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Buying a digital camera
Richy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I'm going on a few trips this summer, and my current digital camera is old, large, failing, and sucks batteries dry faster than any other device I've ever owned. I'm thinking I should get a new one. But I don't know much about the digital camera market these days.
Question the first: what are some good camera brands/models? What should I stay away from?
What I'm thinking about is that I need a simple camera. I only use it on trips; I'm not a picture hog and I don't snap pictures in everyday life. I'm thinking of the $150-$200 range. Decent resolution and optical zoom. Small and resistent enough to carry around in my pocket as I'm visiting a new city. And it must be able to do panoramic shots, the kind where you move the camera around and it takes super-huge pictures. I love landscapes and cityscapes, and right now I can only get them by taking lots of regular pictures and assembling them together with software on my computer, and that's not ideal. A new camera will remedy this situation.
Question the second: can you recommend a camera that fits my needs?
Question the first: what are some good camera brands/models? What should I stay away from?
What I'm thinking about is that I need a simple camera. I only use it on trips; I'm not a picture hog and I don't snap pictures in everyday life. I'm thinking of the $150-$200 range. Decent resolution and optical zoom. Small and resistent enough to carry around in my pocket as I'm visiting a new city. And it must be able to do panoramic shots, the kind where you move the camera around and it takes super-huge pictures. I love landscapes and cityscapes, and right now I can only get them by taking lots of regular pictures and assembling them together with software on my computer, and that's not ideal. A new camera will remedy this situation.
Question the second: can you recommend a camera that fits my needs?
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I bought my wife a Nikon which she loves. It was on sale for about $130. CostCo had a deal where you get it, a nice case, and a memory card for $130. Good camera. I can't recall the model though.
Issue: Panoramic. I don't know if it does it. All of my panoramics were done with open-source tools that auto-stitched for me. I have used panoramic picture tools on cameras and on the iPhone 4 (several apps). They just don't turn out as well. They don't pull off the same distortions of the fed images to comensate for the user's drift or movement from the pictures' centerpoint.
Sorry I couldn't offer a perfect solution.
The problem with picking a point & shoot camera is that there's a billion of them. And most of them are fine for taking snapshots while on vacation. I would argue that since your requirements are pretty simple, go to a store and get a feel for how the different manufacturers feel. The operating systems and ergonomics are usually similar among a manufacturer's offering. Since you're looking for a cheap, easy to use camera, you won't go wrong buying based on price and ergonomics/ease of use.