photography help

[Sam Sagnella]

Now that I'm prepping myself for my first spring in the plains, I need to revamp my photography equipment, and I need a little guidance. I'm looking for an inexpensive digital camera.

What are some affordable, yet efficient examples? Gracias.

 

[John Diel]

When dealing with quality equipment, there is no such thing as "inexpensive". That being said and not knowing your budget, look at the Canon, Olympus and Sony offereings. DPReview.com is a good place to start. Once you find three or four cameras that fit your budget, look for reviews and go for the one that you like best.

For the point and shoot class, I personally like the Olympus C series cameras followed very closely by the Canon G series.

 

[Greg Campbell]

As John points out, it all depends on your budget and image quality needs.

You can get a decent 3~4MP p/s digicam for under $200 (Plus another $50~100 for batteries and memory). Forget megapixels - lens quality and camera features are more important. Mechanical durability is also an issue. Watch out for unprotected telescoping lens assemblies, flimsy access panels, etc.

Going by my limited experience, Nikon, Canon, and Sony make the best p/s digicams. My Olympus is 'ok' but suffers a number of issues. HP and Samsung are crap. Dunnow about Fuji, Pentax, Toshiba, Minolta, etc.

For more reviews than you can shake a stick at, see
http://www.steves-digicams.com,
http://www.imaging-resource.com/


The alternative is an old film SLR. $150 will buy a fine body and several brand name lenses. Look at Ebay; old lenses are just about free. Like digital, film is not perfect; but after 50 years' development, it does work VERY well.
Here's Fujichrome for a buck a roll.

-Greg