardly lightweight, and there's still no way to change ISO or white balance without using the FUNC menu (even the most basic Ixus model now has an ISO button). But what it lacks in sex-appeal it more than makes up for in sheer value for money. Like the A95 before it, the A620 is one of those rare cameras that takes virtually every shooting situation you throw at it in its stride, with only the highlight clipping issue preventing an almost perfect hit rate.

So

 

[jann1033]

now what if i don't want to spend that much, could i get the 1 GB?

does the brand matter?

I want to buy it from circuit city, because i have a $50.00 gift card i'd like to get rid of. Originally i ordered my camera from them, but i went to amazon it was 206.00 and i saved another 30 for opening a credit card. Circuit city would not match the 206 price since it was an internet site not a store so now i have to return the camera when i receive it from circuit city to get my 50 gift card back so i just want to spend it and not deal with that store again -- i really think they should of matched the price!

so can i buy any brand SD card?

how many pictures will a 1 gb hold on my 5mp camera?

thank you so much for all the info.

lisa

i got an sd 1gb 133x card for $45 ( after rebate) at ecost...can not remember the brand for the life of me and it's already on daughter's vacation but it seemed to work great( and i checked it out and it was a decent brand....just my brain is not working). ecost had some good buys (last time i looked) on memory cards and they literally shipped my stuff with in hrs of the order and i had it a few days later ( 3 i think). i just got my daughter the a620, butterfly photo had it for 231.70 total which i thought was good ..since you got the extra 30 off that was a great buy. if circit city doesn't have any deals on cards you can always use it for batteries and a charger or something..and if you still want to spend more money some recommended buying an external hard drive and taking it with you on vacation if you don't have a lap top...they had one on ecost for llike 60 in their "bargaincountdown" for 80 + gb of memory.( one was 300gb) then you just download your pics to the drive every night and don't need so much memory ...good thing i'm not going for a while yet so i can buy all this stuff first hmm how many rolls of film could i have gotten developed for what it is costing to go digital?????