For anyone looking for a digicam, some of my thoughts put together for friends/family over the past year or two. Targeted more at those considering their first or second digicam, in the sub-$1000 range, but I think pretty good general advice overall. Dana Digital Camera Information Sheet Digital camera resources on the web: - Go here: Imaging Resource – http://www.imaging-resource.com. Detailed reviews, links, discussion forums, etc. (Probably most “friendly” site for folks new to digicams.) My favorite site for looking up cameras. - Go here: Digital Photography Review - http://www.dpreview.com/. Very detailed reviews, links, etc. Has some very active forums which are good for getting answers to questions from digicam users. - Go here: Steve’s Digicams – http://www.steves-digicams.com. Reviews, links, discussion forums, etc. - Go here: Digital Camera Resource - http://www.dcresource.com/index.shtml. Nice site also with very detailed reviews. Also has a FAQ that’s worth a look. - Go here: Thomas Distributing - http://www.thomas-distributing.com for batteries and other camera accessories. Best deals on the best stuff, and reliable recommendations. If you are going to use your camera regularly, you’ll want two sets of NIMH rechargeable batteries. - Go here: Tiffen – http://www.tiffen.com for information on camera lenses and filters. - Go here: Ofoto.com – http://www.ofoto.com for an online site to print and share photos, www.ofoto.com consistently gets very good reviews and is the one I use most often. Others also like http://www.shutterfly.com. - Go here: EZPrints.com – http://www.exprints.com for ordering panoramas among other interesting products. - Go here: Wnsoft – http://www.wnsoft.com for the best PC digital image slideshow program I’ve seen – PicturesToExe. Digital camera buying advice: My subjective opinion – you can find other advice on the sites listed above. Digital cameras: 1. More megapixels is not necessarily better! You need a minimum of 2.1 megapixels (1600x1200 resolution) if you want to print out up to 8x10 prints. If 5x7 is the largest you’ll need, 1.3 megapixels is enough. More pixels can give you sharper prints and more flexibility to crop your photos, but most of us don’t need to get the most pixels available (currently 5 megapixels for prosumer units) as you won’t usually want to print out poster size pics, and you usually don't display more than 1024x768 resolution on most computer monitors. (In fact, when I send pics to friends via email, I usually size them down to 800x600 so I’m sure they’ll be able to see them on their monitor). The more pixels in the pictures you shoot, the fewer pictures you can store on your “film” (the smartmedia, compact flash, or memory stick media the camera uses to store the pictures) and the longer it takes the camera to write the image to the storage. A compromise might be to get a 3 (or 4) MP camera but set it to shoot at 2.1 MP for the majority of your shots. When you are doing a special portrait or want to get a larger print, up your resolution to the highest setting. On most digicam review sites you can see images from the cameras - save one to your hard drive and print it out on your printer and you can see what you'll be getting. As of 12/03, I would generally recommend getting at least a 3 MP camera, but if you find a 2 MP camera that you like and is at your price point, go for it! You’ll likely be very happy either way as long as you're not going over 8x10 prints. 2. Make sure the camera has a viewfinder. There are some digital cameras out there that only have an LCD panel on the back of the camera to view the image you are shooting, no eyepiece viewfinder. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaad (in my humble opinion). You don’t get to balance the camera against your face while shooting and your camera’s batteries get sapped quickly w/the LCD on all the time. Finally, in bright sunlight the LCD can be hard to view. Some cameras (mostly long zoom cameras – usually ones w/5x zoom or more like the Fuji S602, Sony F707, F717, Olympus C700/720/730, etc.) use Electronic Viewfinders (abbreviated EVF). EVFs are essentially a smaller version of the LCD screen that is on the back of a digital camera. It offers true “view through the lens” so you really see what you’re going to shoot, and it can also display settings information like the larger LCD can. Those are good things. Downsides – most EVFs don’t work well in low-light situations, and they “freeze” for at least a second or more when the picture is taken (you see the picture you’ve taken in the EVF and can’t see what’s in front of the lens). EVFs can be very disconcerting for some people, and fine for others. Definitely a “must try” feature – don’t buy one of these cameras w/out shooting a few pictures with it first in the store to get a feel for how it functions. 3. Get no less than 3X optical zoom (you will ALWAYS wish you had a bit more zoom to catch a good shot). Ignore “digital zoom” specs – it’s a mostly useless feature that simply cuts down the area of picture you are taking. Olympus has a couple 2 and 3 MP cameras w/8x and 10x optical zoom (C720, C730 as of 12/03), both of which are small bodies/large zoom cameras that can be very useful. They both use the EVF, so try before you buy. (Neither has image stabilization, so long zoom shots can come out blurry unless you’re on a tripod.) Minolta, Canon, Fuji, and Nikon also have cameras with 4x (and more) zoom. 4. Important!! Get a camera that doesn’t have excessive autofocus lag & shutter lag – some digital cameras can have lags (time between pressing the shutter and the camera focusing and shooting the pic) that are quite long!!! That can mean it’s too late to get the picture you wanted. Reviews on Imaging Resource and DPReview include autofocus and shutter lag timings. Less lag is better. Use the camera yourself if at all possible to see how it feels. Why shutter lag? (Borrowed from the Digital Camera Resource FAQ): ”The camera must: · Set the focus, exposure time, white balance, etc. · Charge up the CCD (apparently it can't hold the charge for long, so it does it right before you shoot) · Copy the image out of the CCD into RAM. · Compress the image after it's been taken · Write the image to the flash memory.” There is shutter-lag on regular point-and-shoot film cameras as well, it’s just a bit more noticeable on digicams due to the extra work the camera is doing. I once shot a roll of film of whales leaping out of the water on a $350 Canon film camera – all I got was shots of whales falling back into the water due to the autofocus/shutter lag. 5. Consider getting a camera that will accept “normal” batteries, even if it also comes w/a proprietary rechargeable battery pack. If you are on a trip (or just out and about in town) and your batteries die, you will really want to be able to drop into a liquor store or 7-11 and get a few AA’s to keep shooting. If you decide to get a camera that only accepts only a proprietary rechargeable battery pack, plan on spending extra $$ for a backup battery pack (and a charger if it isn't included w/the camera). The best type of camera (in my humble opinion) is like my Olympus – takes normal AA batteries, and came w/a charger and rechargeable NIMH AA batteries. I got some extra rechargeable NIMH AA’s as backups (from Thomas Distributing) so I can use my rechargeables or regular AA’s in an “emergency.” A “plus” for the proprietary rechargeable battery packs is that they last longer than rechargeable AA’s. Rechargeable battery packs are getting better – the best of them (as on the Canon G3) can shoot over 450 images when fully charged. And, if you have a video camera from the same vendor you may be able to share batteries between the two. 6. Get a camera that the reviews say will take good “point and shoot” pictures – e.g., you don’t have to do any fussing with settings and configuration to get a good shot. This is particularly important if you are going to be using the camera for informal/impromptu family pictures. You won't have time to turn it on and set white balance and shutter speed if you want to catch junior in that cute pose. Take a look at start-up time as well. Some digicams are quite slow about starting up and getting ready for the first pic – some w/zooms can take 8 seconds! My Oly is about 3 ½ seconds. Again, timings are on Imaging Resources and DPReview sites. Newer cameras have “scene modes” and improved ways to save and use custom settings, which can help you to quickly set your camera up for specific types of shots (landscape, portrait, sports, etc.). Those features can be very useful. 7. Storage media (compact flash or smartmedia or memory sticks or secure digital, or XD, etc.) doesn’t really matter – they are all fine options, with one caveat. Smartmedia has stalled at 128 MB cards and won’t be available in larger sizes. At 4 MP that may be (for some) a bit of a constraint, given each picture is 1 MB or more. So if you’re getting a camera at 4 MP or above, you might want to look for one that uses compact flash, SD, XD, or memory sticks (Sony). Plan on buying more storage media than what comes w/the camera. For a 2.1 megapixel camera you can get 130 or more shots on a 64 MB card shooting JPGs (depending on the compression level). Most cameras come w/just a 16 or even 8 MB card. So budget for and get another 64 or 128 MB card w/the camera. If you are out of “film” (no more space on your memory card) when you are out and about you may not be able to find a another memory card at the local liquor store. In one case I’m aware of, special camera features are only available w/media made by the vendor (Olympus requires their own branded smart media cards to use their built in panorama feature). However, you can create panoramas with other programs w/pics from any smartmedia card, so there are all kinds of options. What I do is keep my original 16 MB Olympus smartmedia card free for doing any panorama shots, and use my 64 MB “generic” smartmedia cards for all other pictures. 8. USB connectivity: All newer cameras have USB ports built in, which allow you to connect the camera to the USB port on your computer using a USB cable, and download images directly from the camera to your computer. You also may want to get a USB media card reader (say about $20 or so), connect the USB card reader to your computer and put your media card into the reader to get the pics off the camera and into your computer. Even if your camera does have a USB connection I would recommend that you get a USB card reader anyway, so that you don’t have to keep your camera on (battery depletion) while transferring images. Some cameras now have optional cradles that allow you to "dock" the camera to the cradle for easy uploading. Update: Many printers now come with card slots these days, which allow you to print directly from your memory card, and also download the images to your computer. 9. Think about a remote control – we have found that a very useful option w/our Oly for pics of family and when we’re out hiking or on vacation. Putting the camera on a rock (or a really cool miniature tripod I carry in my belt pouch) and hitting the remote to shoot the pic has let us get some great pictures that would not have been possible w/a timer. Several of the Olympus cameras used to come w/remotes, as does the Canon G3 (and G2?), and there is a Minolta 4x zoom, 3 or 4 MP camera that has an optional remote. Sadly, remotes aren’t common enough. 10. You MUST hold the camera in your hands and try before buying. To check the weight, size, feel, ergonomics, control positions, zoom speed, etc. One personal example – I always use my left eye to view through a camera viewfinder – my right eye is much weaker and I don’t feel comfortable relying on it for taking pics. What I’ve discovered is that this means I must have a camera where the zoom lever is on the front of the camera by the shutter release –cameras that put the zoom lever on the back require you to use your thumb to operate it – that results in my thumb knuckle ending up in my right eye. Something I might not notice unless I held the camera and take a few shots. So even if you think you’re going to buy on the Internet, go to local stores (Best Buy, Ritz, Wolf, Circuit City, Frys) and try out the cameras you are interested in. Ritz and Wolf are the best for actually getting a camera to hold that has a battery and memory card in it. Frys is the worst – lots of cameras, but few have batteries or memory cards so you can try them. 11. If you go digital, you MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST come up with a good backup plan for your computer hard disk. Remember that you’ll be copying images from the media to your hard disk and if you don’t back up your hard disk and it crashes, the pics are gone-gone-gone!! So – either a CD or DVD burner, or a second hard disk in the computer (e.g., store on C, back up to D) or tape backup, or external USB/firewire hard drive, or whatever, but don’t skip this or you’ll be sorry. A friend had his laptop stolen and lost pictures of his newborn son taken moments after birth! No backups, much sadness!! 12. Most important of all!!!! Think hard about how you will really use the camera, particularly look at its size and ergonomics! Unless you have it with you you at the zoo/ballgame/national monument/birth/hike/whatever you aren’t going to take any pictures! For me that translates into smaller is generally better, and I'm happy to trade "excess" megapixels/features for convenience, point-and-shoot ease of use, and a camera that has a good feel in my hands. Don't purchase features, purchase a usable camera you will actually bring along with you wherever you go! If the camera is at home in its cool leather camera bag because it’s too large to take along comfortably, you aren’t going to take too many pictures with it. Have fun – a digital camera will open up new worlds of possibilities to you – you’ll take more pictures (no film/development costs!), print fewer (better!) pictures, and even be able to get into building online slideshows and other cool things.
