PCA Forums

My wife wants a digital camera for Christmas, I was looking at an Olympus 5000.
What can you guys recomend? between 3-500 $ at least 4MPixels.
or what should I stay away from, because it is just a piece of *&#^%?

stay clear of kodak and hp
i like the canon sureshots line - we own last years model sureshot 50 and love it !
check this place out for reviews before you buy one ! link dont just jump and buy one !

The new Sony W1 is a nice one

I have had 4 sony cameras, and have loved them all. I still have three. One for the car, my nice one, and then my camcorder which has a built in camera also.

The thing you have to decide is what you plan on buying Next. I bought sony first and stuck with it because I have thrown so much $ into extra memory cards and batteries that it would be a waist of $ to transfer to another platform.

Greg

I'll vote for the Cannons also. I've got a PowerShot A70 and its been a dream. Easy to use for photo-idiots (like me ), but lots of options for advanced users also. Its only a 3.2Mpx, but its a great deal for the price. You can view my pics from our trip to Australia earlier this year here. All images were taken with this camera (although I used Photoshop to auto-adjust the levels after taking the pics)

Originally posted by nexus_7


The thing you have to decide is what you plan on buying Next. I bought sony first and stuck with it because I have thrown so much $ into extra memory cards and batteries that it would be a waist of $ to transfer to another platform.

Greg

That isn't the case any more, you can get 256MS for $40

and the Batteries in most the new Cyber-Shots are AA ( comes with re-chargeables )

I'd stay with the name brands like olympus, fuji, canon, sony, minolta, etc.. And those that use AA batteries. Rechargable nimhs are so cheap nowdays.

And mainly, forget what they call "digital zoom". If you want zoom then look for "optical" zoom. That is true zoom. With digital zoom, you lose quality. It's a ripoff marketing tool that makes newbies think they are getting something extra.

Plus, if you get a camera that fits in your shirt pocket, you'll bring it along more often. The larger ones are still good, but not as convenient to carry with you.


If you want one that takes good close ups, then look for a feature called 'macro'. And any that you are seriously considering I'd do a google search on reviews for it.

Olympus 5000 reviews:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ol ... gle+Search

Originally posted by blade
Plus, if you get a camera that fits in your shirt pocket, you'll bring it along more often. The larger ones are still good, but not as convenient to carry with you.

Uhhhh... What's a shirt pocket? *points at blade* Nerd!! j/j

eGo


p.s. please don't ban me!!

Originally posted by eGoCeNTRoNiX
Uhhhh... What's a shirt pocket? *points at blade* Nerd!! j/j

eGo

wise guy eh

I hate pullovers.

thanks for all the replys.
I could have sworn somebody posted to stay away from HP and Kodak, now I cant see that post anymore. I was wondering why I should stay away from Kodak, any reason or just peronal preference?
I was looking more closer at these 2 models, one from Olympus and one from Kodak.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... &CatId=127
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... u=K23-3254
I read a whole bunch of reviews, however you never know what the magazines and reviewers receive to write a positive review.
Anybody used one of these? They both come with a 10x manual zoom.

The older kodaks were great cameras, such as the dc 215 I have still, but the new ones mostly suck
,They have slow shutter speeds, fixed memory and often no optical zooms- PM Bellzinger- he has a new Canon he might be selling off and its a beauty- 4 megapixels , 3x optical, takes inexpensive compact flash memory, and fits in a shirt pocket.

Billy Goat this is exactly why I am looking at this camera from Kodak, because it comes with a Optical 10x zoom. I'm not intrested in digital zoom as I already know from my Video cam that they are worth nothing. and for shutterspeed it goes from 16 to 1/1000 so I dont think that is slow either.
I dont care to much about being able to put it in a shirt pocket, but quality is what I'm looking for. We are used to carry around 35mm reflex cameras so anything digital will be small to us. If I would have the money I would go and buy a full body digital but the money isnt there for that.
Bellringer, what you got?

Reviews from sites like steves digicams and dcresource are very reliable.

Those 2 cameras you linked to look darn nice. I love the 10x optical zoom. That's like a 400 zoom on a regular camera. Only thing I don't like about either is they don't use AA batteries and instead use the more expensive kind.

Blade, the sites you mentionend are some of the reviews i read, so I can trust them?
After a few hours spend comparing pictures in the reviews, I think that the Olympus is what I am looking for, even do I really like Leica lenses which are on the panasonic cameras. Maybe Leica isnt as good anymore as it used to be 20 years ago.
I compared
-Canon PowerShot S1 IS
-Kodak EasyShare DX7590
-Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom
-Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
-Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3

Edit: well I spend an other few hours comparing and now I tend more towards the Panasonic FZ3, the FZ 20 would be first choice, but she busts the budget just a little to much. Since I will end up buying Memory cards and other things on top of the camera itself.
I'll let you guys know what I'll buy and will post some pictures of course once we got it.

Blade, the sites you mentionend are some of the reviews i read, so I can trust them?

Yes, by all means They have been around the longest and always give fair reviews, even bad ones if a camera deserves it. You can rely on what they say and their sample pics.