Advice on digital cameras?

[Craig]

I've received a number of gift cards to best buy for my birthday...I've been really wanting a digital camera as ours died over a year ago...I want to make sure I can take good pictures...and even have some capability of doing semi-artistic photography as I'm interested in it, but won't put up the moolah for a hard core $1500.00 camera.

I basically want to keep this at $200 or less. I want to make sure battery life is good as our junky nikon could only take about 20 pictures before the batteries died. I want to do some super zooming...do black and white photos...and I think the rest would just be standard stuff any camera should have.

My only experience with owning a digital camera was a Nikon coolpix we bought about 4 years ago...what a horrendous camera. Awful battery life, shut off randomly after batteries were just charged, no longer works and we probably took less than 500 photos with it because it was so bad...I'm planning on avoiding Nikon because of that.

Here is what I'm looking at, but I'm not as adept at this as many of you are:

Kodak Easyshare C763

Kodak Easy Share Z885

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ7S

Any others I ought to consider? These seem to have the most options at the best price and the names are pretty trustworthy...what do you think?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

None of the above. For compact cameras right now, in that price range, there's only a few choices: the Fuji F30fd, F31fd, or the Fuji F40fd.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...=fuji&lp=5&type=product&cp=1&id=1171057791788

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...=fuji&lp=9&type=product&cp=1&id=1149206148477

Both the F30fd and the F31fd are the only camera in its class to get a highly recommended by dpreview.com. The F40fd is new and I'm not exactly sure about it because they upped the pixel count which, ironically, may be bad for the reasons that the F30fd has been so solid.

About the F30fd:

The FinePix F30 offers a tantalizing glimpse of how very different compact cameras would be if all manufacturers put as much effort into developing sensor and processing technology as they do into designing and marketing pretty cameras with features no one ever asked for. Our tests show that the F30's sensor gives you at least a two-stop advantage over the best that conventional CCD technology can offer, and in many cases a three-stop advantage, with ISO 800 output that can rival some cameras at ISO 200.

Given that most 'average' casual snapshooters are likely to use their camera at (dimly lit) social occasions more than at any other time, this is a real, significant advantage; allowing flash-free photography without blur. More serious photographers will welcome a camera that brings the low light capabilities of a compact a step or two closer to those of most digital SLRs. It's also, surprisingly, significantly better than the F10, something I must admit I doubted would be true when I started this test.

Small cameras suffer from smaller CCD's and trying to do much with optics. Most of your shots, as noted, will be in relatively dimly lit situations. When you can avoid flash, you'll get better quality shots that avoid the "snapshot" look that I pointed out with Adam.

If I was to buy a compact digital camera right now it would be the Ff31fd. I almost did, in fact, do that but I've got a camera and couldn't justify it at this point. The F30fd is carried around by this guy that does these reviews as a pocket camera and that says a lot.

 

[Craig]

I just did a bunch of searching for reviews...it looks like the ones I was interested were a decent deal...but it looks like the F31FD is in a whole different class for a little bit more...as I'm waiting for my last gift card to come via mail...I'll keep looking, but this will be what I'm leaning toward.

Thanks again!

 

[Craig]

Just to let you know, Rich...

I got my Fuji camera in the mail yesterday...they were sold out on the F30fd so I ended up getting the F40fd.

Comparing this camera to the one my dad has (and he has a decent one)...the F40fd is much nicer! Compared to the expensive sony digital camera he gave to my brother...this one is even better. The resolution on the LCD viewer is amazing. It powers up quickly, takes excellent photos (I tried it in very, very dim lighting...simply amazing).

Thanks again for the advice. I didn't know anything about ISO and what not...I would have just bought a camera based on pixels and zoom.

Compared to the F31fd, I didn't get as "great" of a camera...but this is even better than I was hoping for, so I'm pretty happy. I think the main thing I missed out on was the battery life (this one will take 300 pics before needing a charge, the F31fd would take over 500 pics, I think) and maybe a negligible difference in picture quality (likely not enough for someone like me to notice).

Thanks again!

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Don't be so sure that you downgraded Craig from the 31fd to the 40fd. It's just a guess at this point. The 40fd has not been reviewed yet and I imagine it will fare very well for its class.

I'm glad you like it.