good digital camera?

[DarkManX4lf]

anyone know of a good digital camera (preferable 7mp) that is $350 or lower?

[Brunellus]

Megapixels aren't the only consideration out there. 8MP cameras with small sensors are terrible when it comes to sensor noise. At your price point, I shudder to think about the noise levels in those sensors.

[DarkManX4lf]

hmm i dont know much about cameras. i thought the higher the mp the better, and i was looking into a few different cameras

sony DSC-W7 7.2MP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16830150064

Kodak EasyShare V550 5.0MP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16830170039

Sony DSC-P200 7.2MP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16830150057


those are the three i was looking at, although i am open to more options...but what do you guys think about those 3 (or show me one that is good)

[Brunellus]

Total megapixel counts are only part of the story. In terms of the technical end of things, you also have to consider how noisy the sensor is, how wide the contrast range is, and what the maximum sensitivity of the sensor is.

Have a look around at the reviews on dpreview (http://www.dpreview.com).

[sfabel]

Hi,

did anyone get the Kodak V550 to work with digiKam?

The camera gets identified as
"USB PTP Class Camera"

I get an icon on the desktop "camera", when I click on it, the following URL appears in Konqueror:
"camera://USB PTP Class Camera@[usb:002,002]/"

/var/log/syslog says:


28.12.2005 23:37:59 localhost kernel [4308038.758000] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
28.12.2005 23:38:03 localhost usb.agent[10009] libgphoto2: loaded successfully


When I try to access the camera, it fails to read the SD disc that is inserted into the camera. The SD disc is formatted with FAT32 AFAIK. When I start up digiKam, it lists all the filenames of the pictures, but I can't download them. There are no thumbnails that were generated, also.

Does anyone know?

Thanks,
Stephan

[fuscia]

i have a nikon coolpix5600 that i'm very happy with (got it and a bunch of junk to go with it for $400).

7 mps, with a ****** lens, is useless. get a great lens and as many mps as you can.

[somuchfortheafter]

yes the sony DSC-W7 7.2MP is a great camera and newegg has it cheaper than anywhere else, in fact i got the camera there 3 months ago and have no complaints.

[xmastree]

Something else to be aware of is the optical zoom. Never mind digital zoom, you can do that on the computer later if you must. Optical is what's important.
I used to have an Olympus C-750 with a 10x optical zoom. Great lens, but it was sloooow... Couldn't focus well in low light, and the manual focus was useless. I think the later versions have focus assist.

Given the right conditions though, it could be superb:
http://geocities.com/xmastree_ph/bug/

You really need to decide what type of camera you want. Something pocketable to have with you always, or something larger but invariably with a better lens.

[glacierre]

10x focus is way too much for a normal user, and it will give you problems with ilumination and also gets unusable at high ampliation without a tripod.

I would take a look at canon and nikon cameras, 3x or 4x optical zoom (not more!). Despite consumism and marketing anything above 3Mpixels is perfect to take normal sized pics, even ampliations. Mine's a 2,2 Mpx and beats a pair of 5Mpx i've used.

Wouldn't go for a >5Mpixel since the improve of quality is hard to appreciate, but the pics will take lots of space in your card (you will be needing and paying for a bigger memory card without any significant benefit)

[DevilsAdvocate]

I've got an HP Photosmart R717 that I'm very happy with. Produces fantastic pictures...for the novice photographer.

[M3ta7h3ad]

I use a Fuji S5000 Great little camera, and kicks the **** out of most of the >5mp camera's out there. Only 3mp however, but I still print A4 Sized prints with no problem. A3 with a slight pixelation... but perfectly viewable.