Digital Camera buying advice needed

[Dk975]

I'm looking to go to a better and higher resolution DC than the Fuji A101 I have now. I know the specs that I want, 3-4 MP, 3X optical, SD/MMC, xD or CF, 2xAA batteries, some flexibility in control, but still mostly a point-&-shoot camera. I mostly will use it indoors, but could use it outside. I have a list of possibilities:

Casio QV-R40, Fuji A210, Fuji A310, Fuji A330 (soon to be released), Kodak DX6340, Nikon CoolPix 3100 or 3200. My budget for the camera is $150 to $225 (can go as high as $250). Canon is out due to price, and don't mention HP or Sony because they are on my companies s***list.

I have read reviews, and the Casio image quality doesn't seem too good, it's noisy. Tell me your experiences with the cameras I have listed, I still need to go to BestBuy and such to actually see these cameras, but won't buy them there.

[CrowdAds]

[cineb313]

Canon and Nikon make the best professional models and their chips translate to the Happy Snap consumer digital market. After that, Kodak makes a good camera. I use Nikon professional D2H/ D1x and consumer Coolpix 4300 models at this time, but have also used Canon. Would not even think of buying a Fuji or whatever. Chrs, PTB

[Bofinn]

Originally posted by Dk975
Canon is out due to price, I still need to go to BestBuy and such to actually see these cameras, but won't buy them there.

I won't complain about your prefs, but I totally love my Cannon PowerShot S230 / 256MB / bought at Best Buy.

The pics are great, movies are great, can print 8"X11" if need be... I would give a double think about what your actual digital needs are. As usually you get what you pay for...

Don't rush into this. keep reading for a few weeks.

[Mankal3]

Hey DK973, I'm sure you've done your homework, but these are three sites that I use often, in case you haven't seen them:
http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.imaging-resource.com/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

The forums within these sites are not bad either regarding specific questions you may have.

[PCBruiser]

DK975, I recently bought a new Canon S50 and am extremely pleased with it. Now, I admit that is more camera - both price and specs - than you are looking for, but in checking NewEgg's site today, there are several highly rated Canon models in your price range that meet your requiements. You might check them out. As I said, I am very pleased with the one I bought just last month.

[Dk975]

Does anybody have a Nikon 3200? The 3100 seems to have a weak flash, and gobble batteries. I wonder if that's due to it using CF instead of SD media? I looked at the Canons and all the A series takes 4 batteries. The S45 looked good but it was $100 too much. The S30 seems to suffer from a weak flash, and has proprietary batts.

Buying a new digital camera will be like buying a monitor. Sight unseen and not willing to pay too much on something that has faults. I thought about getting a $450 17" LCD but couldn't risk dead pixels, ghosting, poor non-native resolution and DVI problems with my video card/drivers. Instead I bought a 19" Viewsonic CRT for $240 that is quite good.

[BladeRunner_abx]

I've been the happy owner of a Kodak 6330 for the past month.
That is a 3.1mp, 3x Optical, 4x Digital Zoom Camera.
16mb onboard and an SD slot.

As a point and shoot camera it's excellent and there are also plenty of advanced features too.
I only paid £129inc for mine, so that should easily appear in your budget.

[KingTermite]

I wrote this a few months ago...hope it helps!

Digital Camera Guide

[hansmas]

As someone said before in this thread: You get what you pay for...

I might be a bit biased because I work with these things for a living. But I would - today - choose Nikon or Canon.
I use Nikon cameras myself, because I have been working with Nikon so long and have a great number of lenses that is a huge investment. Just now I use a Nikon F 4 ("oldfasion film..") and a D100 (getting a bit old now) and an old 995 to carry around. But if I should buy everything new today I might consider Canon since they make very good digital cameras at the moment. (For video I use the Canon XL1s Camcorder)

I would personally look not only for pixels, but for good lens quality. Many just go for the pixels and CCD:s and forget that that is of no importance if the lens is not very good as well. Also look at good wide angle capacity of the lens, that is often more important than the tele zoom!
I would also advice to look for the optical zoom, digital zoom is absolutely useless.
Storage and how fast the camera downloads into the memory card and is ready for a shot is also important. If the camera is to slow it can make you miss many good photo opportunities. And also have a look at what memory card is used - there is a big difference between different memory card systems and the capacity and prices!
Battery capacity is also a good thing to have. And you should definently get one or two extra rechargable batterys and always have one fully charged as a spare.

You say Canon is out of the question because of price range, then I should go for Nikon...

[Dk975]

Either the Nikon 3100 or 3200 look very appealing. Either way, in terms of media it's fine since I don't have many devices using either SD or CF. I take a lot of pictures indoors and the reviews saying at least the 3100 having a weak flash is disturbing.

[PCBruiser]

There really is a limit as to how much flash can be put into a small camera - size and battery power force severe limits on the manufacturers. Unfortunately, most less expensive digital cameras also lack the connections and mounts for attaching a mounted flash. It is a real compromise here - cost vs. indoor flash capabilities. What you need to check out on the cameras you are looking at is their low light capabilities, i.e., taking snaps without flash in lower light situations.

The other thing is, even with low light indoor conditions, digital pictures can be substantially improved with good editing software. As long as the focus of the snap is good, you can do a lot to improve the gamma, brightness, contrast and color of underexposed digital pics.

[Dk975]

I have a Fuji A101 now that I can shut off all the lights in a room, and have the flash on and get a decently lit picture. Although as I recall, the picture was maybe grainy. How does a Nikon 3100/3200 flash compare to the Fuji A101 flash? As for batteries, I really want 2AA so not to add weight, and I have 4x 2100mAh NiMH so I can use 2 and have 2 charging.

[KingTermite]

You might look for a smaller camera that has a hotshoe then. You can have a small camera, but with hotshoe can attach an external flash if needed. Of course that means you'd need an external flash too, but then you could get as big a flash as you wanted and only pull it out "when needed".

Like PCBruiser said...you are limited if you want a smaller camera on flash size (among other things).

[PCBruiser]

Originally posted by Dk975
I have a Fuji A101 now that I can shut off all the lights in a room, and have the flash on and get a decently lit picture. Although as I recall, the picture was maybe grainy. How does a Nikon 3100/3200 flash compare to the Fuji A101 flash? As for batteries, I really want 2AA so not to add weight, and I have 4x 2100mAh NiMH so I can use 2 and have 2 charging.

Having used neither of the cameras, I cannot answer that question, but as to the grain in low light/flash pics, that is probably caused by the camera switching to a lower effective ASA rating when taking the pic due to light conditions.

[Dk975]

The only Canon camera I might consider is the A70 due to its price of around $250. I see that many people get the E18 error and I dont' want to be bothered RMAing it. Did they eliminate the error in the A75? Although that is just a bit too high in price for me, and I haven't seen any reviews on it since it is too new.

The other 2 cameras I'm considering are Kodak 6340 and Nikon 3200. Do the pre-programmed settings in cameras (Night, Fireworks, Landscape, etc...) sort of replace the manual capabilities of changing the focus and ISO settings? I don't really need to be bothered with changing many settings. I'd say I'm either a beginner or amateur. I'm definately leaning toward the Nikon 3200 at this point.