View Full Version : Best Camera for my holiday wish list?
I have not had a digital camera in many years, and have no idea what to ask for. I want the one that will be the most useful when hiking, so:
Durable
Lightweight
Turns on fast to catch a shot of the bear's butt as he runs away
Takes good pictures (doesn't have to be superamazing, but better than my phone)
Able to store lots of memory (on a memory chip or whatever)
Long battery life
Also, cheap enough that someone might buy one for me for Christmas, so no more than $200. So what works best for you? I feel totally lost when I go to the store and everything has all these features and numbers. I don't want to be a fancy photographer (if I had to think to about f-stops, I'd dig out a film camera). I just want something that, you know, works good.
coach lou
11-09-2011, 09:23
Look through the Olympus Line, I'm on my second. It is a Stylus Tough 8000, all my posted photos were taken with it. It is waterPROOF to 30ft, and shockproof to 6ft. Fits in a pocket. It is spendy, but they do have different models with similar features.
Megapixel
11-09-2011, 09:32
a great site that may be of some help to you is http://dpreview.com
go to reviews, then all. then sort by rating. another cool tool is:
go to cameras, camera feature search. then you can search specifically by your criteria. you can even set your price limit i believe. for 200 bucks I feel you will get a much better, albeit used camera via ebay.
Good luck!
Durable
Lightweight
Turns on fast to catch a shot of the bear's butt as he runs away
Takes good pictures (doesn't have to be superamazing, but better than my phone)
Able to store lots of memory (on a memory chip or whatever)
Long battery life
Also, cheap enough that someone might buy one for me for ChristmasThe Kodak easyshare sport C123 meets all the above requirements.
Caveats/discussion:
Water-tightness can apparently be an issue (though rarely); it either is or isn't, out of the box. Some people test in a bathtub right away and exchange if required, to get a good one.
Though lightweight by reasonable standards, at 6.4 oz. it's about an ounce heavier than many in its class (and there are some even lighter).
Good pictures but not superamazing, or amazing, or even excellent; just good.
Stores lots of pictures, but REQUIRES a standard memory card for that.
Haven't tested battery life, but uses standard AA batteries unlike many in its class that use proprietaries.
I think I paid just a little over $50.
Additional: The lens (actually the transparent shield for the lens) is not covered/protected when turned off. Thus dust and scratches are possible. I am looking for a lens cap with some kind of attachment cord I can rig up. For me this is an issue, most will just occasionally wipe the lens, maybe with a Q-tip.
get the canon s 90 or the newer canon s95. fits in your pocket, great pictures, rel. tough but not water proof and don't drop it from several feet up.
My wife has a nikon coolpix 3100. It's about $100 now but I think the 3200 replaced it. About the size and weight of a pack of cards. I bought a little neoprene case for it. With an 8gb card it will take around 700 pics.Easy menus, large rear display. Pretty readable in sunlight. Battery life is great. Battery is tiny too. About the size of two sd cards stacked on each other. Carrying a spare would be a non issue. "takes good pictures".... Makes photographers cringe. I bought a new version of Word so I could write better novels.See the comparison?But it does a good job in an amateur's hands. My wife took some awesome shots on the blue ridge parkway and down at looking glass falls. It's scene modes help out some if you want to get away from pure auto.Im thinking about getting one myself. I love my Dslr but I don't want to lug it around. There are a few that use AAs. Hard to decide between that an rechargeable... At least AAs can be easily found. Plugs for recharging, not so much.
pyroman53
11-09-2011, 19:15
I'm glad you asked the question. I've been looking and I'm thinking about: Olympus Tough TG-310 camera. I guess its water resistant, uses battery charger. About $140. There are so many choices and even more opinions!!
The Cleaner
11-09-2011, 19:41
I've got a Canon Powershot A590IS.It's been updated but I'd say you can still find a Powershot with similar features.I like it because it has a viewfinder which IMO is better than taking pics by looking at a LCD screen. The zoom feature works well also.You should be able to get one at a little more than 100$.Uses AA batteries with lithium lasting longer than alkalines....
Look through the Olympus Line, I'm on my second. It is a Stylus Tough 8000, all my posted photos were taken with it. It is waterPROOF to 30ft, and shockproof to 6ft. Fits in a pocket. It is spendy, but they do have different models with similar features.
Ditto... I have used the Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 for couple years, tough litte trail camera (no pun). Check out review by Jason Klass. Also check Pentax Optio WG-1.
The Kodak easyshare sport C123 meets all the above requirements.
Caveats/discussion:
Water-tightness can apparently be an issue (though rarely); it either is or isn't, out of the box. Some people test in a bathtub right away and exchange if required, to get a good one.
Though lightweight by reasonable standards, at 6.4 oz. it's about an ounce heavier than many in its class (and there are some even lighter).
Good pictures but not superamazing, or amazing, or even excellent; just good.
Stores lots of pictures, but REQUIRES a standard memory card for that.
Haven't tested battery life, but uses standard AA batteries unlike many in its class that use proprietaries.
I think I paid just a little over $50.
Additional: The lens (actually the transparent shield for the lens) is not covered/protected when turned off. Thus dust and scratches are possible. I am looking for a lens cap with some kind of attachment cord I can rig up. For me this is an issue, most will just occasionally wipe the lens, maybe with a Q-tip.
I used Kodak easyshare sport 123 for couple of years. Pricewise it worked great but just pricewise.It might not fit the criteria since I remember It took time to turn it on and take a shot. By this time the bear's butt might look like a dot in the picures. She has a budget around 200 $. Easyshare is the best in under hundred $ camera class but not to be able to perform like the best of 200$ class.
I used Kodak easyshare sport 123 for couple of years ... I remember It took time to turn it on and take a shot. By this time the bear's butt might look like a dot in the picures.Nope. You're thinking of some other camera.
I have the a620... Well built little camera, but it's a bit thick and heavy for hiking, and uses 4 AA batteries. It runs through them pretty good too. It's around 5 years old, and it's low light response always sucked (only goes up to iso 400 I think), but for daytime pics and long night exposures it does fine.
Nope. You're thinking of some other camera.
You are right. Sport 123 was not what I used.( Mine was Easyshare C1505).
I found this review online about its speed:
The Sport is surprisingly fast for such an inexpensive camera: it can turn on and capture a shot in 1.95 seconds, and the time between shots averaged 1.90 seconds. Both of those numbers are accelerated by the fact that there's no autofocus, so the only thing the Sport has to do is open and close the shutter. Of course, half the photos I took during the speed test were out of focus and blurry thanks to the lack of autofocus and image stabilization. It's much slower at things like scrolling through menus—there was a definite beat between me pressing the button and the cursor moving—especially when playing back images, which frequently took several seconds to load when I pressed the Play button
Sarcasm the elf
11-09-2011, 22:34
Look through the Olympus Line, I'm on my second. It is a Stylus Tough 8000, all my posted photos were taken with it. It is waterPROOF to 30ft, and shockproof to 6ft. Fits in a pocket. It is spendy, but they do have different models with similar features.
The Olympus Stylus Tough line gets my vote as well. I picked up a 6000 on closeout sale a year or two ago for +/-$200. It fits in the hip pocket of my pack, takes decent pictures and has survived day after day of rain and abuse over several hundred miles of section hiking. I also like that the built in lens cover is a one piece metal setup, I had initially bought a similar camera made by Fuji but returned it after the first time I used it for several reasons one of which was that the lens cover was a permanent plastic faceplate that looked like it would scratch the first time it was dropped and ruin every picture taken afterwards.
I should also mention that in my opinion most point and shoot cameras in this price range that claim to be waterproof should only be considered water resistant. I looked at several "waterproof" sport cameras and they all relied on small gaskets around the battery cover and moving parts that can easily get clogged with dirt in debris. They're fine for use on the trail, but I wouldn't recommend submersing a camera in water unless it was specifically made to take underwater photos.
Wise Old Owl
11-09-2011, 22:47
Well I am not thinking about other cameras - Kodak's proprietary compression and software refuses to put a gif onto the JPG. or Jpeg. So window software -you just see little Koduck symbols. When Olympus and other brands were far easier to deal with on the laptop. Its not the camera - its the included software and drivers... And that's the same opinion about JVC movie cameras.
Wise Old Owl
11-09-2011, 22:50
The Olympus Stylus Tough line gets my vote as well. I picked up a 6000 on closeout sale a year or two ago for +/-$200. It fits in the hip pocket of my pack, takes decent pictures and has survived day after day of rain and abuse over several hundred miles of section hiking. I also like that the built in lens cover is a one piece metal setup, I had initially bought a similar camera made by Fuji but returned it after the first time I used it for several reasons one of which was that the lens cover was a permanent plastic faceplate that looked like it would scratch the first time it was dropped and ruin every picture taken afterwards.
Well you nailed it - sand or dirt jambs it.
Well I am not thinking about other cameras - Kodak's proprietary compression and software refuses to put a gif onto the JPG. or Jpeg. So window software -you just see little Koduck symbols. When Olympus and other brands were far easier to deal with on the laptop. Its not the camera - its the included software and drivers... And that's the same opinion about JVC movie cameras.Don't let the kodak easy share software anywhere Near your computer. Don't even bring the disk in your house! It's worse than AOL used to be at taking over. Just get a memory card reader, and pull the card out of the camera.A lot of the internal memory video cameras are a pain too. We have a canon at work that uses "AVCHD" format (or something similar) and you cant just grab the video. It has to be converted. This was two years ago, video cameras may have changed. I don't use them, I just use the video on my still cameras, that's good enough for me.
I used that 'Nikon Coolpix' last year on the trail for 1200 miles - compact, tough, about $100 and still using it now - took some very nice pictures - good value camera...