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[Faken]

I’ve been noticing a lot of camera inquiries of late and it’s good that you guys want to learn before forking over $300-$1000 on a camera. I currently sell cameras as a main part of my job (along with some televisions, cell phones, computers, and camcorders) and I would like to help some of you guys make good decisions.

Once you’ve decided to buy a camera, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What kind of pictures will I take?
2. Where will I use the camera primarily?
3. Do I want to print these pictures?
4. Is the camera size important to me?
5. How good am I with electronic equipments?

If you just want to take some pictures of items for ebay or the web, you might as well stop reading this and save your money and time by buying a very cheap >$80 camera with no optical zoom (will explain this soon). If you choose this step, you probably won’t print this, and the size probably won’t matter to you so much.

If you want to take pictures of friends, family, vacation spots, personal belongings, etc, you probably will also want to print these pictures. If you’re thinking along these lines (which the majority of consumers are) then I’d recommend at least 3 megapixels or more. At 3 megapixels you’re barely pushing the limits of 4x6 print. It’ll look decent, but obviously the more megapixels you have, the sharper, clearer and awesome your picture will look. Sounds like something you’re interested in? keep reading.

Okay then, now the fun part!~

Megapixels – This is how many pixels each picture has to put it simply. For example, a DVD look a lot better than a VHS tape because it has more dots. Due to more dots, it can show more colors, increasing more color capabilities, sharpness and clarity. This is sort of the same for the megapixels. * keep in mind that not all 5 megapixel cameras are better than 3 or 4 megapixel cameras. Lens quality also contributes hugely on how the picture looks. For those of you who can’t tell a good lens from a bad lens, look at the price tag. If a lot of the features look the same (zoom, battery, features, megapixel) and one is much much cheaper than the other one, ask the salesman at whatever store you’re in or read the specs, because it’ll probably be a worse quality lens.

Optical Zoom vs Digital Zoom – To me, it seems like a lot of consumers are confused about the difference between these two. OPTICAL zoom is the real telescopic zoom. It is the same type of the zoom you’ve used in your 35mm camera and it will not lose quality as you zoom in. Most cameras will have about 3x optical zoom, but some may not have any. DIGITAL zoom is the fake zoom. It’s like when you take an image in photoshop and zoom in manually. As you zoom in more and more, you lose quality and it becomes very “grainy” and “pixelized.” I would highly recommend users to disable their digital (or sometimes called smart zoom), when they buy their camera. A lot of cameras retailing at about $180 or lower will NOT have any optical zoom so be careful.



RECOMMENDED:
Kodak Easyshare - I’ve asked you to ask yourselves (lol) how good you’re with electronics. Kodak definitely lives up to its name and its definitely one of the easiest brands to use. When switching between modes in the camera (i.e. nightmode to sportsmode), it’ll actually tell you on the LCD screen what mode you’re on and when to use these modes. MOST of Kodak cameras are point-and-shoot cameras and are highly recommended for first time camera users or women (hohoho). Kodak uses SD cards for ALL their cameras now. However, they’ll not include any starter SD card with the purchase, but rather internal built in memory to start off.

Canon Powershot – Canon continues to impress me with their quality of pictures. While they’re not as easy to use as the Kodak cameras, their cameras are excellent. Canon divides their cameras in 3 series. ELPH series which is smaller cameras with real basic functions (credit card size with more depth). A series is bigger cameras with 4 AA batteries. A series is excellent for people who want to play around a little with manual features, and also allows an additional lens add-on to be connected at a later time. G series is the professional series with lots of manual features. There are also few other cameras (digital rebel, pro1) which do not fit these categories. Canon uses SD and CompactFlash (depending on which camera), and they do offer a starter size memory cards when you buy the camera.

Sony Cybershot – I personally own sony and I’ve never been disappointed. However a lot of people are. Why? Sony makes higher grade cameras and lower grade cameras. They look very similar so you have to read the fineprint to see which one is better. The best way to tell is what kinds of battery it uses. If it uses AA, it’s the lower kind. If it uses Lithium-Ion battery, it’s the higher kind and I would highly recommend this. They also make professional cameras up to 8 megapixels, but they’re better at making personal cameras in my opinion. They have exclusive rights to Carl Zeiss lenses which are excellent. Sony uses their own type of memory called the “Memory Stick,” and they do offer a starter size per camera.

Olympus Camedia/Stylus – Olympus is pretty nice but also a bit harder to use than most of the brands out there. Menu is extremely complicated and you would have to know a lot of the abbreviations they use before you got the hang of it. If you want something durable, get the Stylus Series but once again, make sure you get the newest models (310, 410). Stylus series only has 3x optical zoom but are weatherproof (however, not waterproof). Camedia series have a lot more zoom, often times 10x optical zoom. Keep in mind that these 10x optical zoom cameras will have a LOT bigger size in lens so you’ll have to lug this thing around, rather than put it in your pocket like you can do with a lot of other cameras. Olympus uses xD cards with Fuji. xD cards the most expensive format of memory cards out of all available ones.

Minolta – Honestly, I don’t know too much about Minolta so I’ll leave this alone for someone else.

NOT RECOMMENDED:
Nikon Coolpix – As a Nikon 35mm owner, I was expecting a lot better of Nikon, but personally I am very disappointed. Their new models (3200, 5700) are alright, but I still expected a lot better. In my opinion, they still don’t have their own signature advantage to buy Nikon other than their name, and that’s not enough. For the price you pay for some of these Nikon cameras, I would much rather spend it on the other brands. If you DO choose to buy Nikon, make sure you purchase the new cameras, not last year’s models. Last year’s models use CompactFlash cards; this year’s uses SD cards.

HP - Their new R707 looks promising but I havent had the time to play around with this model too much so I'm going to go by what I know. Their old models suck (435, 735, 935). They used up batteries quickly, had a horrible lcd screen, often had blurry pictures and were of bad quality compared to the other competitors for same price.

Fuji S Series – fuck fuji.

Panasonic DL Models – leave these alone too…

Casio – you got to be kidding :|

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As of 06/11/04: Camera Recommendations-

[Sony] The new cameras from Sony are GREATTTTT.

Sony DSC-W1 $399.99
Sony DSC-P100 $399.99

Details: DSC-W1 replaces the old DSC-V1, DSC-P72/P92 are being replaced by DSCP73/93 with better lens, and DSC-P10(what I have)/P8 are being replaced by DSC-P100. There is also a new camera out called DSC-T1. It’s about a credit card size with 3x optical zoom and 5 megapixels; retails for about $499.99 with a docking station.

edit: if you think that I am mistaken or if you have any other suggestions, pls let me know in this thread. I hate it when people buy cameras that are not for their best interest due to their lack of knowledge.

*** Special Thanks to Rich for putting this puppy together!!!