suggestions for a new digital camera!

[whitnicole18]

Hi All!

I am looking into getting a new digital camera before our trip, simply do not want to take our good Nikon every day and have to worry about it!

What kind of camera do you use? What do you like about it? Any special features?

I am open to all brands and types! Send them my way! Thanks in advance!

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

When you say "digital" camera, what are you looking for? I assume your Nikon is a DSLR? Are you looking for a point and shoot, bridge/superzoom?

 

[whitnicole18]

When you say "digital" camera, what are you looking for? I assume your Nikon is a DSLR? Are you looking for a point and shoot, bridge/superzoom?

Yes! A point and shoot, sorry

My Nikon is an DSLR and I use it professional, I will be taking it but not to the water park and all!

 

[zackiedawg]

Well if you have a DSLR and don't want to bring it to certain parks or places, you've got a few different directions you can go.

1. You can get a mirrorless system camera - nearly the identical quality and low light ability as the DSLR, in a more compact and lighter package, and not terribly expensive. You still might be a little scared throwing it around in the bottom of a baby bag or sitting it on the sand at the beach, but it's so much more portable than a DSLR that you might be willing to bring it along more in the parks and rides.

2. You can get a decent P&S ultrazoom - something very versatile that can shoot from wide to extreme telephoto - image quality and low light won't approach DSLR levels, but convenience and versatility will be very high in a fairly inexpensive package...and more portable to boot. Some 'travel' zooms can even give you decent reach and fit in a pocket. Still not made for abuse, but won't have you wanting to post armed guards around it because it's inexpensive enough compared to a DSLR.

3. You can go for pocketable P&S cameras with some control - if you're a DSLR used or pro, and like to have control over your shots, you may prefer to still have A & S priority and Manual modes, capability to shoot RAW, maybe a nice fast lens...look into the high end pocket cams like Panasonic LX5, Canon S95, Samsung TL500, or Olympus ZX1. Pocketable or close to it, but still lots of nice higher end features. Image quality better than other P&S, but still below mirrorless and DSLR.

4. Go for the bulletproof all-out fun cameras - waterproof, shockproof, etc. Basic P&S stuff inside, a good photographer can still get good photos from them, you accept they're not going to match a DSLR, but they can be thrown in a pocket, left in the bottom of the baby bag swimming in crumbs and baby powder, can be used on wet rides or in the wave pool, can lie in the sand at the beach without a care, can be dropped on the ground...made to be used and abused and still get shots when you otherwise wouldn't want to be carrying a camera. Canon, Panasonic, and Sony all make nice higher-end ones with some cool features, Fuji, Casio, Samsung, and others make cheaper ones that might not take as much of the bumps and drops but cost half as much.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

My Nikon is an DSLR and I use it professional, I will be taking it but not to the water park and all!

Just curious, when you state of your DSLR that you "use it professionally" do you mean that you're a professional photographer or that you are some other professional that needs photography for documentation purposes?

I'm just thinking that if you're a professional photographer you're not really going to be happy with many of the P&S's performance compared to your DSLR; especially when going to one of the most photographically interesting places in the world!

Canon's got the G-series, a very-capable, high-performance P&S camera; I think the G-10 is the latest. And, you mention water-parks; the Canon D10 is a very, highly-rated nice water-proof camera.

I don't really know Nikon, but they have a model that matches most Canon cameras, too.

 

[zackiedawg]

Actually, as a professional photographer you can be incredibly happy with the performance even from a little automatic P&S pocket cam with no manual controls and a tiny sensor. It's all about what you EXPECT from the camera and how you use it. If you want, and believe you're going to get, full DSLR speed, control, and performance from something that fits in a pocket, then you're going to be an unhappy fellow. But if you know that all cameras involve compromise, and that with the DSLR you compromised portability and convenience for a maximum system for control and image quality, then you can accept the opposite compromise in image quality and control in order to enjoy the freedom and portability of a tiny pocket cam!

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

Actually, as a professional photographer you can be incredibly happy with the performance even from a little automatic P&S pocket cam with no manual controls and a tiny sensor. It's all about what you EXPECT from the camera and how you use it. If you want, and believe you're going to get, full DSLR speed, control, and performance from something that fits in a pocket, then you're going to be an unhappy fellow.

"incredibly happy" ... only if you're really good at lowering your expectations.

I fully understand that you can still take really good pictures with pretty much any camera on the market (bar the real el-cheapos) ... I took really good pictures with my Canon S3 and with my Oly "Tough."

However, for me, I find it much harder to be happy with the P&S cameras now that I've gotten a taste of what my T2i can do.

Perfect example, on our vacation to Maui last Oct., my DW and I went snorkeling and had the honor of meeting up with a huge sea turtle. The encounter was amazing, but only lasted about 30-45 seconds.

Normally, my Oly is a fine little camera but just when I needed it the most, to record what might be for me a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take a picture of my DW and a sea turtle swimming together in Maui, it *refused* to focus until the turtle was swimming away from us and I only got one picture of it ... and not even a really great one. Ten minutes later, the Oly was taking crystal clear pictures of coral ... but something about the contrast of turtle in water fooled the AF so bad it wouldn't focus and wouldn't shoot.

The whole time I was struggling with the Oly, I was thinking, "If only my T2i was waterproof I'd be getting TONS of shots of this turtle!"

My guess is that the OP isn't really familar with P&S cameras, since they're here asking our advice. At a place as photo-rich as Disney parks, someone used to the speed and performance of their DSLR is likely to be somewhat less-than-happy....

 

[zackiedawg]

I would have looked at that from a glass-half-full perspective instead of half-empty: you got one shot of the back of the turtle, which is one more than you would have gotten without that little Olympus! And precisely because your T2 isn't waterproof, save spending thousands on a dive case, the Olympus to me proved its worth as the camera that was on you at the time, which to me is always better than the camera that's not.

I've been shooting DSLRs for almost 4 years, and SLRs for 30 years before that...I came over to digital photography early, in 1997 - so my experience is pretty long. Yet I've never really been disappointed even in lowly 1MP P&S cameras back in the day, because it was always better for me to have the camera and get the shot than to not have, and in many of those situations I wouldn't have had a camera on me if it meant lugging around the DSLR. And some favorite shots of mine have been taken with some pretty junky cameras with no control - because they were small and convenient enough to bring with me anywhere and everywhere, allowing them to be ready for those spontaneous moments when you wish you had a camera.

You could commiserate about not having had a BETTER camera, but that's too glass-half-empty for me...I'd rather think about the alternative of not having a camera at all, which makes the junky camera still the better proposition.

I have a photo I took with an ultracompact credit-card type photo - the kind with no extending lens and absolutely NO photographic controls at all - which has been one of my most successful photos - it's gotten sold, published, and won several photo competitions, despite being a craptastic P&S camera in P mode shooting JPGs off a 1/2.5" sensor. I wasn't intending to have a camera that day, so unless I happened to have the little slimliner sitting in my car center console, I never would have gotten the shot. So though I could find flaws in it, it may be slightly lacking in maximum detail, may have a little smearing on pixel-peeping closeup looks, etc...in the end it didn't matter - the subject and the light made the shot worthwhile and the lack of DSLR like quality didn't hinder it at all. I could dwell on the fact that I could have done better with a DSLR, a wide prime, shot in RAW, and a ton of processing work...or I could be happy I had the little P&S in my pocket and enjoy the photo!

I agree though - the OP does need to understand the compromises inherent in P&S cameras - I tried to make that clear and you hammer it home well - the one way to guarantee being unhappy with a P&S is to go into it expecting anything close to the control or overall image quality of a DSLR!

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

I would have looked at that from a glass-half-full perspective instead of half-empty: you got one shot of the back of the turtle, which is one more than you would have gotten without that little Olympus!

Yeah, I know....

BTW, this is the shot I did manage to get:

And, even though it's not a stellar picture I *am* glad that I got even this; at worst it's still a great "memory enhancer."

And precisely because your T2 isn't waterproof, save spending thousands on a dive case, the Olympus to me proved its worth as the camera that was on you at the time, which to me is always better than the camera that's not.

I completely agree; and, that's exactly why I bought the Olympus ... to have a small camera I could easily carry with me ... especially into places where it's not safe for my DSLR (or even my older S3), like fishing or swimming.

 

[artistico]

i shall stay with a cheap Nikon camera ... i am Nikon fun .. has many cheaper Nikon models ...