[Dysart]

I'm currently using a Canon A60 camera. It's okay but I really need a more powerful zoom. This one goes to 7.5x and that's just not getting it done.

Anyone using a more powerful digital camera that you can recommend?

[sweetliberty]

"Anyone using a more powerful digital camera that you can recommend?"

Any help here, ladies? We want something that will do a good job of photographing birds, not the wasiest of subjects. We're talking something with a decent telephoto lens and with fair detail. Is there such a thing with a digital?

[GodBlessUSA]

Hi Dysart,
I'm using HP 950. 5.3MP 8x optical zoom 7 digital zoom. The camera is bulkier than other digital cameras. I like it. It isn't the best when taking indoor shots.

It's not the best camera out there. For my price range, and what I do, I'm very pleased. There are probably more improved cameras, since my purchase as well.

A great site on the web that compares digital cameras is Steve's digi cams.http://www.steves-digicams.com/ Very good information here.

Good Luck! Let me know what you end up buying.

[rustbucket]

Anyone using a more powerful digital camera that you can recommend?

I'm using a Canon 20D I bought a couple of months ago. My first digital. An SLR. I love it. I bought it because I could use my old Canon telephoto lenses with it.

I bought a 2 gig memory chip for it, and depending on how big I set my photos I can take anywhere from about 440 to 2000 pictures without having to change the memory chip. I took it on a vacation trip since I last posted to this thread and ended up with almost 700 pictures, many of them at the largest setting. Another nice feature is that I can set the film speed from ISO 100 to 1600 for each individual picture to adjust for changing light conditions.

I find I take far more pictures with it than my old EOS film camera. This ties in with the secret to taking good pictures, i.e., take a lot of them. Chances are one of them will turn out to be a good shot -- you can discard the rest.

Here's a picture from today taken with a 100-300 mm hand held telephoto lens. The 20D camera increases the magnification (optically I think) by a factor of 60%, so the lens at top magnification is effectively a 480 mm lens. In addition, at highest setting the camera takes roughly a 3500 by 2300 pixel picture. You can crop that and still get good resolution -- this effectively increases your magnification further.

The bird below is a prothonotary warbler. This is not the best shot I took of this bird today, but you get the idea.