Digital Camera: Recommendations?

[vakkotaur]

I have a Kodak Cameo film camera that I bought some years ago because it was inexpensive and the flash folded so as to cover the lens. That meant I could jam the thing in a pocket and not worry about damaging the lens. It's nice, but it is a film camera. In early July I was with various folks who were using digital cameras and single-use film cameras. Someone looked at me rather incredulously and asked, "Is that a film camera?" Being supposedly behind the times doesn't bother me, but digital is now quite good, fairly inexpensive, and the savings in film and development costs will add up quickly.

What I'm looking for is a digital camera (of course) with:

* An optical site so I can frame a shot in dim light if I have to. Also, I prefer to look through the camera than at an LCD screen. There are many cameras that lack an optical sight. I will not be buying one of them.

* Optical zoom. Digital zoom can be there as an option, but I want real optical zoom. There's no point in throwing resolution away right at the start.

* A form factor that will let me carry the camera without needing a special case on my belt or around my neck. It will get stuffed in a pocket at times.

* A protected lens when not in use. This thing will get tossed around and jammed in a pocket and the like.

* A fast response time. I don't want to have to wait for the thing to wake up or boot up any longer than I wait now for a flash to (re)charge. When I press the shutter button, it should take a picture. It should not sit there and think it over a while and then eventually get around to taking a picture.

* SD memory card preferred. Other storage, such as XD, will be considered, however Sony's memory stick need not apply. USB connections are nice, but I know I can read a card with my Linux machines. I don't know that USB camera interfaces will work with my machines, especially my laptop, however.

* Taking AA cells would be nice, but is not essential. I can buy a large memory card and have room for hundreds of full-resolution pictures, but I know that with digital I'll likely be swapping batteries as often as I am/was swapping film rolls.

Considering my form factor limitation, I'm certainly not looking for super-fancy high end SLR stuff or the like here. Just a good, solid digital camera that will do what I want without making me wonder why I bought the thing.

So, what camera(s) should I be considering?

Comments

[fiddledragon]

You might want to take a look at the Olympus cameras - they're nice, they're small, but you get *good* pictures out of them. You *will* be swapping out batteries a lot. Use rechargeable batteries if you go this route, you'll go a lot of money in batteries otherwise. I think that 'Sea swaps out batteries faster with hers than she ever swapped out film (that's saying a lot, btw).

[khirmoonclaw.livejournal.com]

Ive owned several different cameras, Sony,Cannon, Nikon and I just ordered the Pentax Optio A10.

Check out the site below it has lots of great reviews for digital cameras,

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Pentaxa10/

I really enjoyed my Nikon Coolpix 8400 camera but as a much larger camera it was rather bulky to take around..

One thing I really liked about the Pentax was its size and being that its an 8mp camera at that, At 3.5 x 2.1 x 0.9 its fairly small This of course going to be a point n shoot camera with a few manual options on it. seemed like a good choice, I ordered a 1gb SD card to go along with it. I should recieve it in the next day or so,

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Overall that looks really nice, save for one omission. Does it have a brother with an optical sight?

[khirmoonclaw.livejournal.com]

Not in there Optio series, there all pretty much lcd driven,

There K100D and K110D have Optical Viewfinders but your getting into much larger cameras.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We have an Olympus and have been very pleased with it. I bought it thinking it would supplement the $300 film camera I bought my mate for his birthday some years ago, but he immediately abandoned the film camera in favor of the digital. The minus side of it is that now he has filled most of a good sized hard drive with digital photos. ;p

Our model is undoubtedly obsolete now, but it has all the features you want, and the battery life is acceptable. Both optical and digital zoom, lens is covered when not in use, there is an LCD display but it is turned off by default to save battery power and you can use an optical SLR type viewer. It does fairly well in dim light, but has a small strobe type flash that retracts when not in use. I think you could use standard macro lenses, telephotos, and filters with it if desired, and it has a standard tripod mount if you need one. I imagine the current ones are little smaller and lighter, but definitely check out what Olympus has to offer. I think I paid $240 for this one five years ago. Probably the same capabilities are half that price now.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

I think it will fail the pocket test when the value of "pocket" is "jeans front pocket," but I have the Canon PowerShot A620.

Pros:
- SD card
- Optical viewfinder
- LCD folds inward for protection
- Takes AA batteries, so you can run alkaline in a pinch
- Fast startup and focus (0.5s or so when you hit the shutter release halfway)

Cons:
- doesn't fit in a jeans pocket; it'll take a fairly large pocket to qualify there

I've been very happy with mine. It's so much faster and takes much better pictures than my Olympus D510.

One more pro

[yakko.livejournal.com]

The A620 also typically lasts for about 500 shots (enough to fill a 1GB SD card at the default resolution) on a set of good NiMH batteries.