which best digital camera does everyone use?

[tshih]

Just curious seeing all the nice clear shots people post in this site just what cameras are being used. I am looking for a 2Mpixel digital camera for Christmas tha's easy to use and easy to download the great results for porsche parts and book reproductions. Also It should be a great value (<$200) and be compact and light weight (RS mentality!).

Suggestions are invited!

[AES]

Canon S230or S200 or Nikon 775

[derek murray]

I use a CanonG1 (3.3MP)... check out the web site below... it provides very thorough reviews of digital cameras.

http://www.dpreview.net/

My office uses a Canon Powershot 330 for field work as it is very robust and takes good pictures.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canondigitalixus330/default.asp

[nick-moss]

I use an Olympus C-920 zoom (1.3 megapixels) which I have had for 2 1/2 yeras. It's very easy to use, gives superb results but is a little bulky.

This image was taken at standard quality, the lowest of 3, with the built-in flash

I have a Nikon 775, Nikon 885 and Cannon PS G2. The 775 is tiny, easy to use and takes great day shots. It's not great for night and low light conditions. The 885 is also very compact, takes great pics and has some really good features but is slow to recycle when using flash. The Cannon is an awesome camera and can do anything you ask of it but is on the pricey side. Look at Steve's Digicams for great and objective reviews.
Cheers
Mark

[Drew_K]

The Canon S230 (3 mp) is great but still costs more than $300. The S200 may be in your price range though.

I use a Canon S30 (3 mp) and highly recommend it, but it's still about $400.

[89911]

I use an Olympus Camedia 4.1 with a 64mb Card. Get some rechargable batteries and your ready to go. Any of you CA guys recognize this location?

[JavaBrewer]

It took me 6 months to decide upon and purchase a digital camera. I purchased a used Kodak DC-4800 off E-bay in April for half of the new price and could not be happier. Its a 3.1 MP camera with lots of options for custom settings and has a very easy to navigate UI which is great for my wife who hates complex electronics. Heck even my 5 year old son has taken a few good pictures with this camera. I added a 128 MB memory card from Fry's Electronics for $35.00 and can take 120 high resolution pictures or something like 300 low res. Good luck.

[k9handler]

Not that I am the "Off Topic Police", but I think this is one of them posts...I know I have made a few myself.

Nick-Moss....that is a good photo, very good quality results from that camera. And the painted wheel wells look good also...how long do you think they will stay that way?

[widebody911]

I like the Sony Mavica, because you don't have to deal with cables and d/l software. I dump my pix to an HP-UX box if the mood suits me. I have an FD-90. It's 2 years old, and doesn't have all the whiz-bang features and tera-pixel resolution of current cameras, but it works great for what I do,which is taking pix of projects I'm working on, and grabbing pix of buses as I drive around.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I have a Canon S10 which I used to recommend but after living with it for 2 years I'm looking for something else. The shutter response is just too damn slow. It feels like an hour elapses between hitting the button and the photo being taken.

[rs911t]

Nikon N80 35mm and a $80 Microtek scanner from CompUSA. I can scan negatives, but scanning prints seems to provide better color.

[island911]

For posts here, just about anything will do. Everything on the market will take pictures with more color depth and/or size, than this site will support.

That said, I would choose one of the Canon products. They make the small form factor you're after, AND, Canon bundles some nice software for tweaking the images to fit on this board.

EDIT: Canon also uses CF-cards (CF=CompactFlash=good) for memory (digital film)
If you think back to the VHS vs Beta wars; CF is like VHS . . it seems to emerging as the standard. Sony, again, has their propriatary versions, as do others.

The deal on the very small (if not the smallest) Canon Elph is HERE @ ~$225

[FlaCarrera]

As a professional photographer, I currently use the Fuji S1 Pro @ 6.1million pixels and a 1 Gig Smart Card. Interchange SLR Nikon lenes; 17-35, 35-70, 70-300mm Max res is 3200 X 2300 pixels, each image 18 Megs.
There is now an Fuji S2 Pro with body street priced at about $2300. Clients have made blow ups (on cloth) as large as 5 ft X 10 ft. Film is soon to be history IMO.

For casual personal use, I would urge cranking the budget up to at least $400 or you will be disappointed primarily because of crapola lens quality in cheapie cameras. Good shopping site is bandhphoto.com.
Cheers
Ted in So Fla
86 Carrera

[cegerer]

I'm also using the Fuji S1 because I can use my existing lenses from my 35mm Nikon setup. I've also got an old beatup Sony Mavica with floppy disk storage for quick shots - it's cheap, easy and works great for low resolution stuff! I used to have a Sony DSC-770 SLR (similar to today's Olympus E10/20) and that was a nice camera as well - although only 1.5 Mpixel. The 'Rennsport' photos on my website were all taken with the Sony. -- Curt

[Halm]

I'll second the Kodac 4800. We bought ours 2 years ago and really love it. Here is a picture of our car on a "shakedown cruise" up Pacific Coast Highway shortly after buying it. It was set on average resolution.

[jeff91C2T]

I just bought the Fujifilm 3650 (2.1 mega pixel). It was $199 at Ritz camera and came with a "gift set". A pair of binoculars and a 35 mm camera. It also came with a $10 rebate. So $189 total....

So far I'm very pleased with the camera. But then again....I don't know much about them. All the reviews I found indicated it was a decent entry level camera. I'm amazed at the quality and depth of some of the pictures. It's also pretty tough too. I ran over it with my Pathfinder and the damn thing still works...could'nt believe it!

It comes with the new xD memory card. Very small, uses less power, writes and downloads from the card quickly, and will last pretty much forever (bunch of sales propaganda). On the downside, there's not much support out there for this type of media...yet.

If I had to do it over again, I'd probably would have bought a 3 meg camera that can record sound with the video. And I also wouldn't have run over the camera with my car.

[HarryD]

tshih,

I use an Olympus D-100. It is a 1.3 mega piel and is more than adequate for snapshots and web postings. I paid $99 for the unit and added a 265k flashcard that hold ~500 pictures.

Bear in mind that the pictures on a computer monitor are about 90 dpi. Any detail above hat is wasted (and vastly increases the download time) if all you are going to do is post them. Prints are another story. A minimum requirement for a decent print is 300 dpi for casual snapshots and 600+ for really good phots.

If I make 300 dpi prints from my Olympus, they are about 3" x 5".

[carnut169]

For casual personal use, I would urge cranking the budget up to at least $400 or you will be disappointed primarily because of crapola lens quality in cheapie cameras.

I agree w/ Ted on this one. I use an Olympus 2500, but when it goes will get a Nikon 995. A great digital camera that deals with light very very well.

[jhelgesen]

I went all out and got a Nikon coolpix5000. 5 mega pixel, all the adjustments you could want, 3 program memories, writes to a compact flash card or dumps to a usb port. With XP, don't even need any software. Even has a hotshoe for using a real flash.

Picked it up off the web from a NY camera store for 699.