[Vermont Lt]

We need more information. What are you going to use it for? How are you going to print? How computer literate are you (for printing, etc.) Without knowing your needs, its hard to make a recommendation.

A great place to look is http://www.dpreview.com

There are buying guides and forums there.

Hope this helps.

[Tired_of_the_Lies]

You need to say how experienced you are or hope to be, and what you plan to do with the camera (family outings or professional photography, for example). I can not give you advice on a camera, but I know that those questions are important to those who can.

[Willie Green]

Pentax K-1000.

[Always Right]

I assume you have been to the major on line review sites like www.dpreview.com I have always liked the Nikon Coolpix line of camereas, although I have not followed too closely in the last 6 months or so. Olympus has been highly reguarded for their digitial cameras, while Minolta is newer to the digitial camera world. It really depends on the use too. I need a wider angle lens so the Nikon 5400 was the best choice. Zoom may be a more important need. Speed, color quality, low light level proformance (digital cameras are bad in this area), micro-level capability, ease of use, etc., could also be important for your application. So there really isn't one answer for all users. It depends on your preferences and your use. But do your homework.

[rs79bm]

I own the Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom. This is a great camera. The optical zoom is simply astonishing. Factor that in with the digital zoom, and you have a 40-50x zoom camera. I won't steer you in one direction or the other, but if you will be taking a lot of outdoor pictures, this is the camera to go with.

[tgslTakoma]

I have an Olympus C700 Ultra Zoom and am happy with it. You can take a look at some photos I have taken with it, here and here.

[csvset]

One feature to consider is your printing needs. PictBridge is a standard that allows printing from your camera through your printer, bypassing the need to go through a computer as long as the camara and printer support PictBridge. Not sure if that's something you need or not.

Here's some info regarding PictBridge

PictBridge

[billorites]

I love my Canon G3.

[MarkL]

I could also use some advice... I've been playing with a 2MP camera that I bought used, a Sony Mavica CD1000, great camera, but it's useless for action shots, due to writing to the CD, and it's tough to blow up photos past 5x7, or do much cropping and enlarging. I will be keeping that camera, however, but I'd like something that has a long zoom (optical) and at least 4MP resolution.

I used to be heavily involved in photography, and my main camera at the time was a Nikon FM-2. I also carried a Sekonic incident light meter with me, so who cared if the batteries died! lol.

I would like a camera with at least a 7x optical zoom, 4MP or greater resolution, and the ability to take manual control of not only exposure settings, but focus as well. I've gotten too many photos of zoo animals where the animal was near the cage bars, and the bars were in focus, but the animal wasn't.

Thanks,

Mark

[Polybius]

I'm looking for a good digital camera. I've narrowed it down to either an Olympus c-750 Ultra Zoom, or a used or reconditioned Minolta DiMAGE 7hi

Go to dpreview.com for great reviews and feedback on just about any digital camera.

This June, I got the Minolta DiMAGE 7i (not "hi", just the "i"). I've been very pleased with it.

The reviewers recommended the "i" over the "hi" as they felt that the extra cost did not justify the few extra bells and whistles.

The reason for my choice was that the Minolta DiMAGE 7i offered a 28mm equivalent at the wide angle end of the zoom capabilities that the other cameras did not. The other camers only offered 35 mm equivalents. So, the Minolta DiMAGE 7i, with the 28mm to 200mm equivalent range with the zoom essentially gives you an equivalent range of 28mm through 400mm. Although the zoom only "pre-crops" for you, the detail you get is very good at the higher detail settings.

The "look and feel" is just like my old SLR without having to lug about extra lenses or worry about film. A 500MB card from eBay for $99 and you have capacity for an entire vacation.

One draw-back of the Minolta DiMAGE 7i is that it is a power hog. It will drain a set of four AA batteries faster than an alcoholic can drain a beer can. However, buying a Digipower DPS 9000 solves that problem. (Shop around. I got mine for $39.99.)Two of those power packs, charged up before hiting the trail, lasted for almost one week and 500 images in the Canadian backcountry last summer.

[mercy]

What most people don't realize about digital cameras is how small the sensor is. The point and shoot 'prosumer' cameras (means they are half way between pro and consumer cameras supposedly) have a sensor about the size of your little fingernail. If you don't want to make larger prints that is ok. However even at 8 x 10 the detail begins to suffer.

Of course you don't even want to think about the full frame (24mm x 36mm) sensor cameras as they are thousands of dollars.

Canon makes two cameras having sensors that are about half the size of full frame (22.7mm x15.1mm). The 10D at about $1400 body only and the 300D at $1000 with a lens. These are digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. They are bigger, heavier and you have to mess with interchangeable lenses but they can give you much better images.

It isn't just about number of pixels. Though the Canon cameras have about 6 million pixels and so do some P&S cameras, the larger sensor in the Canon (and Nikon, Fuji-S2 and Olympus) means the pixels are larger and more effecient and have a much lower signal to noise ration (better pictures).

The digital Rebel 300 at $1000 will give you better images than ANY P&S for about the same money but at the cost of convenience.

Be aware that digital images require post processing with a computer. The P&S cameras do this in-camera and the settings can be adjusted on some of them. The DSLRs can be set to do the post processing in-camera but most photography enthusiasts prefer to do it themselves with Photoshop or one of the other like programs. Photoshop puts out a limited version that does most all that a photog needs called 'Elements' and it comes with the Canon cameras. This post processing is not dificult but is daunting to the newcomer. Find a friend who has it wired and get them to show you the basics. Or ... use dpreview.com or luminous-landscape.com.

[Always Right]

Steve's DigiCam is also a very good site.

[razorback-bert]

I have three Nikons and am happy.

[grannie9]

I love my Canon Powershot G2. I had an Olympus, and found their directions very difficult to understand. The Canon is great.

Also just bought the Canon i860 Printer and absolutely love it.. Quiet, and what a savings on ink with that thing. I am all for Canon now.. Easy directions for learning.. and a good all-round product..

I love the pics it takes. ;)

[RightOnline]

I've been looking into digital still cameras for The Lovely Wife as well. She has a simply-killer Sony digital video camera that she just loves, so sort of leaned towards Sony products............but they seemed to lack the features of some of the better Canons, Nikons, etc.

However............check this out, and despite what the article on dpreview says, it's available now for less than $500 retail (just do a Froogle search): The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T1

This WILL be her first digital still camera, I think. Will even share storage media with her digital video camera as an added plus.

[Khurkris]

I have recently bought the Canon S50. It is a great camera, 5 mega pixels. Easy to use right out of the box. Has an inbelievable amout of features.

I reccomend you give it consideration.

[EggsAckley]

Welcome to Free Republic.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Hang on until tomorrow. I have two techies who are in bed now so I can't ask, but Mel just got one very sweet camera for Christmas. My son checks this stuff out thoroughly. I'll ask and get back to you tomorrow.

[PUGACHEV]

I use the 5MP Sony Mavica 500. I find that the advantages of writing directly to a 50 cent mini CD-R disc are huge: for one thing, I was always running out of Compact flash cards and etc., and I never had the time to sit and down load them on to the computer to free-up the old cards quickly enough. With the mini CD-R, I just pop it into the drive, open whatever I want in Photoshop, and then save the processed image onto my hard drive. The camera can take 3 shot bursts and write to the disc later, so action shots are not really a problem.

The 4MP Mavica, which is cheaper, is also an outstanding camera. I've used it to take photos of the Egyptian Collection at the MMA which my daughter's college art history teacher has used in her lectures; so the images weren't too bad, I guess.

Whatever you do, recognize that digital cameras are evolving so quickly that anything you buy today will likely be obsolete next year, so you might not want to spend too much money on one right now. Personally, I am waiting for the Favon chip to become more common before I sink major money into a new digital camera. It's used now in a Sigma digital camera which sells for about $2K and has some awkward programming issues, but I think that within 2 years we'll see 20MP cameras with that chip that will rival any 35MM film camera in terms both of optical and tonal resolution.

[The Other Harry]

I'm a fan of Canon and Nikon. Fwiw, Consumers Reports reviewed DigiCams a few months ago. It would be easy to dig out a copy at your local library. I will also second the recommendation for Steve'e DigiCams.

In general, I would not buy the top of the line. You know how these things are. The middle technology is currently very good, and you will want a new one in a few years.