RE: OT...........Digital Cameras........OT

["Mark Hetherington" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

Brian G. Reynolds
> What is considered a good buy at the moment?

I can't recommend an actual camera at the moment since I am not up to
date,
but having bought one a couple years back maybe my experience will
help.

> I am not after an all-singing job just a general snap along and
> mainly pictures for my insurance database....

First thing I would say given that comment is if you have a scanner,
just
use a normal camera (or a disposable) and scan in the pics. Minimal cost
and
gives you time to consider what you might want from a camera you might
have
more general uses for. For such snapshots, normal cameras are much
cheaper
and much higher quality than a cheapo digital one. You might even want
to
consider a cheap scanner over a digital camera if you don't have one.

> As far as I can see there are numerous cameras out there but
> afraid I am not familiar with the digital scene.

The biggest problem with the digital cameras is getting a similar quality
to
traditional optical ones (especially in real prints if you need them).
Digital camera prices are often reflective of the hardcopy image quality
the
camera is capable of. What might pass as suitable for a pure digital
repsentation, will not necessarily look good in a hard copy.

Obviously features affect the price as well, but for your general point
and
shoot photographer, it is usually better to concentrate on quality
rather
than a plethora of features, that cool as they might be, you pay for
but
never use.

I have the Canon IXUS (it likely exists in the same form today but more
features and maybe a slight res increase) but I was thinking long term
use
rather than your general camera. I love the camera, but I rarely use it
and
I could probably have gotten away with a much lower spec one. But when I
do
use it, I have the highest res it offers which is comparable at normal
print
sizes to standard cameras and even works extremely well up to A4. I have
not
tried bigger than that.

I can't remember what camera a friend of mine has, but on a monitor
screen
you often cannot tell the difference other than in max image size, but on
a
TV output or on paper the comparison is like VHS compared to DVD. You get
to
see what I paid for :)

If you are going to need hardcopy, then have a look in some specialist
camera shops. They have had to start introducing digital cameras to keep
up,
but they can usually match what you might want from hardcopy to a
camera
quite well and often have sample hardcopies to look at.

Features I would recommend you look for are: Optical zoom over digital
zoom.
It makes a *lot* of difference for obvious reasons but even without the
zoom
being a requirement, the quality of the optical lens is with considering.
If
you might want to take close ups (as in really close), go for something
with
a "macro" mode. Make sure you have a flash, digital seems even
more
sensitive to light than optical. Go CCD over CMOS (big difference in
image
quality but will increase the price). If it has an LCD viewfinder, make
sure
you can turn it off. Batteries die very quickly when using it with
purely
LCD. The useful featurss that make digital cameras mass market are the
ones
we expect from normal cameras but a litle more comprehensive (e.g. auto
focus, auto white balance etc). You might pay a little more if you want
to
override a decent camera that comes auto functions with manual versions
but
chances are you wouldn't want to.

One thing to watch out for is transfer speed. This is often related to
image
quality in that cheapo cameras need very litle time to take a grainy
image
but some higher end ones might need a second or so to take their
highest
quality one.

In conclusion, I would say, decide what quality of picture you want and
go
>from
HTH.
Mark.



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