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picking a digital camera to buy
Chaotic Descent
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Well, I searched all 12 pages of threads here, and nothing matched "cam" like digicam or camera so here goes a new one.
I want a (entry-level) camera that takes both close-up pics of my massive toy collection, as well as outdoor scenery shots and indoor shots of people. oh, and how do you take good pics of projection screens? I don't plan to be doing that a lot, but it's pretty critical when it does come up. I want to be able to pull it out when I see something and get a picture as fast as possible, so quick power-on, and quick response-time when I hit the picture button. (I have a feeling I'll have to test it in person to actually tell about that one)
Image stabilization seems really important. I also want good ISO for "low-light"/indoor shots.
It's really hard to find up-to-date guides on the stats/specs of digital cameras. I'm finding stuff that says storage space is from 2-8MB. owch.
I'm sorta wondering what the point is to some of these stats for cameras below even $400. The aperture range seems non-existent. so I guess that stat is irrelivant.
I can't figure out what it means when the macro focus range isn't a range, but a single number. I guess that means it's focus is fixed at a certain distance.
I'm not a fan of these Li-ion batteries. (I want to go for NiMH since I don't list disposables either) the wikipedia page on them makes them sound awful. unfortunately, it seems like all cameras use that if they have uncompressed image formats, or useful viewfinders. (electronics or through-the-lens) oh, and most ones with AC adapters. uh... do cameras that use Li-ion batteries also take AA batteries? I guess it's not explicit one way or the other... I should have checked these stats better, but often times it says info not available.
I'm looking at the Canon A570 IS as my first choice, but it's so new there's no reviews. What's it's predecessor, so I can get some idea if it's already doing most of the things right that I need it to do?
Someone had recommended the Canon SD600 or it's successor the SD1000, but I don't think either has image stabilization, and there's no advantages I see over the A570 (or A710).
It looks like the $200 cameras I'm pulling up in results have lots of problems in the reviews, which is why you spend the extra money and get a decent quality camera for... $250. ok, that's not so bad. There's a few Canon Powershots with Image Stabilization, a couple of them are $250.
I'm starting to get the impression that I really don't have much choice beyond this though. flipping LCD panels are for crappy cams with no IS; a luxury I can't afford. EVFs and TIFF/RAW only come on crap cameras that also use Li-ion batteries (and often use Quicktime for video. bleh!)
I want a (entry-level) camera that takes both close-up pics of my massive toy collection, as well as outdoor scenery shots and indoor shots of people. oh, and how do you take good pics of projection screens? I don't plan to be doing that a lot, but it's pretty critical when it does come up. I want to be able to pull it out when I see something and get a picture as fast as possible, so quick power-on, and quick response-time when I hit the picture button. (I have a feeling I'll have to test it in person to actually tell about that one)
Image stabilization seems really important. I also want good ISO for "low-light"/indoor shots.
It's really hard to find up-to-date guides on the stats/specs of digital cameras. I'm finding stuff that says storage space is from 2-8MB. owch.
I'm sorta wondering what the point is to some of these stats for cameras below even $400. The aperture range seems non-existent. so I guess that stat is irrelivant.
I can't figure out what it means when the macro focus range isn't a range, but a single number. I guess that means it's focus is fixed at a certain distance.
I'm not a fan of these Li-ion batteries. (I want to go for NiMH since I don't list disposables either) the wikipedia page on them makes them sound awful. unfortunately, it seems like all cameras use that if they have uncompressed image formats, or useful viewfinders. (electronics or through-the-lens) oh, and most ones with AC adapters. uh... do cameras that use Li-ion batteries also take AA batteries? I guess it's not explicit one way or the other... I should have checked these stats better, but often times it says info not available.
I'm looking at the Canon A570 IS as my first choice, but it's so new there's no reviews. What's it's predecessor, so I can get some idea if it's already doing most of the things right that I need it to do?
Someone had recommended the Canon SD600 or it's successor the SD1000, but I don't think either has image stabilization, and there's no advantages I see over the A570 (or A710).
It looks like the $200 cameras I'm pulling up in results have lots of problems in the reviews, which is why you spend the extra money and get a decent quality camera for... $250. ok, that's not so bad. There's a few Canon Powershots with Image Stabilization, a couple of them are $250.
I'm starting to get the impression that I really don't have much choice beyond this though. flipping LCD panels are for crappy cams with no IS; a luxury I can't afford. EVFs and TIFF/RAW only come on crap cameras that also use Li-ion batteries (and often use Quicktime for video. bleh!)
Chaotic Descent on
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SD cards are reliably also the cheapest. You can probably grab a 2 GB card for $30 now.
Cameras with a built-in Li-ion battery won't have room for AA batteries. Sometimes they'll have field replaceable Li-ions, most of the time the operation is too complex.
Low lighting shooting means you want a high ISO rating. Higher ISO ratings mean more image noise though, so you only want to bother with them under low lighting conditions. The other way to get low light photos is by using a long exposure, but then you get jitter if you're holding it in your hands, or blurring if ANYTHING moves.
So what should you look at?
Look at the Canon Powershot series. The A5x0 line supports AA batteries (NiMH joy!), they all tend to have large, pretty view finders, they're relatively light for cameras with 2 AA batteries in them, they tend to have 4x or 5x optical zooms, they tend to have 5.0 MP or higher, and they tend to have ISO settings that range from 50 to 800 (which is very high). They're also priced under $300 USD.
The line used to consist of the A510 and A520 of which the only difference was the MP. Now they've introduced the A530 and higher models. The A570 is of this heritage.
They are great cameras that can take stunning photos. I was absolutely in love with my A520. The one and only problem is that they're not the hardiest cameras you'll ever find. You can't be dropping it. You need to keep it in a camera bag when you're not using it and you generally need to baby it. Otherwise the motor that drives the lense will get off its track or out of sync and your camera will die the E18 fate. This is generally avoidable by handling it very carefully and getting an extended warranty.
I do not think you will be disappointed with the A570, but if you don't mind the lower end models in that line, you could save a few bucks that you could spend on accessories, like the requisite SD card (another nice feature of Canon's line: they use cheap memory formats), the camera bag, and so forth.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Image stabilization is good and all, but you don't really need it if your hands are steady, or you get a tripod. Also, the higher your ISO, the less you need to stabilize. Another thing you have to think of is most IS cameras are pretty big, and won't fit comfortably in your pocket.
I wouldn't personally settle for anything less than 4x optical, though.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
Someone needs to sell me on this Li-ion battery if they're going to try and sell me on the camera that uses it.
I don't know if it's worth it to get a camera that uses Li-ion batteries, just for the higher resolution LCD and ... nope, that's pretty much the only advantage. all the freakin Macro focus range and aperture jibba jabba seems to be negligibly different. (not that I actually understand what those damned numbers MEAN)
... yes, but why list "3-60cm" for one and "1cm" for another? (Like I said, does that mean you can't change the focus in Macro mode for that camera?)
answer: going to the manufacturer's website, the "1cm" is actually "1-55cm". the other site LIES!
The positives for the Lithium ion are - rechargeable, lightweight and smaller size, no "memory" issues (like the old NiCd)
negatives - Have to keep the charger handy, or a second battery. More expensive to replace.
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
And pretty much every digicam in the world these days can do decent macro, it's not really an issue. The only big differences out there in the actual camera hardware are in the optical zoom range and image stabilization.
the tech specs of all cameras have a lux rating, which is the lowest it needs to create a decent image. lower the better.
I mean... so point&shoot cameras have poor lux ratings. not much I can do about that, since I'm not willing to pay $1000, or even $600. so best I can do is see how much they vary within my price-range. see if I can find one that doesn't suck as much.
Check reviews for cameras with ISO 800 in your price range. find one that handles ISO 800 nicely.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
My verdict is it's a lot easier to choose if you can try the camera out beforehand, even if you have to buy and return one or two. I lucked out because there are a lot of things I like about this camera, but I've used a lot of other digital cameras with aspects that really pissed me off that still took some damn good pictures. Without further ado, I'll list some important aspects to observe, along with how important they are to me and my style of picture-taking. So this'll be a review, along with a list of things to look for.
Things I like about this camera:
- Lithium-Ion battery. I much prefer to keep a rotation of two of these guys rather than deal with a messload of AA's. I always forget which ones are dead, or forget to find a way to dispose of them or something, and they don't last very long. This battery lasts just about exactly long enough for me to shoot my entire memory capacity (1 GB), which makes it really easy to keep track of how much charge I have.
- It remembers my flash settings. (Usually.) This, more than anything else, turned me off some Kodaks I used. Nothing sucks more than turning your camera on in the louvre and having it flash the Mona Lisa because you didn't press the flash toggle five times (and suppressed flash is always the last one on the list) before taking the picture. Not only that, I have not taken a single photo with a flash that was not completely wrecked by it, and most cameras just seem to flash no matter how bright it is out. (Exaggeration, but auto-flash is really the bane of my existence.)
- Good low-light response. It could still be a lot better IMHO, and it's not able to deal with many different levels in the same image very well, but it's good enough, and sometimes a lot better than more expensive cameras. I can leave the flash off and shoot in low-light and usually get something resembling what I was looking at, even if it's grainy and lacking sharpness, which is more than I can say for many cameras I've used. I've used $500 cameras that couldn't taken the previously-linked photo "freehand" sans flash.
- Turns off and on very quickly, easily, and painlessly. The power button is located in the perfect spot, and it doesn't do a lot of unnecessary whirring and spinning of motors before you're ready to shoot. I can really conserve batteries since I don't feel the need to leave it on in case I want to shoot something else in the next minute.
- Doesn't have a separate lens cap. I can't believe that's still a problem nowadays, but keep an eye out.
- All the most commonly-used features (macro, anti-blur, video, review) are typically only a single button-push away.
- Fantastic image quality. My gallery gives you an idea, but the picasaweb processing has altered the quality in a slightly strange way and to be blunt the originals in my iPhoto library look about twice as good. Of color accuracy I have no complaints, and these things look absolutely flawless on my desktop at 1400x900. No visible artifacts whatsoever at that resolution (unless it was a low-light shot), and prints are perfect. Before I bought this camera, I tried several similarly-priced cameras that took significantly muddier pictures with less sharpness, detail, and accuracy, despite having more megapixels.
- I can point it at something, press the shoot button half-way down, and have it actually adjust focus and exposure in real-time only taking into account what's in the crosshairs. A lot of point-and-shoot cameras just sort of do what they want no matter what item in the scene you actually want to shoot, even though the half-way stage is allegedly for focusing and exposure.
- Display of lines in the LCD to allow easier visualizing of the law of thirds. Makes taking more professional-looking photos brainless.
Things I don't really care either way about:
xD cards. I got a good deal on a 1 GB for $20, which is enough for 300 hundred max quality photos, which is about what I can shoot in three days of intense sight-seeing. I have no plans to ever remove it from the camera. Yes, it would have more utility if it took the more "standard" SD cards, but those things are dirt cheap anyway if I ever need one for some reason, and since it's possible to get xD cards cheap as well, it's all good.
Things I would improve:
- Ability to deal with multiple light levels in a single image, in a manner more closely resembling the human eye. Shooting old churches (bright stained glass windows, relatively dark interior) or many-windowed interiors in general presents a huge problem, and I know there are cameras out there that can deal better.
- Quality of low-light photos. Incredibly grainy sometime. Occasionally an evening photo will be brightened to look like day. (Though I suppose the latter can be solved by manual exposure adjustment.)
- 3x zoom. It works in general, but sometimes you want more.
- Like most cameras, I would generally rate the UI as terrible. Once you know your way around it you can access features quite quickly, but it still sucks, and some of the required button presses are not obvious.
- Linked to the previous: While it defaults to 6 MP, it actually has a higher quality compression setting that is not available by default, which doubles the space required for each photo, and also raises the quality of each photo from "barely passable" to "awesome". I thought I'd bought yet another mediocre $200 camera until I discovered this.
- LCD preview is not really indicative of the final photo before you shoot, and in review mode you always have to zoom in to see what you've actually got.
My next goal is to go to a camera shop to try and find one of my prospective models to try out, either the P&S Canons or SLR Nikons. I'm hoping to find maybe an affordable used one locally, otherwise I'll have to go through the hassle of buying online, shipping to someone in the USA, and then deciding how to get it from there. (pay to ship it a second time, find a way to get it delivered in person by sending it to someone who travels here, or pick it up in person at the convention with no time to charge the battery or figure out how it works)