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need opinion re first digital camera



 
 
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  #11  
Old March 26th 05, 03:49 AM
Frank ess
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MartinS wrote:
"Cathy" wrote:
"MartinS" wrote...
"Cathy" wrote:


snip

I've also wondered why HP cameras don't seem to get much of a
mention.

Sorry I can't give you a great deal of help, as I haven't made a
whole lot of use of it yet - mostly indoor baby photos. I try to
use bright room light and avoid the flash; the flash is quite close
to the lens.


Did your baby have red eye? I guess with a baby, you don't want
to use the flash much. My kids never liked the flash going off.
Actually, I don't like it myself. If you have enough light you don't
need the flash, but I seem to always need it for indoors. I thought
I read that its better not to have the flash too close to the lens.


I've had red eye on a couple of closeups (my grandson, BTW).

I didn't buy the dock - I find the USB cable is fine, and I use a
separate charger for NiMH batteries.


Thats probably the best way. You don't really need the dock. I use
Win 98SE and have a separate partition for Win 2000 Pro. What OS do
you use?


Recently upgraded to WinXP Pro - much more stable than 98.

It's compact and takes 2xAAs, but
it uses them up fairly quickly. I haven't tried the video feature,
as I also have a digital video camera. I bought the 407 because it
seemed a good bargain for a 4Mp with 3x optical zoom. I previously
bought an HP 318 3 or 4 years ago - C$300 for 2Mp and only 2x
digital zoom.


The HP 307 and M407 are selling in Toronto at around $200.00 Can. so
very cheap prices as long as they take good photos of course. If I
was getting any of those, I would get the M407 as it is very similar
to the M307, only its 4 MP's. So I am swayed back to considering it
again. How do the pictures turn out? are they clear and sharp, even
the indoor ones?


Plenty good enough for 4x6, as long as the focus is good to start
with. I haven't done any direct comparison with other cameras.

The Wal-Mart Canada digital photo service is pretty good; $0.25 for
4x6, $0.99 for 5x7 (even cheaper at Sam's Club). You can upload
your photos to the website, or take them into the store on your
memory card or a CD-R/RW. BTW, I'm about 100km from Toronto.


I have a Walmart near me where I sometimes make 4X6 prints from my
35 mm. There is no Sams club near me.



Slightly off-topic: my wife went to a party and handed out a half-dozen
one-time-use cameras. Collected and submitted to Costco for
develop/print, they each yielded 27 or 28 images. We requested two each
5x7 prints. Cost per envelope was $6.99 = ~ $ 0.13 per 5x7 print. My
intuitive estimate is that about half were "good" party pictures, and
that very few were not worth looking at.

Not all photography is necessarily high-tech.


--
Frank ess


  #12  
Old March 26th 05, 04:28 AM
Cathy
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"Frank ess" wrote in message
...
MartinS wrote:
"Cathy" wrote:
"MartinS" wrote...
"Cathy" wrote:

snip

I've also wondered why HP cameras don't seem to get much of a
mention.

Sorry I can't give you a great deal of help, as I haven't made a
whole lot of use of it yet - mostly indoor baby photos. I try to
use bright room light and avoid the flash; the flash is quite

close
to the lens.

Did your baby have red eye? I guess with a baby, you don't want
to use the flash much. My kids never liked the flash going off.
Actually, I don't like it myself. If you have enough light you

don't
need the flash, but I seem to always need it for indoors. I thought
I read that its better not to have the flash too close to the lens.


I've had red eye on a couple of closeups (my grandson, BTW).

I didn't buy the dock - I find the USB cable is fine, and I use a
separate charger for NiMH batteries.

Thats probably the best way. You don't really need the dock. I use
Win 98SE and have a separate partition for Win 2000 Pro. What OS do
you use?


Recently upgraded to WinXP Pro - much more stable than 98.

It's compact and takes 2xAAs, but
it uses them up fairly quickly. I haven't tried the video feature,
as I also have a digital video camera. I bought the 407 because it
seemed a good bargain for a 4Mp with 3x optical zoom. I previously
bought an HP 318 3 or 4 years ago - C$300 for 2Mp and only 2x
digital zoom.

The HP 307 and M407 are selling in Toronto at around $200.00 Can.

so
very cheap prices as long as they take good photos of course. If I
was getting any of those, I would get the M407 as it is very

similar
to the M307, only its 4 MP's. So I am swayed back to considering it
again. How do the pictures turn out? are they clear and sharp, even
the indoor ones?


Plenty good enough for 4x6, as long as the focus is good to start
with. I haven't done any direct comparison with other cameras.

The Wal-Mart Canada digital photo service is pretty good; $0.25

for
4x6, $0.99 for 5x7 (even cheaper at Sam's Club). You can upload
your photos to the website, or take them into the store on your
memory card or a CD-R/RW. BTW, I'm about 100km from Toronto.

I have a Walmart near me where I sometimes make 4X6 prints from my
35 mm. There is no Sams club near me.



Slightly off-topic: my wife went to a party and handed out a

half-dozen
one-time-use cameras. Collected and submitted to Costco for
develop/print, they each yielded 27 or 28 images. We requested two

each
5x7 prints. Cost per envelope was $6.99 = ~ $ 0.13 per 5x7 print. My
intuitive estimate is that about half were "good" party pictures, and
that very few were not worth looking at.

Not all photography is necessarily high-tech.


Frank, that is quite true. A while back, a friend showed me some pics of
their new house, mostly taken outside, and the pics were beautiful. Some
of the nicest photos I've ever seen. I was amazed at the quality and
great colors. I thought she must have taken them with some expensive
camera and asked her what kind of camera she had. I thought she was
kidding when she said it was a Fuji one time use camera.

Cathy

  #13  
Old March 26th 05, 05:10 AM
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On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:30:06 -0500, "Cathy" wrote:

Hi all,
I've been looking for the last few months for a digital camera in stores
and read tons and tons of reviews, and now am confused as to what I
should get.


Check out the Pentax Optio line. (I have no connection with Pentax
other than being a user since 1970.)



Gary J Sibio

http://home.earthlink.net/~garysibio/

There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary numbers and those who don't.
  #14  
Old March 26th 05, 05:26 AM
Cathy
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wrote in message
...
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:30:06 -0500, "Cathy" wrote:

Hi all,
I've been looking for the last few months for a digital camera in

stores
and read tons and tons of reviews, and now am confused as to what I
should get.


Check out the Pentax Optio line. (I have no connection with Pentax
other than being a user since 1970.)


Thanks. I will check it out.

Cathy

  #15  
Old April 11th 05, 10:24 PM
Anne Geeraets
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For some more information about the CanonA75 look also in the reactions at
"How many pixels"



"Cathy" schreef in bericht
...
"The PhAnToM" wrote in message
oups.com...

Cathy wrote:
Hi all,
I've been looking for the last few months for a digital camera in

stores
and read tons and tons of reviews, and now am confused as to what I
should get.


A guy at work just bought an Olympus C-755 for $250 at Fry's (or maybe
he got it through Outpost.com). 4Mp, 10x optical zoom, the flash works
fine, and has the capability of taking an aftermarket flash unit,
red-eye reduction mode, many preset modes (outdoor, portrait, low
light, action, etc.), "manual" mode for adjusting shutter speed,
aperture, ISO... delay timer (useful for including one's self in the
picture if no one else is around), movie mode, noise reduction, and
more. It is my first digital cam and I like it a lot. a bit bulky
because of the 10x optical zoom lens, and it take 4 batteries, which
you said you didn't like. However, you can get a set of NiMH batteries
with charger for like $10 at Wal-Mart (here in California), so I

always
keep a spare set handy. That price is a steal, IMO. If you want
something that fits into your pocket, however, this one is not the way
to go. And it only takes xD flash, which is expensive.


I'm in Toronto, Canada and have never seen Olympus C-755 advertised
here. We don't get all the models you get in the US and many digital
cameras here, cost more than in the US, especially when they are newly
out. You have more competition so brings the prices down. You also have
more variety. But cameras can quite often be found here on sale at good
prices. You just have to keep looking. I might see the Olympus model you
mention, especially if its new. I didn't want 4 batteries if possible,
but I don't rule it out completely. The Canon A75 sells here for a good
price so I am considering it. Thanks.

Cathy





  #16  
Old April 24th 05, 09:35 AM
Starweb
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The Panasonic fx7 is ok for you.

Hallo,
Stellario (from Italy).


  #17  
Old April 24th 05, 10:15 PM
BucketButt
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Cathy wrote:
Hi all,
I've been looking for the last few months for a digital camera in stores
and read tons and tons of reviews, and now am confused as to what I
should get.
I want a camera with at least a 1.8" LCD and a clear viewfinder that is
not blurry (to me at least).
I mainly want a camera for family indoor shots and scenery when I go
somewhere .
But many will be indoors, so I want to try to get one with not much red
eye, though I notice many seem to have that problem. I look at many
reviews and photo samples on Steves site and dresource.com. (I like
those two sites the best, but also have been to depreview.com.) I know
you can take red eye out with software, but I would prefer if possible
to try to get a camera that doesn't have a lot of red eye. I like
pictures that turn out clear and sharp.

A 3.2 MP is ok for me, as I don't want to pay much more than $250.00 US
or under. I am in Canada, but just to give you an idea of price.

Here's what I was considering:

Canon A75 or A85, but needing 4 batteries kind of puts me off. I would
prefer 2 batteries. Canon have recently brought out two new cameras, the
A510- 3 MP and the A520 - 4 MP which have two batteries and they take SD
memory cards. I was thinking of buying one of them, but the reviews on
all the sites I looked at, said they had a lot of red eye, and were not
as good as A75 and A85.


The difference in weight and bulk won't be much, but it may be enough to
matter to you. And depending on other differences between the two
cameras, there may not even be a significant difference at all. I'd be
much more concerned with the number of shots you can take -- will an A85
that uses four AAs and a CF card let you take more shots before
reloading than an A520 that uses only two AAs and sn SD card? (I don't
know the answer, but I'm sure someone here does. Or you can check one
of the several good Websites and magazines that do their own reviews.)

Kodak CX 7530, is a good price right now, and I like the look of Kodak
DX 7440, which is about $100.00 more.


Is the appearance of the DX 7440 (and any difference in features, of
course) worth the extra money to you? I know the way a camera looks
shouldn't matter all that much as long as it takes pictures that look
good, but it does to me too -- I want a camera that *looks* like serious
equipment, even if it isn't any more "serious" than one that looks like
a toy.

Or Olympus D 580, also a good price camera. The samples on dresource.com
were good of the Olympus D580, and very little redeye on indoor photo on
the site, but said the flash was weak unless taking small groups, but
that might not be a big problem for me.


Redeye is an annoyance, but it's usually easy to fix with software
before you begin printing -- except for cats and other creatures with
slit-shaped irises. If you don't mind an extra step, just about any
camera should work for you. (I photograph my cat using a Canon A20 in
"red-eye reduction" flash mode -- works well for me.)

Any and all comments or personal experiences with any of these cameras
would be much appreciated.


I'm a longtime fan of the Canon A-series, having begun with an A20 that
I still use more often than I care to admit. It's only 2 megapixels;
but the controls are right where my fingers expect them to be, it takes
lots of sharp photographs on a set of rechargeable AAs, and it doesn't
feel like an anchor when I'm carrying it. An ultracompact might might
be easier to carry, but I've never found one that was easier to actually
use; most are too small for my medium-size hands. Most advanced
compacts and DSLRs are capable of taking better pictures, but they're
also bigger and heavier -- and I don't need the extra quality for most
casual snapshots, which is why I still have the A20 and don't still have
the others.

Whatever you get, understand that no one camera is ideal and just look
for one that come acceptably close to satisfying your criteria. Then go
out and enjoy using it, because all the cameras you mentioned are pretty
good picture-takers and good values for the money IMHO.

--
Walter Luffman Medina, TN USA
Amateur curmudgeon, equal opportunity annoyer
  #18  
Old April 27th 05, 08:48 AM
james
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In article , Cathy wrote:

Here's what I was considering:

Canon A75 or A85, but needing 4 batteries kind of puts me off. I would
prefer 2 batteries.


The A85 is a great camera; the only limitations are the 3X zoom and the
4MP CCD. But for the price (clearance sale item as "last year's model",
it's really very good.

Don't worry about 4 AA's. Get a MAHA charger and 2300mAH NiMh's. Canon
battery life is pretty good.

I bought mine as a complement to my DSLR. Here are my first images with
it:

http://www.conservatory.com/photos/A85/20050426/

So it's not the best camera in the world (nor even the best camera in my
bag!) but for the price paid, and for the amount of control it offers,
it's just right for me.

I greatly prefer CF over SD cards. And more batteries means more
battery life. And a little heavier camera is a little easier to hold
steady.
  #19  
Old August 5th 05, 02:18 AM
Cordovero
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Cathy,

I, too, tend to take mostly indoor portraits. I have played around with my
own and friends' Sony's, Kodak's, and Olympus's.

The Kodaks (the 7440, for example) gave ridiculous amounts of redeye. The
Sony's I've used almost never give me any redeye when I have the redeye
reduction feature on. It's great not to have to fix this stuff in software.
The Olympus cameras were awful in terms of focus and color.

I would highly recommend a Sony in your price range. Any Sony with a
Carl-Zeiss lens and 4 mp.

Just my two cents,
C

"Cathy" wrote in message
...
Hi all,
I've been looking for the last few months for a digital camera in stores
and read tons and tons of reviews, and now am confused as to what I
should get.
I want a camera with at least a 1.8" LCD and a clear viewfinder that is
not blurry (to me at least).
I mainly want a camera for family indoor shots and scenery when I go
somewhere .
But many will be indoors, so I want to try to get one with not much red
eye, though I notice many seem to have that problem. I look at many
reviews and photo samples on Steves site and dresource.com. (I like
those two sites the best, but also have been to depreview.com.) I know
you can take red eye out with software, but I would prefer if possible
to try to get a camera that doesn't have a lot of red eye. I like
pictures that turn out clear and sharp.

A 3.2 MP is ok for me, as I don't want to pay much more than $250.00 US
or under. I am in Canada, but just to give you an idea of price.

Here's what I was considering:

Canon A75 or A85, but needing 4 batteries kind of puts me off. I would
prefer 2 batteries. Canon have recently brought out two new cameras, the
A510- 3 MP and the A520 - 4 MP which have two batteries and they take SD
memory cards. I was thinking of buying one of them, but the reviews on
all the sites I looked at, said they had a lot of red eye, and were not
as good as A75 and A85.

Kodak CX 7530, is a good price right now, and I like the look of Kodak
DX 7440, which is about $100.00 more.
Or Olympus D 580, also a good price camera. The samples on dresource.com
were good of the Olympus D580, and very little redeye on indoor photo on
the site, but said the flash was weak unless taking small groups, but
that might not be a big problem for me.

Any and all comments or personal experiences with any of these cameras
would be much appreciated.

Cathy




 




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