What features should you look for in a cheap digital camera - when does price impact quality? Some general tips.
First I what to say Thanks for tips I enjoyed reading your article. But I have a couple of questions. Talking to friends they says a digital camera goes through a set of battries in one days time. Is this standard for most digitals? Also how expensive and time consuming is it going be to have those pictures put on CD? Is there a chance that any of these things would be erased when passing through airport securities?
Reply to this Great some questions 😊
I'll do my best.
pbp: One set of batteries per day. Is this standard for most digitals?
Obviously depends on the amount of photos you take, and how much flash you use. In my experience yep, one set of batteries a day on the default settings for a camera is about right - but some tips for getting longer life from those batteries. (Might involve reading the manual!)
1) Turn off flash except in situations where it really does need it - eg. at night taking close up shots.
2) Turn off the preview in the LCD screen - take the photos through the viewer, just like on an old fashioned point and shoot.
3) Good quality batteries - the cameras that have internal lithium ion batteries that can be recharged via an adapter have a great battery life - with the tips above - 500 photos or more could be made. The standard AA rechargable batteries have much less life - about 100 photos - BUT - you can get replacements everywhere.
pbp: Also how expensive and time consuming is it going be to have those pictures put on CD?
Depends on the country - I found on my last trip that in the last few years the best place to get CD's burnt has become the photo shops - most of the shops in Bulgaria and Serbia offered burning services for the equivilent of $3 per CD. Anyone else?
pbp: Is there a chance that any of these things would be erased when passing through airport securities?
I've heard of many people losing their photos by putting there undeveloped films in their main luggage - the x-ray machines on the hold luggage are very powerful - and a few reports of the hand luggage x-ray machines also cause a degradation in quality. But - a CD is plastic and not sensitive to x-rays in the same way - I've taken through hundreds of disks and had no problems so far. I would be really suprised if anyone did.
Reply to this pbp,
Since you don't already have a camera, you are in a good situation. Research research research. One of the best sites for DigiCam info would be
dpreview.com you can then cross reference that with other info you'll find elsewhere by doing some simple google searches.
Your main concerns should be picture quality and battery life if you're on the road. You'll want those memories to come out sharp and clear, yet you need the juice to get them. DPReview does a lot of picture comparisions, which helped with my decision. I almost purchased a Pentax Optio, which is a tiny camera which fits nicely in your pocket... it was my 1st choice over a Canon S410. But after reviewing picture quality, the overall review, and user reviews, I went with the Canon for a bit more money.
It comes with a battery pack, which I also purchased a second one which I carry fully charged at all times. Takes about two hours to charge, and the camera does NOT have to connect to a dock to charge (something else to look at!). Turning off the flash and digital viewfinder I can snap LOTS of pictures! Never counted, but I've had a battery last me a few days, although I don't take hundreds of pics a day.
My camera also uses Compact Flash, it's cheap, easy to find, and like most memory cards are supported at all photoshops that do digital pics. I use a 512mb card, which will fit plenty of pics even at the highest quality settings. Also does 3 minute video clips. As with most digitals, night shots are a little quirky unless you play with the manual settings and have a really steady hand. Experiment beforehand.
Good luck!! I'll try and answer any questions you have as best I can if Ali doesn't get to it first. 😊
Reply to this Thank you so much for the help. I have been checking digital camera info but had not run across dpreview yet. Here is some of the information I have found maybe you all could just verify if this is correct. First a camera should have at least 3 megapixels resolution if I want good prints and this will allow a 8X10 print to turn out good also. I actually looked at a camera that had 8 MB of memory but the sales clerk said that would hold about 6 pictures if that is right then 128 MB would hold about 16 pictures, is that correct? I also read Lithium ion battries last longer than any others but have seen some that came with their own battery packs also.
Reply to this Yep - a 3 megapixel is the minimum you should look at.
A photo quality print is about 300dpi (dots per inch), so to get a good print at 10"x8" you need 3000 x 2400 pixels . A 3 mp camera takes images at about 2100 x 1500 pixels - and most people can't tell the difference between 300dpi and 200dpi so it becomes possible to print at 10"x8" - and still have very high quality images.
The pro's use cameras that are 11mp+ - unfortunately this doesn't mean that 36" prints are possible - as the pixels are 4000x2700 so prints at 20" x 16" are the biggest you'lll maintain 200dpi on. A 12mp camera is said to be the equivilent of a 35mm film camera - so you're heading down a lower quality route by going digital!
Now on to memory...
Digital cameras generally compress the images before putting them onto a memory card. A jpeg is a compressed image - the more compressed the image is the smaller the file but the worse the quality - have you ever seen the little outlines around the edges of objects on photos on the web? Well thats when the image has been compressed too much - and if you printed them you'd see this on the photo as well. This is why it is always best to take photos on the highest quality setting your camera has to offer.
The high quality settings on a 3mp camera will take photos that are around 1mb each - so hence 6 photos on a 6mb card - and 128 photos on a 128mb card (not 16 😉 ) - how many photos will you take a day?
I personally take about 50-100 a day when travelling - and in some places 200 (Tikal) - going to the photo shops is going to take 20mins to an hour for your photo to get burnt to a CD - o you don't want to be doing this every other day. Another consideration is that a CD holds 700mb - why waste all that space. If you can afford it get a memory card of 512mb - you'll only have to worry about burning once a week, and you'll maximise the amount of use of each CD - I've seen internet offers at $70 (US) - see
Froogle - so it isn't so expensive.
The biggest advantage of digital is the low running costs - so make the most of it, don't miss out on shots because you're worrying about space.
Reply to this May I suggest pricewatch rather than froogle google. While I love google, pricewatch actually has feedback ratings for the companies you will be dealing with. Of course, this is probably only useful if you're in the US, or want to order from the US. There are a lot of shady companies out there, I like to know where I'm ordering from.
http://www.pricewatch.com/m/mn.aspx?i=226&f=1
Companies I have great experience with are Newegg and Directron.
Reply to this Thanks for the great information. You have really cleared up the memory thing for me. I can't even guess on how many photos per day but I wanted to have enough space that I wouldn't have to worry about how many I took. Do you think that a store brand memory card would be as good as say a Kodak memory card? I noticed several dollars difference in the price. Thanks again.
Reply to this Do you think that a store brand memory card would be as good as say a Kodak memory card? I noticed several dollars difference in the price. Thanks again.
Just keep in mind, what is good with film isn't always what's good with digital. If that were the case, then the Pentax camera I was looking at should have been great, instead the picture quality was rather poor, but the cam was feature rich.
Remember, there are many kinds of memory, depending on the camera. So get your camera first, then worry about the memory. It doesn't really matter how much memory comes with the camera or how much it has built into it (although it is nice if it has some built in memory, not a requirement) since you'll be buying your own.
If you end up needing compact flash, Sandisk started it all a number of years ago. Heck, I still have a 1mb sandisk compact flash that came with my Panosonic Camcorder. They're good, but my "personal" preference is Transcend. They're a little more expensive but a very reputable memory company, and at least as far as their compact flash goes, it has some of the highest speed benchmarks around. Weather it makes a difference or not, I don't know... I haven't sat down and tested it, I just know what I read, and what I have. 😊
As far as Kodak... I don't like their digital cameras. heheh They feel flimsy, weak, used to have docking stations which I don't care for, and didn't really like the pictures that came out. Canon and Olympus have been mine and my friends personal favorites.
Reply to this Funnily enough all my point and shoot digital cameras have been kodak - and I've been more than happy with the photos. In fact most of the photos in the
Travel Wallpaper section of this site were taken with kodaks.
I think that many of the quality brands produce cameras that are really good. Avoid cheap unheard of brands - the lens are often low quality plastic, even though the megapixels may be quite high.
Just to add to the digital camera memory information - my choice is to look for a compact flash supporting camera - as compactflash is the cheapest and most widely available.
I'd be happy going with a less well known brand of compact flash, there are no moving parts - nothing to go wrong - if it works from day one it will work for good. Currently I have: kodak, sandisk, lexar and a hitachi microdrive - all have been fine, some for over 3 years, I've taken thousands of photos - and only lost images when the batteries have run out mid shoot - so maybe 5 in total.
Reply to this Now you've lost me again talking about compact flash. I haven't even looked at that I thought if the camera came with flash I wouldn't need it. So what exactly is that and will all cameras allow you to use that? Sorry if I sound stupid when it comes to this stuff. I really thought I was begining to understand a little better. I do appreciate you guys helping me though. The camera I've read most about was the Canon 3.2 MP Powershot A310 it seemed simple enough that even I could use it and other people had given it good reviews but was still affordable for starting off.
Reply to this CompactFlash is just a type of memory available for digital cameras. Just looked at the product specs for the Canon A310 - it uses CompactFlash Type I - to confuse things further there are two types of CompactFlash.
The A310 looks like a pretty good snapshot camera - not having used it I can't recommend it - walmart are selling it for $140 - With 32mb of memory - so cheap.
The only thing I'd worry about is that there dosent appear to be an optical zoom. Digital zoom is pointless - it zooms in by throwing away the edges of the photo and giving you a smaller image - Canon: why bother even mentioning it?
Reply to this The canon doesn't have the optical zoom that was the one down side in the user reviews I read.
Reply to this Really? No optical zoom... huh, didn't know they did that. heheh Never go with a camera without Optical zoom... digital is crap, and almost worthless. I've only used it a few times on any of my cameras.
As far as the Kodaks, I looked at them about 4 years ago when I got my first digital, it felt cheap in my hand, required the dock (if I remember right), and from what I saw on review pages didn't take the best pictures. Of course, opinions are like a$$holes... everyone has one. 😊 If you get a chance, goto a shop, try out the cameras, get a feel for them, then pick out a few you like and research further.
I believe Ali is totally correct with Compact Flash memory though. Most widely available, cheapest, etc etc... again, I only gave brand names I stick to, and reviews that I read. Just due to past experience with all kinds of electronics, I like to stick with tried, true and tested companies that deliver the most bang for a little more buck.
Reply to this Well I made the leap this morning and ordered a Pentax Opitia 30. It has opitcal zoom and the other features plus the price was good. Only difference was it used SD memory instead of flash but I had read good things it also. Again I want to thank you all for the help it really did make me look a little deeper into the individual cameras. Thanks
Reply to this That's a nice choice for a point and shoot 3 megapixel cam. You should be pretty happy with it for a while. Make sure you pick yourself up some nice juicy high capacity NiMH cells or something, that way you'll get plenty of life out of the batteries and not have to worry about either taking enough with you, or buying any one the road.
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