hubby has decided he 'needs' a digital camera and he needs one Now! Trouble is I have absolutlely no idea what i am looking for The extent of my knowledge is that the more pixels you have the better the picture quality, but how many is enough?!
So do we have anyone out there who is a bit of a genius when it comes to digital cameras?
Or if you have one, what have you got and are you happy with it?
I have until Tuesday to get my head round this, thats hubs next day off and he'll want to go shopping!
HELP! :D

Julie,
I can't seem to find a way to link you to the page, but if you put in a search for the digital cameras topic posted by Leigh you might get some idea what's out there.

Admin Added: Digital Camera

Julie,
Glad you asked this question. I fancy "suggesting" that my son buys me one for Christmas but I don't have a clue about them and since I don't think he'll get leave at Christmas (he's in the army), he'll no doubt tell me to buy it and he'll send the money!! - great surprise, huh!!
I'll try one of those searches.

Dot

Hi dot, I have an Olympus c-100. Its very easy to use (has to be for me) and takes good pictures, and mini videos, and not too expensive either. I can highly recommend it.

Thanks Philippa. That sounds good to me. I'll have a look for it.
Dot

Mine's the Fuji Finepix 2600Z. I've been very pleased with the results from it and again, it's simple to use.

John

Julie, hopefully Sam will reply but I know a bit. It really depends on what you want to do with it, what size/quality printouts you want, what you want to spend and whether or not size and zoom matter. i'm using a Minolta Dimage 7i which is a reasonably good one. But remember, unless you pay thousands for a digital with interchangable lens (and maybe not even then), a good SLR is much more adaptable and decent scanners are cheap. If you give me an idea of price/specs, i can probably make some suggestions.

I'd go along with Sharon there, I've got a digital camera, but unless you pay out loads of money I would still say they come in the category of point & shoot, ideal for taking quick pics to send over the net, but you can't beat an SLR for good pictures.
The only problem I find with scanning pictures is to get a good quality print or enlargement you get such a big file size, and absolute pain to work on afterwards, but storage is so much easier, one CD holds loads.
On another point, some of the digi camcorders take almost as good pictures as the digi cameras and the prices are coming down, so you get the benefit of videos as well, mine weighs less then the digi camera too. It really does depend on what you are using them for.
Ingrid

Thanks guys and gals, not sure if I'm more confused the more I look into this !
basically, Steve has to occasonally go and do inspections on carpets as part of his job, so wanted a digi camera so that he could take a photo (or 2) on site then take it back to the shop and download it to the pc to either print off or email to the manufacturer or whoever. of course I would want to use it to take pics of the dogs and stuff but not to be portrait quality as I have an aunt with the full kit that can do that for me!! ;)
So far I've managed to suss that the ones with rechargeable batteries are better and that at least 2 million pixels will give a reasonable quality print! keep seeing all this stuff about optical zoom and digital zoom and how many different flash modes it has but it's all spanish to me!! :D
So keep the ideas coming pretty please:)

Julie, forget all the gizmos and go for the best quality basic camera. You won't ever use half of them anyway. Ingrid

T H E place for info on digital cameras is http://www.steves-digicams.com/
obviously American but dont let tha put you off :) it is full of info. It was here we searched for ours and compared various ones.

I would say you need at least 3 million pixels for a good quality picture. But it's like most things, generally the more you pay the better quality you get.

Michael
13 October 2002

Forget digital zoom, you can get the same effect by puting the photo in something like Paint Shop Pro and just enlargeing it. An optical zoom is far more useful. 2 megapixal will give you a good A4 print although 3 meg will obviously give you better but if most of the photos are just for sending in emails or posting on the net you dont need anything more than 2 meg max. Most will take rechargable batteries now and there are chargers available which can be run from a car cig lighter so taking one on holiday is no problem. I must admit I still prefer my SLR but I use the digital far more than i thought i would when I brought it

Regards, John

Thanks so much for all your help everyone, :)
Dawn, that website is great, definately one to go in the favourites :) and John, pour yourself a large malt as it looks like we're going for your choice of the Fuji 2600 :D
Now all I have to do is train the hubby how to use it
Julie
xx

Hi Julie.

My answer to this is buy a digital video camera this will allow you get some great acton video's of the dogs as well as linking it to your PC with a firewire or video input and you can take as many stills as you require.
I have 2 Panasonic camera's and they are great. Prices are about £400 so they are good value for money.If you are interested in one contact me by e-mail.
I got mine from www.amazon.co.uk

Regards,

Dave

Would have to recommend Canon as I worked for them for four years and my partner still does.

I have a great digital IXUS which is the size of a credit card, won loads of awards!

Nicky xx

Julie, I hope I'm not too late on this one. I've used an SLR and a couple of Digitals and unless you are a wiz in the darkroom I would now go for a digital every time. You need at least 3 meg Pixals, an optical and digital zoom and probably a flash card compatible to give you the storage capacity. The beauty about a digital with a decent chip size (ie the more mega pixals the better) is that if you then get a reasonable picture processing piece of software - such as paint shop pro for about Pounds 69 (amazon.co.uk) then you can do what you want with it, remove bits, change the colour, crop the picture. I also print out the ones I like on A4 paper - just ask your nearest photo shop what a print that size from film would cost!. I have a Nikon Coolpix 995 which I know has now been superceeded but the model shape remains the same - you can bend the lens whilst still looking at the screen, its zoom is very good and the picture quality is excellent. Its not worth getting an el cheapo model but the mid range good cameras are as good as an equivilent SLR and the added bonus is that you can play with the picture - and unless you get a very good quality scanner you will never copy across as sharp a picture as you get from downloading off the camera itself