I need a new camera.

[Mtukufu]

Hi everybody!

This is my first post on the Photography Board here at the DIS. I am looking for some advice on good cameras. The camera that I have is a small Kodak Easyshare 7.1 Megapixel Camera that I believe I received for Christmas in 2004. It's so outdated I can't even find a picture of it on the internet. Anyway, it suited my purposes for the last number of years but last year at WDW, the toggle control on it broke and now I can't really do much with it besides set the flash, point and click and hope things turn out alright. So I guess a largely broken camera coupled with the fact that it looks like things have really progressed in the camera world in five or six years sounds like a good enough excuse for me to get a brand new camera.

The trouble is, I don't really know much about cameras. I love photography, but I don't want to lug around one of those bigger cameras with a big lens and stuff that takes awesome pictures like the ones Express Monorail takes but is.. kind of cumbersome. I like slipping my camera into my pocket or being able to carry it around without feeling like the world would end if I dropped it.

So I'm looking for a small camera that takes really great pictures. I noticed that beginning this month, Kodak is going to be selling a 14 Megapixel touchscreen control model called the SLICE. I thought it looked pretty cool; what are your thoughts on it? Do you have any recommendations? They'd be much appreciated!

Thank you!

- Mtukufu

 

[NateNLogansDad]

I'd say look into a bridge camera for a much better optical zoom and some of the controls you would find on a DSLR. To see what I'm talking about, Best Buy has a couple....like the Nikon P100 or the L110. I had the P80 last year and was pretty happy with it. If I had any idea what exposure meant back then, I'm sure I would have really used it to it's full potential.

 

[ukcatfan]

I have never been impressed with Kodak cameras, but honestly I have not paid much attention to the p&s world in the past couple years. My opinion of touchscreen is that it is just an expensive gimmick that does nothing to improve your ability to take pictures. Also, it is my experience that the more unnecessary gadets included on a consumer electronic equals more things that can and will break making it an expensive paperweight.

I would think that you would be best served with some sort of advanced p&s such as the Canon G series. I think the latest is the G11. They are slightly larger than the average p&s, but not the size of a DSLR. There are also bridge cameras to look at. They are the p&s models that typically have long optical zoom ranges like 10-20x (not digital zoom).

 

[momof1princess]

i bought myself a new digital camera for my birthday-a canon powershot A2200 IS. it takes great pics, has 12 mp, zoom, and image stabilizer. it can shoot video too, but i haven't done that yet. lots of other great features, but i'm still playing with it and don't know how all of them work yet, lol.

 

[Frantasmic]

I base a lot of my suggestions on reviews, particularly from Popular Photography, although not exclusively from them. There are many other sites as well. The Canon S90 gets pretty good reviews for a point and shoot and the new Sony DSC-HX5V/B is loaded with features.

Now, people here state that cameras don't take good pictures, people do. So, whatever camera you purchase, you need to learn to branch out into more creative pictures that YOU take so that some time in the future you are prepared for the dslr route.

You can see picture examples from the Canon S90 by googling canon forums or going here