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What the shit is a MegaPixel [Buying a Camera]
MalReynolds
The Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered User regular
The Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered User regular
I'm looking at digital cameras, trying to find one that's the best value for the money; the most I'd want to pay is $400, but it doesn't need to be anything really flashy. Just a nice camera that takes good pictures. Every place I look seems to have decent cameras at around that pricerange anyway, but the specs are just... confusing and I have no real idea what most of it means. Does anyone have a camera near that pricepoint that they can vouch for?
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Most of the time its beyond what it needs to be just because "hey its a spec".
You need a decent lens which usually isn't mentioned on those stupid spec sheets.
For your price range, megapixel and zoom will be the main things. You'll be talking point-and-shoot cameras and not the ones with the separate lenses.
Megapixel is the amount of pixels in each picture taken. For example, if you have a 6 megapixel camera, your picture resolution is 3000 x 2000. Mmmm...Cocks... is right, you do plateau at some point with megapixels.
The other thing is zoom. Make sure you get optical zoom and NOT digital zoom. Digital zoom is just like looking at a picture on your monitor and zooming in, it essentially is like cropping the picture and you lose those pixels you are no longer seeing. Thus, degrading the quality of your picture. The other common thing people don't realize is that they want a camera with a lot of zoom, which is fine...but the flash for those cameras only travel 10-15 feet, so if you ever want a lot of zoom and you're taking pictures in low light, your flash won't do anything for you.
If you want to know more advanced stuff like aperture, just ask...but that usually is in regards to your lenses and ends up being out of your price range.
EDIT: I highly recommend trying to get a camera that has some kind of image stability (Canon's point-and-shoots will have an IS in the model name, ie Canon Powershot 500 IS). It's basically something that helps stabilize the camera when you're trying to take a picture if you have shaky hands. The more you zoom, the more a little twitch in your finger while trying to take a picture could cause a blurry photo.
I wouldn't go to the extreme of saying meaningless. It does have some influence, but definitely not as much as people think
Yeah, personally I use a Canon DSLR which I love, it's like, first generation and maybe 6 megapixels? But the quality is astounding. You can probably get an old used DSLR for around 400, and I'd probably recommend it, but otherwise I think checking CNET is a good idea too.
An added point. The true value of Megapixels can be seen when creating physical prints. If you have a camera that can give you 3000px x 2000px output, you wont get the same quality when you print 4"x6" and 8"x12".
Well, it meant something when we were comparing 1 megapixel cameras with 2 megapixel cameras. It's not meaningful on any current, new camera, because it doesn't indicate what it purports to be marketing: how good the picture detail is.
sounds like you're really looking for a simple point-and-shoot? you can't go wrong with the Canon Powershot IS cameras. great image quality, image stabilization, decent-to-good optical zoom, and relatively inexpensive.
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It may be one of those things where you are better served looking for a used DSLR or saving rather than buying a not DSLR, so you haven't spent $300 that only does half of what you want it to do now that you really like this photography stuff.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
Back to the picture quality conversation. Darkwolfe is right, we've pretty much hit that plateau point where megapixels just doesn't matter that much anymore. Lenses are what gives you quality pictures, not megapixels. That's why you see photographers and media (especially ones at a sporting event) that have lenses that are so big, they literally need a stand for it. I'd say, if you ever plan on doing a lot of photo editing (cropping) or printing big prints (16 x 20, poster sizes, etc.), then you'll need more megapixels.
Personal opinion - get a DSLR if you can (you can always get better lenses in the future), but if you're looking for a good point and shoot; I'd suggest Canon. DON'T get Kodak or Casio. One of the reasons Kodak is going out of business is because they made terrible cameras. I saw more Kodak and Casio cameras come back broken then any other brand.
I've been seriously considering grabbing a nice P&S for when I just want to go to the park and take pictures of my kid playing and stuff. I just don't always want to lug my DSLR with me everywhere.
I was just about to post this. I have a DSLR and I take more pictures with my phone because the DSLR is just too much of a pain in the arse to haul around.
It's a good midpoint between a point and shoot and a DSLR, to my unknowledgeable self.
For reference I have had a few Kodak point and shoot digital cameras that all got worse with each new model and had way too much motion blur, and I had an Olympus P&S camera that was just the worst.
Yeah, but the opposite is also true. You can get a lot of decent shots with an iphone, but for some quality shots I like having my DSLR. Although walking around with it is an absolute pain and just screams "I'm a tourist!" whenever you're in a major city. It's definitely not for everyone.
I think we can agree that, for your average person, a point and shoot that fits in their pocket can still take pretty damn nice pictures while being convenient enough to actually get used.
Seconding this. There are plenty of other good options as well to fit more specific wants/needs (I'd personally opt for the Olympus XZ-1 if I were in the market), but the Canon S100 is just a solid, awesome-performing camera that is great enough that you can indeed just blindly and confidently recommend it to people who say things like:
Just get the S100 and focus on enjoying your camera instead of fretting about how to choose one.
If it's predominantly used for travel you may want to look at a longer optical zoom. I find 4X optical to be fine for general purpose photography, but if you cannot get reasonably close to your subject then it's not going to take up much of the frame. Those superzooms aren't nearly as pocket-able though. I'm saving my bucks for this cause I'm sick of my photos being shitty phone pictures cause I never have my DSLR on me and the G1-X is a bit too large.
I have a midget on my payroll that takes care of screaming that for me pretty handily.
I'm not looking for anything with a telescoping lens or anything like that; the S100 looks to be what I'm looking for. I've been traveling a bit and I'd like to take a few pictures of the places I've come across for experience archiving. Thank you everyone for the quick responses!
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
In previous travels I've used a Nikon D60 but I got tired of carrying around the DSLR bulk. Also it's nice not to worry about wrecking the lens when out and about.