Digital Camera
 

Well one of the perks to working with your dad, is you find ways to conning him to buy things. The hardest part is to make him think he needs it first tho ;)

We'll we really do need one for our shop, because a lot of the time customers want to see a progress report, and taking pictures and sending it them is the best way.

So we're in the looks for a digital camera. I've been looking for a while, but I'm still soaking all the info in. Here's some things for you to help me out:

1) Budget: $300-$450
2) Warrenty?
3) Optical Zoom. Digital zoom can eat my ying yang. I'm all about the optical baby.
4) Manual Focus??
5) Onboard memory?? or What type of media is best? Cheap? I don't want to buy a camera for $400, then find out I need to spend another $200 for a 16meg chip or something stupid like that ;)
6) upgradable?
7) will be used to take night shots, along with extreme close up (for detail).
8) Video/sound recording is not important.

Thats about all I can think of, any info is appreciated! Thank Guru's!

My advice? Don't buy any digital electronic device that you can't fix yourself without warranty - stereos, cameras, etc. I've used my extended warranty on almost everything I've ever bought it on.

If you are in the market for a digital camera, you should check out http://www.dpreview.com/ since it has reviews on almost every digital camera on the market.

Most cameras I've seen have very small optical zooms. I think the largest optical I've seen on a non-professional digital camera was on an Olympus and it had 10 or 12x optical zoom. Nice camera, but a little higher than your price range (I think its $700 or so).

There are a couple of options for storage. There are Compact Flash cards, Sony Memory Sticks, SD cards, XD cards and floppy. The difference between them is the speed of data access and storage. XD cards store and retrieve data faster than compact flash in my experience, but usually cost a little more too.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Check out the above site and you should be able to find the perfect camera for your needs. Good luck!

Thanks for the info! I've been reading reviews on that site, awesome stuff there.

Teevee: Yup, I always buy extended warrenty as well, it always seems to come in handy a few days after the normal warrenty expires.

I suggest you look at cameracanada.com, it has cheap prices plus you save the PST because it is from Ontario.

;) Thank you!

That site is awesome, and the prices rock! I'll still buy locally (just incase with any problems) however, price matching is always good ;)

Well I've really broken it down to a few choices.

The Fuji S5000, or the Minolta Z1 (or the Z2 coming out in a few weeks).

Both have 10x optical which is the biggest plus (I hate that digital zoom crap). The price of both of these are pretty good. They are shooting just over about $500. Most likely I'll be buying them from Visions, because I've got a $80 credit to use there which brings it into my budget. Their lifetime price protection is also the best, because I know the camera price will drop in a few months time for sure.

Anyone got experiences with any of these?

Lifetime price protection? How much fine print is there to that? :neutral:

I have the fuji S602 which the S5000 shares some simularities. very good quality and reliability.

Steve

I believe the only thing it doesn't apply to is satellite and office funiture, I haven't honestly checked it recently. Also its only covered til the model is discontinued. However I should say I've used it SEVERAL times and never had a problem. As long as you have your receipt and proof you'll have no problem. I brought my DVD receipt in, when I first bought a DVD player (about 4-5 years ago) and got $200 back. Very cool.

So I decided (while typing this) to check up the price protection on their website. It seems they changed it now. Now the price protection is valid for 30 days (cash back) and from 31-60 days, its instore credit. Still better than most, however not as good as before.

But the other good thing with Visions I find is their extended warrenty. Usually you pay for it, don't use it, and they keep the money. With visions, you get the money back to use towards another purchase (over $400). Seems like a lot, but I used it back on boxing day towards new speakers, and I just got another warrenty back as well, which I'm going to use towards my camera. Definetly worth it.