Digital Camera Recommendations

[lesliepear]

I've probably asked before but it's a little over 2 days till Black Friday and I have NO clue which one to get.

This one seems good from Target:
Fuji E510 5.2 Megapixel Digital Camera $168.00

From Office Max:
Olympus C-5500 SportZoom 5.1MP Digital Camera $199.99 (I like my olympus - but this model suffers shutter lag also I read)

Circuit City:
Fuji A350 5.2MP Digital Camera $179.99
Olympus FE-100 4MP Digital Camera $129.99

Best Buy
Samsung Digital Camera with Flash and Zoom FREE (after rebate) - just kidding here!

Radio Shack
3-in-1 Digital Camera $9.99 (a toy for Alan?)

All info courtsey of www.bf2005.com - other suggestions considered.

Comments

[amyzon.livejournal.com]

I was told by a good friend, to not get a digital camera under 5 megapixels. It's a waste of your money. Spend a wee bit more for anything above 5.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

My current one is 2MP (it took the shot in my icon).

[vaguette.livejournal.com]

I bought a new one just recently and even though the Fuji that I wanted was more expensive than the Sony that I ended up with, I was advised by the guy he would not go Fuji. The one I was looking at he said had plastic bits in the casing that will just crack if dropped (and I have dropped mine many times) whereas metal casing is pretty resilient.

The megapixel only makes a difference when you enlarge the photo. Say for example you get a 3mp camera, enlarging it up to 20x30 is fine but after that ti begins to look pixelated. All my pics on my photobucket site http://photobucket.com/albums/y85/vaguette/ are with my old 3.2mp - I loved it!

I would go the Olympus 4mp - so long as lag is not bad. Are there any Sony options?

[eloren.livejournal.com]

I hope this doesn't double post...LJ ate my last attempt I think. Megapixels are nice, realistically anything 3 or better is nice, and 5+ is only a "need" if you want to make poster sized prints. If you can get the same camera in a 5 MP for a few extra $ over the 3 MP variety, the extra pixel's wont hurt except in your need to buy a huge memory card and possibly an extra hard drive to dedicate storing them on. We have a 5 MP and a 1 GB CF for it. On the SHQ setting, it holds around 300 pics.

Personally, when we upgrade again, we will be looking for a good optical zoom. Current camera only has 3X and it kinda sucks. Digital zoom = snake oil, don't even pay attention to that. There is a nice crop of cameras out there right now with 8X - 12X optical zoom, and having looked seriously at them, they are a vast improvement over my current cam. The ones with the better zoom are also starting to add stabilization technology to compensate for hand jitter. When you are zoomed all the way, that starts to make a difference.

Good luck, and I hope you find one that suits!