Best Digital Camera....

R

Rip76

1,000+ Posts
for the price. My wife's b-day is coming up Sunday, and she wants a digital camera. What are the best one's for the price, and where would be the best place to get it...?

Thanks in advance.
 
What are you looking for in a digital camera? Point & shoot? Image quality? Interface with SLR lenses? Good menus? Weight? Size? Price? Ability to override manual settings?
 
too broad of a spectrum
Does she want something to just point and shoot and email to friends/family? or
does she want something she can print out (good quality) say 5 x7 and bigger?
Does she need/want manual control or just let the camera do everything?

I'm partial to the Canon brand of digi cams and they have them priced appropriately base on camera uses/features. I would say expect to pay somewhere in the 1 to $250 range for a beginner's digicam (2-3 megapixels)

Mid range with some manual control $250 to $350ish (3 to 4 megapixels)

Prosumer $400 and up (5 megapixels and up)
 
I got my Fuji FinePix s500 from ibuydigital.com for $299. Excellent quality ics and easy to use interface as well as an excellent zoom.
 
Basically your basic point and shoot...
Relatively small...

Basically this... "Mid range with some manual control $250 to $350ish (3 to 4 megapixels)"

but, I would like to get one that has pretty good picture quality...
 
I've had good luck with Kodak and Nikon P&S cameras. I currently use a Nikon 5700 and it's pretty great, but it's more of a prosumer model. I would guess that for your purposes, you could get a winner from Kodak, Nikon, or Canon. I think I might go toThe Link and read some of their forums and see what sample pics people are posting, and general thoughts on their cameras. Then you might hit a camera store like Ritz and play with them to see what interfaces are easy and such - and then finally find a cheap place to buy it...

I think it's pretty hard to go wrong with a P&S unless its too hard to use, or is too simplified to allow for much creativity.
 
I just got a Canon power shot SD300 Elph in January and I LOVE it. It was $300 at Best Buy (I know....). 4 MP and tons of options. Plus, it's really small (probably the size of a credit card) so it fits nice in pockets.
 
nikon has a $200 rebate on the 5400. i just got it, it's 5 megapixels and has complete manual control. you can find them after rebate for $200-250. if you want the most camera for the money, you'd be hard pressed to find a better deal going now i think.
 
The 5400 for that price is a great deal. I'd be worried about just using it as a p&s camera though. The menus aren't all that straighforward at first, and there's a lot of getting used to it, if it's anything like the 5700 (and from what I can remember, they're basically the same - sans the telephoto lens).
 
i don't really see a problem with the 5400 being too tough. all you do is put it in auto mode and push a button. i got one for my dad who is an idiot with electronics, and he's pretty well got it figured out.
 
Oh yeah, you can just leave it in 'P' and fire away, but the 5400 and 5700 aren't set up straight out of the box to deliver the best quality prints - for example, the brightness and contrast are slightly muted (intentional) so they can be manipulated in PS or NikonView or whatever. OTOH, you can boost that in the settings on the camera and not have to worry about that again. The stuff that's not straightforward might be (for typical users) how to set a delay, turn on red-eye, or how to take a movie. But if you can learn it, it can give some badass results.
 
The SD10 or 20 is where it's at, no optical zoom, but I found that it's not really a necessity at 4 or 5MP anyway. the SD300 mentioned above is very nice too, as is the Nikon 5700 as long as size is not an issue, because that thing isn't going in too many purses

Where to buy: I think you'll be surprised at how cheap cameras can be at Dell.com. Best Buy is alright as well
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top