Buying a digital camera, your advise?

Save up the extra pennies and get the Digital Rebel. Best camera barnone. Other than that. I would go with the Canon you are looking at.

 

I know its very expensive. But its well worth it. But if you are just doing point and shoot pictures. I wouldn't even spend that much. If you are going to do something halfway artistic I would save for a better one. A digital SLR will give you the best quality digital pictures in every aspect. There is a large margin between point and shoot and something that is going to give you high quality pictures.

 

Matt, here's my input... I really like both camera but for the feature listed... the Sony edge out the Canon by a small margin.
Here's a back to back review for you... give these link a try:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/com...byside&cameras=canon_s500,sony_dscw1&show=all

Here's a break down and buyers review to the Canon S500

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_s500.asp?dontcount=1

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=canon_s500

Here's a break down and buyers review to the Sony DSC-W1

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Sony/sony_dscw1.asp

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=sony_dscw1

Matt, if you want a Point and Shoot Digital Camera for the $400 price range, you won't go wrong with either of these two camera. Assuming that I know you at the moment of this purchase, you just want the most bang for your $400 and these two camera are the crop of that range.

When you're ready to get serious with Digital Photographying. A Digital SLR would be the way to go but, we'll save that for another thread.

DSLR can get very expensive due to lens, filters and flash but manageable if you know what type of environment your shots will be in most of the time.

Happy shooting!

 

Matt,

I can't stress enough that sony digicams are not that great. The quality is only so-so, and Sony memory sticks are teh suck (stupid proprietary crap).

The SD500 is nice, also check out the SD300 for even more potability.. and larger LCD :-D
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...ductCategoryId=pcmcat44100050011&type=product

Right at your price range, 4 megapixels, 3x Optical Zoom, and many many features. (only lacks manual focus and manual arpeture settings.. (but you can change ISO settings which changes arpeture.. just no mix and match)

I own the Canon S410 digital Elph (same size as S500). Very similar to that SD300, except the SD is a little smaller, and uses SD memory. It's a standard that is adopted by many camera makers now, and you can just pick up a USB SD card reader.

Finally, I have a co-worker that has a Sony 5 megapixel "super camera". He was talking it up like Vic talks up the STi. I brought my camera to the table and we took various pics of the same thing. My Canon 4 megapixel camera had WAY better quality.. not only color reproduction, but also clarity. The Sony had quite a bit of image noise where the Canon came out pretty clean. The Sony colors appeared washed in comparison. Let's just say that he was a little depressed he spent more money, had higher resolution, but still the Canon came out superior!

Good luck!
-Jordan

P.S. If you want to spend less, the Canon SD200 has basically the same features and size, but a 3 megapixel CCD instead of the 4 megapixel. Personally I'd go for the 4, but sometimes people get rational when thinking of budgets.

 

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by bikerboy

Thanks guys, Jordon for sure! I have had cannon cameras for years and love them. I really wanted to go with them but the memory card thing looked like I should go with the Sony.

Jordon, do you know about the memory card in the Cannon? It looked like it was a PCMIA card? I dont know much about this stuff.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
PCMIA is only on computeres.... you would use a PCMIA adaptor to put the memory cards into most laptops that don't have a specific reader built in.

I am NOT a camera buff, my step dad is so I get his left overs, but I know 1 thing... sometimes 2, depends on how early in the morning it is....

Canon for their smaler cameras use SD (secure digital) (elf)
and for their larger cameras Compact Flash (CF)(A75, D-30, D-60 SLR).

The one linked at best buy used SD.
SD is slightly more expensive than CF, but they are still reasonabley priced, and cheaper than xD, or Sony Memory sticks.
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?DPNo=660824&adcampaign=email,EWB06760

Cheaper to get that camera at E-cost
http://www.ecost.com/ecost/ecsplash/shop/detail.asp?dpno=517548

My Personal Pref, Canon to sony. I don't like the memory sticks, and a few other things about the sony's.

As for Fuji.... nope I will not do it. They use xD memory cards, which are 3-4 times more expensive than SD, or CF.... I also don't like their cmos as much... and every other camera I have is cannon so I guess I am a little biased for cannon .

I currently use cannon... A75, A60, D-1, D-10, D-30, D-60. If you decide to get into an SLR just ask and I will bring a few by to check out. Most of the pictures I took on my web server were the D-30, D-10, or the A 75.

I plan on getting an ELF next for my pocket camera, the A75 is just a little to big to fit in my pocket.

 

The S500 uses compact flash memory.

The SD300 uses SD memory. (Canon appears to be moving toward using SD in all their cameras?)

Getting a USB card reader allows your card reader to be portable, and used on other PCs. I recommend getting a multi-reader, so no matter what kind of cards you end up having, you can get files off of it (i.e. buddy comes over with his camera and you want pics off of it)

Something like this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...57921&productCategoryId=cat04010&type=product

This model does not need any drivers installed for windows 2000 or windows XP machines. You plug it in and you have several removable drives appear (one for each type of memory port).

Oh, and if you're not in a hurry to get the card reader.. that same model is $25 with shipping from newegg.com (usually they have the stuff to you in 3-4 business days from order)

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-171-086&depa=0

-Jordan