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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:37 pm
I could have sworn there was a shopping advise thread but I couldnt find it. Mods please move this if you know where I am talking about. So here's my question. I want to buy my dad a digital camera for Christmas but I have no idea what to buy. I want good quality with lots of pixels or whatever but I dont want to pay $1000. I figured they had come down in price by now. When dh and I bought our first one it was major bucks but they were pretty new. I got a flyer in my colored sections from a local camera shop and they still seem to be going for major bucks. I was thinking more in the range of $400 to $500. Anyone have any specific suggestions. Or have a reasonably priced camera that they are pleased with?
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Crossfire
Member
08-07-2001
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:39 pm
Digital Camera purchasing help! HTH's. 
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:39 pm
thank cross... what is HTH?
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Crossfire
Member
08-07-2001
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:42 pm
Oh, sorry. So much jargon these days. HTH's = Hope that helps.
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:44 pm
LOL I work for a huge company that uses initials for everything... problem is most of it is German. Thanks again for the direct
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Crossfire
Member
08-07-2001
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 6:45 pm
You're welcome.
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Shadoe
Member
11-04-2004
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:12 pm
I just purchased a Sony DSC-P93A digital camera today. I was told by my daughter to get that one. She has the P73 model I think and is very happy with it. It's in the price range of $400 - $500 with your carry bag and memory stick.
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:19 pm
thanks shadoe i will put that on my list. dont you feel sorry for the poor clerk who has to wait on me?
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Shadoe
Member
11-04-2004
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:21 pm
Not as sorry as I feel for the poor soul who had to serve me, Gidget!
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Eeyoreslament
Member
07-20-2003
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:26 pm
No, I have the Sony P-93. And I love it. I like the CNET REVIEWS site for help on what to purchase. Try there before you go out to the store, and they will tell you good and bad cameras for your specific needs.
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:43 pm
great site eeyore. i am going to print it out at work tomo. thanks
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Eeyoreslament
Member
07-20-2003
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:49 pm
oooh!! one more thing gidget!!! if ANYTHING, don't compromise megapixels. I would give up a feature or two, to keep the highest number of megapixels. If EVER you go on holidays or something and get that perfect shot, and want to blow it up to poster size to hang on a wall, you would SEE the difference between a 3.2 MP vs a 5 MP. There are lots of 5MP cams out there, that will give you the detail. Sure, if you decide it's too big a file size later on down the road, there are plenty of programs that will downsize the file. But you can't get a program to give more detail that you originally have. So moral of the story is get the MOST megapixels possible. And always take pictures at the highest detail level.
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 7:58 pm
ok. i dont think he will make any posters but his favorite medium is slide film and you get great pictures with slides so you're right that is what i meant by wanting good quality. but are they making cards big enough to handle those kind of pictures. you dont want to be having to change cards every three pictures. and i know he wont take a computer with him to d/l.
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Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 9:05 pm
5 megapixels is good but to be honest, when you are looking at 8 megapixel "prosumer" digitals, they're squeezing a lot of pixels onto a relatively small sensor size (creates other problems) and I'm not convinced that the lenses on these cameras are high enough quality to resolve that additional level of detail anyway. As far as card sizes go, they are getting bigger and less expensive all the time. You can buy cards now that will hold 4 gigs of data (though that's pretty extreme and expensive). But 512 meg cards are getting pretty reasonable now (especially compact flash cards).
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Eeyoreslament
Member
07-20-2003
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 9:21 pm
I think there are charts out there that show how many pictures each size of card holds for each resolution. Personally, I always shoot at 5MP, and I have a 128meg card. I think it holds something like 50 pictures? All I know is I am a picture hound, and I have never filled it up. The 256 card is now pretty affordable, and I can't ever picture running out of space on it, unless I went away for a few months. The great thing about digital cameras is that they let you look at the picture you took RIGHT AFTER taking it. So...if your subject's eyes were closed, or someone looked away, you can delete it and take the picture over again. That's a great tool to use, to only use up card space with pictures you like and want. But yeah, most 128 and 256 cards are MORE than enough, even at high resolution. Jimmer, ITA about TOO many megapixels. I guess it all depends on HOW professional your dad would want a camera to be. One thing I'd advise you to do Gidget, is to look at the type of camera your dad is using right now. I have a friend of mine who won't switch over to digital yet, because he uses a high end SLR camera, and wants to wait for the digital technology to catch up a bit before he invests in a good digital-SLR. If you take your USB cable with you, you can upload your pictures at an internet cafe, to a site that allows you to store pictures. That is a great thing if you are worried about running out of space while on holidays. But that's putting the cart before the horse I think. First, check out what camera your dad uses now. Then find and buy a camera you think is good. Buy a 128 or 256 memory card, and then worry about space. As well, if your dad wants more memory, he can always buy himself another memory card. You don't necessarily have to worry about that.
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Eeyoreslament
Member
07-20-2003
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 9:28 pm
Gidget - here is a link to the Future Shop website "Learn More" area. Future Shop is like the Canadian version of Best Buy or Circuit City. Anyways, on the second page of this article, there is a chart with what each memory card size is capable of holding. Digital Camera Memory Card Buying Guide I really like this portion of the site, because it also tells you about products, and what to look for etc. On the Future shop web store, each item you are looking at has customer reviews. I always read REAL PEOPLE'S reviews, to see what they have to say about the item I'm interested in. Usually my final decision is based on a combo of what the professional reviewers say, what the real people say, and things I really think I want in a product. Good luck to you!!
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Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 10:23 pm
Lots of good advice here Gidget! Eeyore, Glad you agree about the megapixel battle getting a little out of hand. One other thing that I always mention to people is that the person taking all of these wonderful pictures should have some way of backing them up in case the hard drive on their computer fails. The most common way now is probably to CDs or for more capacity to DVDs. I can't stress enough how important this is. When you shoot digital, the files are your negatives. You can always replace programs but you can't replace valuable memories. It's not a question of if a hard drive will fail - it's a question of when it will fail. It's a nuisance to back-up but if you lose those pictures it hurts more.
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Gidget
Member
07-28-2002
| Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - 2:28 pm
thank you so much for all the help eeyore and jimmer. i think i am going to go with a sony 5mp and then build on it from there. great advise about the cd jimmer. i always back important files up on cd. but my dad does not have a burner. and his birthday is too far away, lol. he can email the good stuff to me and i will do it for him. i have several web based email accounts and i often store things like pictures in there as a back up.
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Seamonkey
Member
09-07-2000
| Saturday, December 18, 2004 - 11:28 pm
I'm sure he will love it!! I'm quite happy with my Fuji and love the way it feels in my hands.. it also lets you look through a viewfinder like a regular camera or switch to looking at the "screen". And not to be contrarion, but it really DOES depend on what you want to do, but I've read reviews lately that claim that you must look at more than megapixels.. you can have a jillion of those but if the rest of the camera doesn't support that many, it is a waste of money. (However, I suspect that most people will go for more megapixels just cuz.. and I include myself)
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Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 9:58 am
You’re right! There is a lot more to it than just megapixels. Let’s say you have a 5 megapixel camera with a really good lens and good auto focusing and good controls – you’ll get excellent results. Let’s say you have a two zillion megapixel camera with a so so lens that isn’t very sharp and doesn’t auto focus all that well plus you don't like the way the camera feels all that much (maybe it's too complicated or too heavy or whatever). What you will get is an incredibly large and detailed but average looking image. The sensor is dependent on what the photographer, the lens and the camera allows it to see. The above is a bit of an exaggeration in the sense that the higher megapixel cameras have other good features included as well. But expecting a huge difference based solely on megapixels is a fallacy. Also the reality is that unless you are printing very large sizes (larger than 8 x 10) it’s very hard to see a difference due to megapixels anyway. What makes a difference is the skill of the photographer, the lighting, the lens, the ease of use, the camera controls, etc. So why do camera makers push more and more megapixels? It’s a simple easy value for consumers to compare and it makes them spend more for cameras. It’s much more complicated for the marketing departments to promote the other factors.
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Eeyoreslament
Member
07-20-2003
| Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 10:35 am
The benefit I have found from the extra megapixels is that I like to CROP my pictures. For example, I go to my boyfriend's rugby games, and take pics of him playing. However, without a telephoto lens, I can't take a full pic of just him in action. So, I take the pic at the largest zoom I can, then when I come home, I can crop the pic to show only him, and it is still big enough and detailed enough to get a larger print out of it. However that is just MY personal preference. It's good to know what your are going to DO with the camera and its features, for sure.
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Jimmer
Member
08-30-2000
| Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 10:56 am
Eeyoreslament, That is an excellent point that the higher megapixel number does potentially allow for more cropping. Of course, in your situation, having a longer telephoto lens would be the ultimate solution, but you have found a good workaround. And you seem to be starting with a good image. If the image is bad in the first place, all the megapixels in the world won't help! As well, what many people don't really think about is that the standard enlargement sizes (e.g. 5 x 7 and 8 x 10) are all different ratios and by necessity must be cropped, so you are going to lose some of the image when printing in those dimensions. The extra megapixels may help a bit in those situations, but once you get above 5 megapixels it really doesn't have as much of an impact. You get diminishing returns. In other words, going from 2 megapixels to 5 megapixels makes a significant difference in quality. Going from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels won’t mean as much. Love your screen name by the way! 
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