Question Digital Camera to Buy

[2Poodles]

Hi,

It's my first time on the Photography Board. I'm looking to buy my first digital camera. I wanted to buy just a plain old 35 mm camera as my old one broke but I figured I might as well get into the "digital age". I'm probably the last person to have bought a VCR, DVD and have cable TV put in. I'm still using my Sony Walkman and I don't own an IPod.

I need a digital camera which is very simple to operate. I'm looking in the $250 to $350 range. A friend bought a Cannon Powershot A7101S 7.1 mega pixels 3 x optical. She loves her camera. The pictures I would be taking are of our Disney trip next May and family gatherings.

Could you recommend any other cameras in this price range? Also do I need a more powerful zoom and more mega pixels? Would you recommend the Cannon Powershot A7101S the pos and cons?

Any recommendations to help out this older person would be helpful.

Thanks,

Mary

 

[Jeanne B]

I'm still using my Sony Walkman and I don't own an IPod.

(sorry, couldn't resist )

The Canon A series are great cameras, I have the A610 myself and I really like it although the 4x zoom wasn't sufficient for me (I previously had a camera with 10x so I was going backwards). I since purchased the Canon S3 with 12x zoom. I'm not familiar with the A710 but the IS is a great feature. I wouldn't worry too much about megapixels, most cameras these days are more than sufficient for the average user.

www.dpreview.com and www.steves-digicams.com are great places to research cameras.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

Here's a review specifically for the A710IS from the Digital Camera Resource Page ... the reviewer is a good one and he puts each camera through it's paces and replicates several scenes to make comparisons.

Another Canon camera to consider, one very popular with the DIS, is the Canon S3 IS ... due to price breaks, it's now in your price range (was $400+ just a couple of months ago, and is now ~$320).

 

[Groucho]

Don't feel bad, I wouldn't touch an iPod (or any Apple product) if you paid me to.

There are so many digital cameras out there that the best thing to do is decide what is a priority for you. You're already come up with a price range (which is enough to cover nearly any point-n-shoot digital camera), next, there's size, responsiveness, image quality, zoom, etc.

There are a couple things to be wary of... first off, ignore any mention of "digital zoom" as it's useless and to be avoided. Optical zoom is the only thing that matters when comparing zoom levels.

Most importantly, megapixels are about 90% (if not 100%) marketing, and a camera with a higher megapixel count will not necessarily take a better photo than one with a lower count, in fact, it will often be worse.

Going from a 35mm camera to a digital point-n-shoot camera, you should also expect to be disappointed in low-light performance. The sensor in a small point-n-shoot is tiny compared to 35mm film, which means that you'll be more likely to get blurry and/or "noisy" photos than with your film camera. The upside is that they're a lot smaller and the photos are essentially "free" so you very well may end up with more "keepers" than with film.

You can get better quality by looking for a camera with a larger sensor, but sensor sizes are rarely if ever listed on the box and chances are that the average salesman at a "big box" place like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc, won't have a clue what about sensor sizes.

The Fuji line has larger sensors than most any other point-n-shoot, they've had two problems that have held them back from being more popular... first is that, until their newest cameras, they used a relatively rare variety of memory card (xD), this is not an issue on the new ones, that can work with xD and the usual SD cards. Second, they don't have image stabilization, which by and large, is only a consideration on "long zoom" cameras (the 10-12x ones), and I would still lean towards the Fuji as the cameras with IS have smaller sensors.

My wife has a Canon SD600, which is very small and, by and large, pretty decent and easy-to-use, but image quality is certainly lacking when it's not taking photos in bright light. At the time we bought it, the Fujis didn't have an SD slot, otherwise we probably would have gone with that... and honestly, if I knew then what I know now, we probably would have gone with the Fuji anyway.

 

[nbodyhome]

I also have 2 Canons - an A620, which was just fine until I received an S2. Now that is the one I always use.

 

[Blondie]

I have a simple Nikon Coolpix 7900. Not the best or most expensive camera, but it was a great first digital camera for me and within your price range. It's served me well.

After almost 2 years I'm ready to upgrade though!