Posted on 12/21/2004 5:43:15 AM PST by RayChuang88
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - Millions of Americans who waited patiently for the quality and convenience to leap forward and the prices to roll back are now jumping on the digital-shutterbug bandwagon.
A novelty item just four or five years ago, the digital camera is shaping up as the most popular electronics gift in 2004, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. It was runner-up in 2003 to the DVD player, the No. 1 gift since 2000.
At age 75, Marilyn Smith discovered a wealth of reasons this holiday season to switch to a digital camera. Snapping away until she gets the right shot, without worrying about film, sounded enticing. So did packing a palm-size gadget on a baggage-laden trip to Hawaii in February. But she especially liked the idea of an image stabilizer that negates wobbles.
"Why? Because I sway very easily," the retired nurse's aide explained with a hearty laugh.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
I'd say you're livin' in Heaven. Great photos. Stole a couple.
I agree, and I think the best camera for those starting out in the digital camera field is probably the Canon PowerShot A75, which takes excellent pictures for a 3.2-megapixel camera and uses commonly-available rechargeable AA batteries and CompactFlash memory cards. 
Also, the PowerShot A75 offers quite a lot of flexibility in picture taking modes, too.
Thanks for the post. Bump.
Yes, the non-SLRs do have a lag. No such problem with my D-70. When you press the button, it takes the picture (unless you forget to turn the camera on). However, I have heard that if you shoot in rapid auto-fire mode, it does take the camera some time to write each image to the memory card and I suppose that happens with the higher-priced ones, except maybe the D2H.
I agree about the A75. This was my Birthday/Christmas present to myself this year and I'm very happy with it. I haven't even learned how to use all the manual settings yet but it takes wonderful photos and was easy to use right out of the box.
I have a Kodak Easyshare 4900 DX digital camera I bought two years ago. 4.0 MP and very easy to use. While I still have Kodak 35 mmm and Advantix format film cameras - digital is definitely the way to go. Today you can take good quality pictures and upload them to the computer with either - in Kodak's case - their Easyshare Dock and one can even save pictures to their online Ofoto album service and pictures can then either be emailed to family and friends or copied to a CD. Its certainly gotten a lot easier to make and preserve memories than in the old days of film cameras.
Kodak now markets an Easyshare Photo Printer that lets you print out crisp, studio-quality pictures at home.
I was in Wal-Mart the other day and they had a Samsung 301 Digimax on sale for $90. Recently Target had the 4010 Digimax for $97. I wound up buying a demo off of Ebay for $126. It has a 2.5 inch viewing screen. And then I sold my old Kodak 1.0 mp camera through Amazon.
The neat things about these is that the images are captured on these little cards inside the camera. You can put them into card readers in addition to reading directly from the camera, take them to a store to make your photos or get your own photo maker and plug them in there. They range in size from about 16mb all the way to to 1 gb. And if you get rechargeable batteries and charger battery usage no longer is a factor since digital cameras will eat regular batteries.
Anyone have a good suggestion for a photo printer. I'm thinking of the Epson.
There's HP. But look into Kodak's printers too.
So, I've been waiting for a Nikon digital SLR that won't break my bank...
I do a lot of technical photos, so macro capabillity is a must -- as is the need to couple to instruments like microscopes and telescopes.
Is anyone aware of a non-SLR digital that accommodates such adaptation?
Yep, entry level cameras at 200-300 are fun and useful. Next year the BIG gift will be 6 megapixel cameras for $300 down from $900 AND........LCD TV'S as manufacturers gear up big time in 2005 to get the production lines up and the costs will drop 50%.
While it is true that digital information will not degrade over time, as the color dyes of chemical-based photography will, the _media_ upon which the information is stored can be very susceptible to degradation.
Storing your most-precious photographs (the ones you wish your survivors access to) on ordinary CD-R's can be iffy, as many (most?) of the CD-R media sold is not really rated for long-term storage. The CD reads fine today, but 15 years from now, when you put it into a CD drive, will it mount on the desktop?
Storing to a hard drive places _everything_ in the operability of the drive itself. If the drive fails, you've lost it all, unless you are willing to pay _BIG $$$_ to have the drive recovered professionally.
There _is_ a storage technology - relatively little-known here in the USA - that provides modestly-large capacity combined with [at this time] perhaps the highest durability and longetivity: MO. That's short for "magneto-optical", a kind of half-breed between magnetic and optical storage technologies. MO media, once written, is highly stable - we're talking decades here.
The drawbacks are that [at least in the USA, where cost is everything] it is a bit pricey, and the current cartridge capacities are nowhere near that of hard drives. Also, there are very few companies building them, and marketing them.
One that does is Fuji (fujitsu.com). An external 2.3gigabyte drive (USB2, although SCSI is available, as well) costs $300 for the drive, and I believe a 5-pack of 2.3g cartridges runs around $100 (if bought directly from Fuji's site). The drives are backward-compatible with lower-capacity MO cartridges, however, which often be found on ebay either new or used (easily reformatted).
Again, the price-per-megabyte ratio pales in comparison to what you can get in a cheap hard drive these days, but with MO you're buying _security_, in the sense that what you write on them _today_ will be accessible _tomorrow_.
Just some thoughts,
- John
I have a Canon Power Shot A300. I've actually been disappointed with it. Especially the delay between shots. More often than not, I lose the shot I'm trying to get waiting for the recharge, plus, the first shot, once I open the lens, takes a long time to get ready. A lot of the time I have to open and close and reopen the lens cover to get the camera to turn on, sometimes several times. And the digital zoom is all but worthless. And, before you ask, yes, I do keep fresh batteries in it....the expensive ones for cameras....which I have to change very frequently. I've used the rechargeable ones, too, but they run down even faster. I paid close to $300 for it.
Digital storage is not a problem in my case, because I'm somewhat of a geek. Explaining what needs to be done to family and friends can grow to be exhausting!
The solution to "digital lag" would be to upgrade to a more sophisticated camera. This is certainly my plan for the near future. If I can offer a single piece of advice to those considering new hardware...
Don't get SO concerned with size reduction that you sacrifice functionality!
The fact-of-the-matter is cameras are never truly pocket-sized, unless you don't mind feeling like a pack mule. One tends to carry them in a small bag belted to the hip with accessories like batteries, extra memory, and cleaning cloths. A few small inches in height, width, or depth is absolutely worth it to gain helpful features.
~ Blue Jays ~
No, you need SLR to do those things. The D70 from Nikon is about $1000 for the body. You can probably find the D100 or D60 for perhaps a little less. You would want to check for compatibilty with your F-series lenses. I'm pretty sure the compatibility with N-series lenses is there, but not so sure about the F-series.
Some nice pics!
You have to be kidding me. I can't imagine anything easier than the Kodak Easyshare system. I put the camera on the dock and press a button. It transfers everything to the pc. And while it sits in the dock, it charges the battery. I love it.
We don't print at home. We either send over the internet for pictures @ .29/each or we take our memory card to a kiosk and print what we want. I am so not into buying all the expensive ink cartridges to print at home. Except for Canon printers, all their consumables are a total rip-off.
If you're talking about the Easyshare dock, then yes, it should be. Mine was the DX4530 camera in a bundled package. The big box contained two boxes: one with the camera and a drop-in plastic adapter (exactly matching the camera model) for the dock. The other sub-box had the universal Easyshare dock. If I read the literature correctly, I inferred that all Easyshare cameras use the same docking station.
IMHO, the camera takes great shots with very vibrant colors both indoors and outdoors. The DSP in these cameras is fantastic. My only complaint is that low-light focusing can be a problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.