Simple Easy to us digital camera: Which one?

[Bob Weisner]

Hi:

Looking to buy a simple easy to use digital camera. Which one is best? Not looking for anything expensive, just something that will take good pictures of my woodworking projects that I can post on the forum.

Thanks,

[Lee Schierer]

I just purchased a Canon A520 for that very purpose, amoung others. It is a 4 Mp type and it uses two AA batteries. It has a full auto mode where nearly anyone can take a photo and you can also select from a variety of modes up to full manual if you want. It takes pretty good photos too.

Lee

[Bob Weisner]

Thanks for the reply. I just checked out that camera. It says that you can get either a 1GB or a 2GB memory card. How many pictures would that size memory card hold?

Thanks,

[Bart Leetch]

I have a Kodak which seems to work pretty good.
I picked up the camera & set it on auto shot this pic as I was geting ready to write this post. This was shot at arms length. I took the other 2 pic last night.

[Wes Bischel]

Bob,

You're gonna get a lot of varied responses to your inquiry.

We went with a Canon as well. We wanted a small point and shoot that was easily transportable with all of the necessary accessories (battery charger etc.)Ours is a few years old, but the newer models in the Powershot series has continued to get good reviews. We will most likely get a SD400 to replace our S110 since we like it so much.

Check out this site - lots of good info when you've narrowed your search:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

http://www.steves-digicams.com/best_cameras.html

Good luck!

Wes

[Frank Hagan]

For forum posts, a 3 - 4 megapixel camera is more than adequate. In fact, you may have to reduce the quality to hit the upload size ... I like Fookes Software's free utility EZ Thumbs at http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/

I have had good luck with both the Canon digital cameras (an A-70 and 500 series camera) and one of my friends loves his Kodak EasyShare.

One thing to keep in mind is that these need to be protected from dust ... especially the ones with a telescoping lens mechanism. Sand from a beach killed my first digital A-70. They get jammed fairly easily in a "hostile environment" like a woodshop.

If you really want to research this, you'll find hundreds of user comments on Steve's Digicam Forums at http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/ Be prepared; you'd think they were talking about the newest router the way these guys carry on about cameras

[Pete Simmons]

Try a Fuji A210 or A310 around $100 at Walmart. They work fine. Look at my website. Click on my name and go to home page. 99% of the pictures there were taken with a Fuji A210 Finepix 3.2 meg. The included memory card holds 19 high res pictures and many more shots at lower res.

[Lee Schierer]

Thanks for the reply. I just checked out that camera. It says that you can get either a 1GB or a 2GB memory card. How many pictures would that size memory card hold?

Thanks,

The number of photos on a given memory card varies according to the size the photo is recorded at. At best quality you are talking about 450-500 photos on a 1 GB card. But downloading to a computer is fast and easy with the A520.

[Joe Pelonio]

I'm using a Sony, dscp32. I like it because it's small, it will do 3.2 megapixel and has nicad batteries with charger but can use regular AAs also. The bad part is digital zoom only, not good for far off shots. If you will be doing those a lot get optical zoom. It was $199, as I recall. Just got my son a HP for his birthday that does over 5 megapixels, with optical zoom but it was close to $400 (needed it for digital imaging class at school). Ease of use is tricky, most are easy if you stick to normal stuff, but you can get fancy with movies, different light settings for flourescent lights for example, and even special effects. I've probably only used 1/2 the features in mine.

[Gary White]

I can't recommend one camera in particular, but one thing I would look for if I was buying another digital, is one that has a large viewer screen. I have a Nikon Coolpix 2500 and while I am satisfied with the photos it takes I have trouble seeing objects in the viewer screen.

[Jim Becker]

So many choices...I own and often use a digital SLR, but I really like the Nikon CoolPix S1 that I got to use as a travel camera. 5mp. Easy to use. Excellent, large view screen that I can actually see in bright light. Metal case so it's safe in your pocket, auto lense cover and takes pictures that are nearly as good in many respects to my big camera. $379 list...which is more than many, but pretty nice for a pocketable not much larger than a credit card and 3/4" thick. Takes video (with sound), too...