Should we buy a digital camera?

[staci]

We are leaving in two weeks.

I have always wanted a digital camera, but have avoided the expense as we are on a very tight budget.

Now, I am wishing I had one. For all you budget minded WDW lovers, is your digital camera worth it at the parks? I know we wont be back for probably 7 years or so. We will be taking a video camera and we have a regular camera with a weak zoom we can take.

We could manage to squeeze the money out of somewhere if we decided to get one.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

 

[mouseketeer_times_2]

We brought our digital camera with for our trip and we are so glad we had it. There were several times we would take a picture, think it was "good", look at it in the viewfinder and see something that didn't look right. Many of our pictures would have been ruined because of a shadow, some body in the frame that didn't belong, blinked eyes, etc.

 

[my3kids]

I love digital cameras, but for a vacation you have to do 1 of 2 things....either have a really large memory card, or tap your laptop to dump the pictures every night. Most cameras come with a card or internal memory to hold about 16 shots(at least all of ours have) You'll need to purchase seperately a 256 or so card to hold all the photos if you aren't taking a laptop along. I've done it both ways and boy the bigger card is easy!

 

[MOmousefan]

We used two digital cameras on our last WDW visit and I would never use film again. We over 200 pictures a day and downloaded to a laptop. It is so nice to instantly review a pic and decide wether to take another or not. My phylosophy is to shoot lots pictures and weed out the bad ones. My 20 YO daughter took the picture below using a Canon Powershot S70.

 

[mouseaddictoldschool]

Digital cameras are awesome.. I can't say enough about them. You look and decide if it is a good picture right away. Video clips, spontaneous pics, and pictures you may not normally take....or have the kids take one or two. You have the opportunity to try again if your first attempt isn't a good picture instead of finding out at home that it did not turn out. Just my input. I do bring a digital with 512 mb, 128 mb, and 64 mb cards, plus camcorder, and 35 mm with anywhere from 4-8 films. We like all options. Have a great trip!!! We go in October!!!!

 

[staci]

I know when I initially bought my 35mm a few years ago, it seemed to be a hassle to develop digital pictures? I know you can go about anywhere anymore, is it fairly simple to do?

Do they take up a lot of space on your computer? I have a newer laptop but our old computer was so full of STUFF that it hardly moved online. Is that something that I have to worry about?

Thank you all so much for your replies!

 

[DisneyArk]

We bought a digital camera right before our last trip to WDW. I love it and it was great for our trip!! But... be sure you realize just how much money you will need to spend so that you can use the camera on your trip. For instance ours takes a rechargeable battery. I was worried the battery would die during the day, so I bought an extra one ($100). Then I wanted 2 large memory cards ($200). All of that was in addition to what we spent on the camera.

Another problem was that I waited until 2 weeks before we went to WDW to purchase the camera, so I couldn't wait for a good sale. I paid full price for the memory cards and the extra battery.

I'm usually a budget shopper and I still feel sick thinking about how much we spent on this camera.

ETA - you posted while I was posting. I don't save all the pictures onto my PC's harddrive. I hook up my camera (very easy) and then copy the pictures to a CD. I can easily upload the pictures to different web sites and pay to have them printed and mailed to me. Or I can upload them to Wal-Mart and ask for them to be printed in the store and I can pick them up. I can also take the CD to any store and have pictures printed from that. It's easy, but sometimes a slow process (sometimes over 200 pictures).

 

[etink67]

I love my digital camera and no longer use film. They have come down in price quite a bit. You save money on film and develping because you only print the pictures you want.

You need to decide how many megapixels you would need (the higher the megapixel the easier it is to crop or blow up pictures without them looking grainy), make sure you get one that doesn't have a delay between hitting the button and actually taking the picture. I have an older digital camera that I would hit the button and the kids would move and then the picture would be recorded. Lots of shots of them walking away.

Also be aware that many of them don't have great flashes and may not take great pictures at night (unless you are very close to your subject).

Again, I love my digital. I am sure you would love one. I would consider though whether you want to rush into one in your two weeks and your budget, or if you would rather wait and afford a little more. If you decide to get one now I am sure the store will be able to help steer you in the right direction. ie- ease of use , cost of memory card, reliability, # megapixels, etc.

 

[NoelGypsy]

I love my digital camera too, especially on vacation, when you can check to make sure you did not miss that "amazing shot", not wait to get your film back and be upset you missed it or it was blurry.
Last year before I went to Disney World I called and asked if they could download my photos off of my digital camera and put them on a CD for me and they said that the photo booths in Disney do that. I wound up buying another card before I left so I did not have to download them, so I do not know how much it is.
If you check this link at allears someone else asked the question: http://allearsnet.com/aa/aa050905.htm#ques5
Also the other reason I love the digital camera for vacation is because you do not have to make 20 copies of a picture to give them to people. I went with 7 people and all of them wanted copies, so when I got home I made a CD to give to each of them with a nice label and it made a nice gift for them. They loved it!!! They loved the fact they did not have to have a bunch of picture in a photo album and they could go to an Eckerd or CVS and print out the ones they wanted to frame. I also scanned all of the group photos that you buy in the park (Splash Mountain, Hoop-de-do Revue, etc) and put them on the disc.
Hope this helps !!

 

[2angelsinheaven]

You could always get a mid range one, it will be atleast 35mm quality if not better. I have a HP PhotoSmart M305, it was around $200 when I got it, but I've seen them for $125 or less now. GREAT DEAL! I use it all the time and have blown pics up to 11 X 17 with no loss of quality. Get a memory card though, you'll end up taking more pics "because you can" and it doesn't cost anymore vs. film that cost per photo taken. I think you'll be super happy with your choice to get one.

 

[crisi]

We save a ton in film and processing using digital cameras. We only print the photos we want. We usually print a few on our printer - but we've used web sites like Shutterfly. The downside, for the most part you need to visit my house to see my pictures - but we have them hooked up to view through the Tivo.

Better than one big chip is two smaller ones. That way if something happens, you'll still have some photos from your trip.

 

[Colinsmom]

We LOVED our digital camera at Disney last year!! We had two chips, and room for hundreds of photos between them. It isn't a fancy camera, but has a high megapixel count (for good quality photos). It was so nice to be able to pick and choose what we wanted printed out at the end of the trip, get extras and reprints without dealing with negatives. We would have wasted a LOT of money on film and developing (for pictures that didn't come out well) had we not had the digital camera.

Plus, I love being able to see that the picture is decent right after taking it - cuts down on the bad shots that can't be retaken because you have to wait to get film developed. And you can edit photos on your computer to recenter things, zoom in, etc.

We have a Kodak EasyShare DX7630. You can probably get an older model like this for less $$ if you shop around a little!