WillCad, Lizardcop or anyone who owns a digital camera. About This Page:

[DISNEYGOOF]

I'm a 35mm point and shoot kinda gal but I'm trying to upgrade to a digital. I want a lot of zoom, 10x optical too much? I want to make 4X6 prints most of the time, 8X10 occasionally 5 Megapixels enough? What size memory card?
I really like Cannon cameras but would be willing to buy something else if it had what I wanted. I saw a Kodak I liked with a dock to print the pictures yourself. I want a camera easy to use(hey, I'm a first timer and if the docks are too hard to figure out, I'll just take my card and have Sam's Club print them. There's too many features. Do you LOVE your camera? Tell me about it! HELP, TIA!

[mestitch]

Here's what I do with mine:
I have a Canon Powershot A70 and love it. It has 3.2 megapixels and I have developed pictures up to 8x10 and they have turned out great. I use the superfine setting on my camera to help assure this. My camera has a 3x optical zoom with 8x digital zoom I think. I usually only need to use the 3x unless I'm at a concert at way in the back. When I'm ready to print my pictures I just take my memory card to somewhere like walmart or CVS, somewhere with the kiosk, and stick the card in. Then its just following the directions on the screen. When I'm done I'll upload the pictures to my computer so I can save them (sort of like keeping your negatives). If I can't get to a kiosk (like when I'm at WDW) I'll just upload my photos onto the computer and delete them off the card. Then when I get home I save them all to a CD and take the CD to the same kiosk. I love my digital camera and plan on upgrading soon. I've had this one for over 3 years and just want to get the newest version of it (mine has seen some rough days, getting dropped on cement a few times). Good luck with what you decide!! I digital photos!

[RobDVC]

I have a Fuji FinePix s3000...
3.2mp, 6x optical zoom.
I love it!
I find myself taking more pictures since I don't have to worry about getting "the perfect" shot anymore... if it doesn't come out good, I just erase it and try again.
It takes a little getting used to, as the shutter speeds with digital cameras are slower than with film cameras, so don't be surprised if your first few pictures are blurry.

[LizardCop]

Well Kelly.....

Any of the major brands will do fine. For the "inexperienced" I suggest the Kodak easy share, Canon Powershot, Nikon Coolpix, and/or the Fuji FinePix.

First, decide what you plan to do with it. If you're just gonna take family outing type pictures, that extra zoom may not be the best thing. A long zoom in a digital usually leads to many blurred pictures, at least until you get used to the camera and the "increased shake possibility" of the longer zoom.

Personally, I'm using an Olympus C-750UZ which is a 4MP camera with a 10x optical zoom. I do a lot of nature photography, birds, sea life, wild critters, etc... I do not use the digital zoom at all, I'd rather perform that in the editing stage with my photo program.

While the camera is capable of 4 Mega Pixels, I set it to take 2288 x 1712 pixel pictures. It is set at SHQ (each pic averages 2MP) and will produce very good 8 x 10, 11 x 14, and higher pictures. Do I print out many that size, nope...

DW (Jan) has a Canon Powershot A85, a 4MP 3x optical zoom camera. She has it set for 1MP pictures (1024 x 768 pixels) and they print out good 8 x 10's.

Shop around and get the opinions and experiences of others on the list. Go to the "big" electronic stores (Circuit City, Best Buy, etc) and play with the various models to find what feels right for you with what you want on it...

As for memory card size, there are many schools of thought. Some recommend buying multiple smaller cards in case something happens to a card, some prefer to use one large card. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. I use a 512 MB card as my primary card, it holds 200 to 225 pictures at the 2MB size. When it gets full I have a 256, 128, 64, 32, and 16MB card which I use, in that order.

Hope this helps some, and if you hav any other questions, let us know...

[graygables]

I have a Nikon Coolpix 3200 and I like it very well. My only complaint about it is that the flash takes longer than this impatient photographer likes to wait to recharge. I really love it. It's a little tiny thing, zooms pretty well, and goes up to 3 mp (I think ) I do NOT print my own pictures, even though I have an HP photo printer unless it's for something that I might use a polaroid for (vacation Bible school, for instance) It is more expensive, the paper/ink have not been extensively tested for aging, and the quality isn't as good. I personally use SnapFish for my prints, upload them online and in a few days, I have my photos.

[mestitch]

BILL I Love your new sig pic! Andy did that one year for his dad.. he took a bunch of pictures of Chewy and put his dad's face in place of Chewy's for his father's day card last year

[RobinKay6573]

I have a Kodak CX 7530. It is a nice camera but I am so spoiled by my SLR that it isn't quite enough for me (as far as zoom ratio). I like the fact that you can change light and exposure settings. It also takes really nice night photos (my camera has image stabilization). My digital actually takes better night photos then my SLR with a tripod.

I recommend you go with at least a 4.0. Unless you enlarge photos to 11x13 a 5.0 is not necessary. I took an incredible photo of the castle with Partners in front of it at night using 4.0 on my camera and it is a very crisp and clear photo. Just beautiful!

If you want a great zoom you are going to pay for it. Fuji makes some nice zoom cameras (any of the FinePics cameras are nice) Make sure you look at OPTICAL zoom not Digital zoom...there is a huge difference in the quality of your photos. I never use my digital zoom...the photos come out grainy. I have a 300 zoom on my SLR so I am very spoiled by that. My Kodak is okay for close up photos but if I want a zoom I bring my SLR (even though it weighs a ton!). Right now I am looking at getting a Canon Eos (they just cam out with a new model that has all the bells and whistles.) These cameras are very expensive ($1000-1500).

My Kodak was $230 and I am very happy with it. I wanted to see if I would like using a digital camera and I do. It saves me SOOOOO much money on film. I was just at Disney last week and I took over 700 photos (150 on my SLR and 550 on my digital). I love to scrapbook so I have plenty of material until my next trip to Disney in December! The great thing about a digital camera is you can take as many photos as you want and they don't have to cost you a penny. When you get home just load them up on your computer and save them to a CD. Actually that is what I spend last night doing...everything is organized and I don't envelopes of photos to go through or boxes of photos to store. The best part...NO FILM TO BUY! Yippie! Okay I used a few rolls but not nearly as many as I could have.

Here is a great site that I used when before I purchased my camera in December:

Steve's Digicams

Oh one more thing it is much cheaper to get your prints made at a place like Sam's Club. My Sam's Club does an awesome job on photos and I won't take my pictures anywhere else. They charge 17 cents a print to have them printed at the store. At home with a photo printer it would cost about 27 cents a print! Also thing about the quality of the prints made in a $150 machine compared to a $100,000 + machine.

I use two 256-memory cards and that isn't enough. I think I am going to get one more for my next trip. I don't recommend using a 512 just because if that card gets lost you will lost all your photos from your trip! I put my name, address and phone number on the case the memory card comes in just incase it gets lost.

Good luck and have fun shopping

[Courtney]

We had a Canon Powershot A40 for awhile (2MP, 3x optical zoon), and it worked just fine for things like vacation pictures and whatnot.

We JUST got (and we're talking this week) a Kodak CX7530 (the one Robin is talking about), because I wanted a higher megapixel camera (this one is a 5mp). It took us about 5 weeks of research to finally agree on that one. I have gotten into digital scrapbooking, and since we will be moving to Hawaii this year, I wanted to be able to take some better quality pictures. The zoom factor wasn't a big deal to me (like the others have said, if you want zoom, you will pay extra for it) for the digital camera (although we have been researching digital video cameras, and that is where I will be making up for my lack of zoom!)

For the new camera, we have just one 256mb card (but have added another card to our baby registry, LOL), but I also tend to bring my laptop with me everywhere I go, and download the pictures right onto my laptop to free up space on the card. (For the Canon, I had a 128 and a 256, and rarely switched them out, because I could get a serious amount of pictures on them, even at 2mp.)

Our camera came with a photo printer, but we don't plan on using it at all. I much prefer taking things to Kinko's to get done there (usually after I have Photoshopped them to my liking and burned them on CD) or to Sam's.

Definitely go to a couple of stores, play around with the cameras, and see what you like. Have fun shopping!