so desperately in need of a new camera
my cameras have always been used and abused by me.... they’ve lasted me approximately a year and a half each.... it’s not that i don’t take good care of my cameras, it’s that i get ALOT of use out of them. in that short amount of time, i think i’ve gotten 15,000 pictures or more out of all 3 of the digital cameras i’ve owned.
my last camera died in mammoth, being frozen to death and never coming back to life =(
and so i am now camera shopping again. and i need help, or input, if you have any =)
features that are important to me, in no particular order:
- size
portability, mostly since i bring it everywhere i go. and i mean EVERYWHERE. so it has to be portable - picture quality
i really liked my fujifilm f700 (specs and review), i think it took better pictures than my canon sd450. i had a lot of trouble doctoring up the pics to my liking on the canon, any image manipulation showed the pics to be more grainy, i didn’t care for the color nor the sharpness of the photos, and my loss of control over the focus and flash meant dark corners on my photos in unfavorable lighting conditions, or graininess, and blurry photos. =/ i don’t remember having as much trouble with my other two cameras, although my first camera was my first… didn’t know much, it was a bulky toshiba pdr-m model that used 4 AA batteries. ugh. - shutter speed priority, aperture priority, macro, and manual settings
talking about the ability to take great pictures, i find that i would like to be able to take charge of my settings more often, as i did with my fuji f700. i even took great photos with smaller aperture with the sun in the background and could force a ‘starburst mode’ that would do the starburst where the sun was.
from my toshiba (2002-04-07):
from my fuji (2005-04-16):
from my canon (2006-12-27)(using my hand to shield the sun because otherwise it turned the whole screen white):
- must have proprietary batteries.
simply because i cannot be bothered with buying AA batteries or having a separate potentially bulky recharger. i’d like to be able to plug my camera in and use it while it’s plugged in. so the fujifilm wins on that one cuz the toshiba had AA batteries and on the canon, you had to remove the battery to charge it. booo! - a nice zoom would be nice. apparently, there are cameras that have 10x zoom now. and they’re nice! the problem is, do i sacrifice size to get zoom? on the other hand, none of the cameras i’m looking at are super super tiny, so it would only be a slight size difference that we’re talking about. hmm..... but i guess technically it’s not necessary...
- and of course, last but definitely not least, price has to be taken into consideration. because given my heavy volume of picture taking, cameras end up lasting 1-2 years, and i can’t spend a TON of money on something that ends up getting used up. yeah, i know, it’s a digital camera so i don’t pay for film, but i still have to get a camera case, the right type of memory card, etc, and it starts adding up. especially having to buy one almost every year. and knowing how cheap i am. so yeah, i have to make sure it’s really affordable.
anyways, given those parameters and my past experiences, i’ve decided to stay away from canon, and i don’t know anything about toshibas nowadays, but i don’t think they’re big on the market. so i’m looking at the fujifilm f650 (with 5x zoom and aperture/shutter/manual/macro settings, $170 at best buy) and the panasonic lumix dmc-tz2 with 10x zoom. the lumix is $189 at costco w a 2gb card
neither of them are as small as i would like them to be, but i guess that’s the sacrifice i have to make if i want to have more control of my pictures. i’m gonna go back to best buy and test drive the cameras to see if i like the start-up time and the time in-between shots, but otherwise, i don’t know how else to make a decision
-sigh-
does anyone have any bits of information for me? or anything i should be considering that i have missed or left out in my comparisons of features? or any cameras that you would like to recommend that might make me happy? i’d love to hear about your camera and why you chose it or why you think i might like it =)
comment here or just email me.... thanks =)
I have no advice, but I had been wondering why you hadn’t posted any pictures recently!
Posted by Greg on 05/15 at 10:16 PMdpreview.com!
Posted by laura on 05/16 at 04:37 PMi did my research on dpreview but nothing beats hands-on - but i’ve only found the f650 at BestBuy and they don’t have one on display that i can fiddle with. everytime i go back they can’t figure out how to charge it so i can look at it.... and i don’t want to spend $200 on something i haven’t test driven.
plus i was hoping someone could suggest a camera i haven’t mentioned, but i think the f650 is it for me!
Posted by on 05/17 at 05:05 PMSonys have always worked for us. I have no experience with Fujifilm cameras, though. I absolutely LOVE the camera we got for Kristina - Canon SD700 IS. It’s not what you’re looking for, since it’s over your apparent price range and it has hardly any manual settings to speak of, but it takes excellent pictures. For a pocket “social” camera, it’s perfect.
The thing you have to decide is if you are willing to sacrifice portability for feature set. That’s the problem with trying to get a pocket camera with a bunch of manual settings - it gets big really fast!
But if you are trying to get one camera to straddle the gap between social point-and-shoot and a “real” camera, then the one you’re looking at sounds fine.
Based on my research for Kristina’s camera, if I were in your shoes, I’d go for the Canon A710is. It’s a little over $250 if you shop around. But it just seems like a really tight little machine.
Good luck with your decision!
Posted by laura on 05/17 at 07:00 PMyeah, so i didn’t see very many competitors that were affordable and current - anything with more manual settings were either really old or really expensive, i don’t know why…
that canon a710 seemed like a good option, but it uses AA batteries, and it ended up being $150 over my other option - cuz i got the fujifilm f650 for $99 on sale! i’m so excited, i can’t wait for it to show up in my mailbox!
Posted by on 05/18 at 04:54 PM
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