CHEAP (sub $100) digital camera?

[SLM crew chief]

I'm thinking about getting a digital camera for the 5 to 10 pics I take a year and don't want to spend much money on one. Usually a roll of film goes bad befoe I use it up. Under $50.00 would be even better. Does such a thing exist that is at least decent? I don't much at all about them so any input would be appreciated.

TIA all!

[FB]

cheapest i can find is about 180.00 for a 4 megapixel. i saw a 2 megapixel at bestbuy for 200.

[KingTermite]

I'm not sure if you will get anything decent in that category.

I just checked...here is your best bet.
Go to http://www.imaging-resource.com/ and choose "Find the Best Camera For You" along the left side link bar. There were a few in the 100 dollar range. The only sub-$100 one I saw was so horrible you'd be throwing your money away (.31 MP).

It showed a 2MP camera for $99.

[JCNiest5]

I work at Ritz Camera Centers and we have a Kodak 7300 with 3.2 Megapixels for a mere $99.99. Very simple to use, less feature than the more expensive ones, but gives you pretty sharp pictures for the $$. Lower than that, there are 2 MP, 1.3 MP, but those won't give you any quality printouts at all. By the way, I work as lab tech so I know how crappy pictures are when customers bring us pictures from 2 MP (or lower) cameras. Visit a Ritz Camera Centers and let them help you find the right ones, even if it means you want the 1.3MP or 2MP ones.

[ronbo 613]

I work at Ritz Camera Centers and we have a Kodak 7300 with 3.2 Megapixels for a mere $99.99.

I don't think you can do much better than that. I have a 2 MP Nikon Coolpix that I use to take photos for my website; it's OK for web photos but even 4 X 6" prints look pretty sad.

[KingTermite]

Originally Posted by JCNiest5

I work at Ritz Camera Centers and we have a Kodak 7300 with 3.2 Megapixels for a mere $99.99. Very simple to use, less feature than the more expensive ones, but gives you pretty sharp pictures for the $$. Lower than that, there are 2 MP, 1.3 MP, but those won't give you any quality printouts at all. By the way, I work as lab tech so I know how crappy pictures are when customers bring us pictures from 2 MP (or lower) cameras. Visit a Ritz Camera Centers and let them help you find the right ones, even if it means you want the 1.3MP or 2MP ones.

Not to "dog" Ritz...its cool to have an ABXer to ask questions from. But if what you say is correct (and I believe it is...I subscribe to that same theory), then why when you take film in to be developed, will Ritz not process greater than 2MP quality if you ask to get the pictures developed digitially?

[KingTermite]

Originally Posted by ronbo 613

I don't think you can do much better than that. I have a 2 MP Nikon Coolpix that I use to take photos for my website; it's OK for web photos but even 4 X 6" prints look pretty sad.

I'll echo that.... a 3.2MP with good quality, but less frills for $100 is a great deal. Maybe you can get JCNiest5 to help you with an employee discount.

[JCNiest5]

Originally Posted by KingTermite

Not to "dog" Ritz...its cool to have an ABXer to ask questions from. But if what you say is correct (and I believe it is...I subscribe to that same theory), then why when you take film in to be developed, will Ritz not process greater than 2MP quality if you ask to get the pictures developed digitially?

True that Ritz develops greater pictures, but it's a limitation of the customers' equipments, not of Ritz's. So, that means whatever you bring in, whether it's from a 1.3, 2.0, 3.2, 4.0, or etc...Ritz will only get the pictures to look as good your original form (or resolution) is. Now, when you request a film-based processing to be transfered into digital format, Ritz will scan the films and put them into digital format, with which there are few options to scan the films in as resolution, which is transfered into either 1024x768 (low), 1600x1200 (HD) or 3200x2400 (Ultra HD). But if the pictures are already from a digital format, Ritz has no way to enhance it beyond its original resolution. Doing so will only degrade the pictures, not improving it.

[KingTermite]

Originally Posted by JCNiest5

True that Ritz develops greater pictures, but it's a limitation of the customers' equipments, not of Ritz's. So, that means whatever you bring in, whether it's from a 1.3, 2.0, 3.2, 4.0, or etc...Ritz will only get the pictures to look as good your original form (or resolution) is. Now, when you request a film-based processing to be transfered into digital format, Ritz will scan the films and put them into digital format, with which there are few options to scan the films in as resolution, which is transfered into either 1024x768 (low), 1600x1200 (HD) or 3200x2400 (Ultra HD). But if the pictures are already from a digital format, Ritz has no way to enhance it beyond its original resolution. Doing so will only degrade the pictures, not improving it.

Yes, yes...I understand about digital pictures, that wasn't what I was referring to. I was only talking about film pics.


I figured they could scan them and get nearly any resolution they wanted really....but when I had them scan some to digital, they told me that 2MP (I had to pull teeth to find out how many MP it was...he just kept telling me "high quality") was as high as they could do.

Of course that was 1 1/2 years ago...maybe they've changed since then?

[Redleg]

The 2 MP resolution must have been a limit of the scanning hardware available at that time.
The 1600x1200 images is likely the resolution they were offering you as that works out to 1.92 MP

[JCNiest5]

Originally Posted by KingTermite

Yes, yes...I understand about digital pictures, that wasn't what I was referring to. I was only talking about film pics.


I figured they could scan them and get nearly any resolution they wanted really....but when I had them scan some to digital, they told me that 2MP (I had to pull teeth to find out how many MP it was...he just kept telling me "high quality") was as high as they could do.

Of course that was 1 1/2 years ago...maybe they've changed since then?

There are several lab types that you can expect to come across. Depending on the lab type, you may or may not be able to scan at a resolution you desire. On the newer lab type, which is consisted of the Frontier printing system, we can now scan your film in several formats, mainly you can tell the scanner to scan films as 4x6, 5x7, 6x8, 8x10, 8x12, 10x15, etc..etc.. When we scan the films as 8x12 and 10x15, it will scan at the highest possible resolution, equaling to a 5.0 megapixels, which is max for film. Anything beyond that, better just go with digital cameras, which can go from the lowest VGA to the highest 12 - 20 megapixels. It's ridiculous how high the resolutions of digital cameras can reach these days. The highest resolution an ultra high resolution monitor can display is 2440x1940 (or something like that), which is equivalent to a 2.2 MP (or so) digital cameras. It's basically the limit of graphics cards in the modern age. Perhaps in the future, monitors and graphics cards can display higher resolutions.

[KingTermite]

Originally Posted by JCNiest5

There are several lab types that you can expect to come across. Depending on the lab type, you may or may not be able to scan at a resolution you desire. On the newer lab type, which is consisted of the Frontier printing system, we can now scan your film in several formats, mainly you can tell the scanner to scan films as 4x6, 5x7, 6x8, 8x10, 8x12, 10x15, etc..etc.. When we scan the films as 8x12 and 10x15, it will scan at the highest possible resolution, equaling to a 5.0 megapixels, which is max for film. Anything beyond that, better just go with digital cameras, which can go from the lowest VGA to the highest 12 - 20 megapixels. It's ridiculous how high the resolutions of digital cameras can reach these days. The highest resolution an ultra high resolution monitor can display is 2440x1940 (or something like that), which is equivalent to a 2.2 MP (or so) digital cameras. It's basically the limit of graphics cards in the modern age. Perhaps in the future, monitors and graphics cards can display higher resolutions.

Thanks for the info, JCNiest5. It was probably a limitation of the local labs or maybe the "new" stuff wasn't available 1 1/2 years ago when this happened.


Sorry about the thread hijack, SLM.

[JCNiest5]

Anytime...

[SLM crew chief]

Originally Posted by KingTermite

Sorry about the thread hijack, SLM.

No problem. I kinda doubted that there was much out there (I couldnt' find anything but I don't really know where to look).

Just hoping. Maybe I'll have to wait a while longer as 100.00 bucks would last me at least 6 years of disposibles w/ processing.

[ronbo 613]

Maybe I'll have to wait a while longer as 100.00 bucks would last me at least 6 years of disposibles w/ processing.

I'll make a sweeping generalization here and say that the disposable cameras I've used(with ASA 400 film) produce 4 X 6 prints that are roughly the same quality as 4 X 6 prints from my 2 megapixel camera.
I will say this about digital cameras; even if you don't take many photos now, digital cameras are very cheap to use once you buy it. If a $100 camera would open the door to photography for you and allow you to take more pictures, it would be well worth it.