# Digital camera for around $500



## DaddyPaul (Oct 28, 2004)

I am getting myself one for Christmas, tired of taking pictures of critters only for them to not turn out right.  Give me some suggestions on a good one for under $500.


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## Jim Thompson (Oct 28, 2004)

Oly C765 has my eye.  I love the 2 year old OLY I have now and they have oly improvedd them.  One of the very few cameras you can get 10x OPTICAL zoom with.  When you buy one ignore the digital zoom, which is basically a waste of money and space, and buy optical zoom.  Remember that anytime you use over about 5x will usually need a steady rest or a tripod (or at least I do) to get a quality photo.

Review and price here 

Jim


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## DoDahDaze (Oct 28, 2004)

DP,

Send a PM to Razorback, he is a professional photographer and has a studio. He is also a member of our club and would be willing to offer some expert advice.


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## Razorback (Oct 28, 2004)

DP,

I only play a professional photographer but my wife is the one who has the pro shooting gig & studio.  Thanks for mentioning it DDD.

I only sell the stuff & take pictures for fun.  I'll try to help any way I can.

Jim posted www.dpreview.com  website which is a great source of info.  On the home page is a button for reviewing various cameras as well as comparing cameras.  If you don't know what the feature is you can click on that feature & it will give an explination of that feature.

We sell Canon's & Nikon's digital cameras & have access to other brands so PM me if I can be of any help.

Kenneth aka Razorback


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## Jim Thompson (Oct 28, 2004)

Be careful on Dpreview though, the forums are a little testy

Jim


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## Skipper (Oct 28, 2004)

Digital cams are really all over the place as far as quality goes and what you can get for the money. One of the best cameras that can be bought now for around $500 are the older Nikon 5700's and the Sony F717's. These cameras retailed for about $1100 new and are really quality pieces of equipment. They of course have been replaced by newer models, but there are still excess inventory out there and I have seen a 5700 advertised for $400. That's a bargain and a far better camera than you would get if you picked the best $500 camera on the current list.

 That said, the point and shoots have some limitations on wildlife. Primarily, they are slow and have small buffers. Pick up a 5700 Nikon, put a card in it and hold the shutter and see what happens. It will probably take 3 quick pictures then quit for 2 minutes as it writes to the card. Now pick up a Canon Rebel SLR. Put the card in and hold the button down. It will fire off about 6 or 7 shots before it even begins to slow down. Then it will still take a picture about every 30 to 45 seconds.

 For example, on the elk I've been posting, I probably took 600 photos of them that afternoon. Some of them, the elk had it's tongue sticking out, some the ears moved and blurred the picture, some they shook their heads and messed up, some I messed up moving the camera, and some look pretty good. If you are looking for a photo with cover potential, you have to get everything just right, and it's far easier to cull 95% of your pictures than it is to attempt to capture everything just right. That's digital's main advantage over Film. There is no cost to taking a picture unless you store it or print it. So, the really bad ones cost zero to take, but hopefully, there's some good ones there.

 I may be busting your budget just a bit, but if you are planning on spending $500, I would suggest holding off until you have a couple hundred more and can afford an SLR version like Canon's Rebel or Nikon's D70. There are a ton of advantages to getting into a SLR type camera as opposed to Point and Shoot versions.

 First off, the chip is much larger even in the more consumer oriented Rebels and D70, this translates to a better less noise shot than what the point and shoots are capable of.

 Secondly, and maybe more importantly, The SLR type cam accessories such as lenses, shutter releases, external flash, etc will generally work with any other camera in the manufacturer's line. For example, my 300 mm lens that I use on my Rebel will transfer to a D20, a Mark II, if I ever win the lottery a D1s. The extra zoom lens and shutter release I bought form my Sony wouldn't work with the model that followed it. So when I wanted to upgrade, I had to buy the accessories again as well as the camera. Yes, they could do that with SLR's too, but they aren't real apt to try it. Too many people using SLRs have way too much money in lenses, and that actually is part of their brand loyalty program. I've got a buddy in Indiana who is a full time pro and shoots Nikon. He's been contemplating converting to digital for some time, but Nikon has lagged a good bit behind Canon in the top of the line Pro SLR bodies. He can't afford to switch to Canon because of the 100Grand in lenses he owns for the Nikon body. Sony or Olympus or whoever on the point and shoot market has no such brand loyalty and would really like to sell you another $300 worth of items to go with your camera.

  Skipper

 PS:  Canon just released the D20 that replaces the D10.  The difference is a 6.3 mp chip v's an 8 mp chip in the newer version.  The D10 is a much nicer body than the Rebel.  I suspect that there will be a good number of D10's in excess inventory that will sell at a discount.  There's also a good chance that an 8 mp Rebel is on the way and there may be some discounted 6.3 Rebels on the market.

 The D20/10 normally sells for about 1600 and the Rebel for about $900.  The D20/10 is a Pro body with a pro-sumer chip in it, the rebel is a Consumer body with a pro-sumer chip.


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## Label Dawg (Oct 28, 2004)

*Sony DSC-W1*

Anyone familiar with this point & shoot digital camera?
It has a Carl Zeiss lens and I've been pondering on buying one....Advise would be welcome


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## Skipper (Oct 28, 2004)

A couple of thing, one pretty serious IMO.

 First, the power source is 2 AA batteries.  If you have ever been around digital cams, you know how they can absolutely drain a battery even a good large camcorder type battery.  I wouldn't expect a set of AA bateries in any digital cam to last more than an hour and a half.  My first cam was AA powered, and I had to carry 2 extra sets to make it through a day at work.  Look for cameras that are powered by one of the rechargable battery packs.  Sony's battery packs are pretty efficient and will last a while.  The one in my 717 will last a week or so on the job.  On a photo shoot, it will usually last the day.  Sometimes I have to charge it mid day if I think it's going to run short.

 Second, and even though I own a Sony, I dislike their memory system.  Memory Stick is proprietary and even though there are other manufacturers of the sticks themselves, there aren't other cameras using them.  If you ever decide to buy a different camera and have $600 worth of memory sticks, it might influence you to buy another Sony.  On the other hand, it you buy a camera that uses the more common Compact Flash, when you upgrade your choices will be expanded greatly since most cams use CF memory.  In addition, there are at least 3 kinds of memory sticks out there.  One is a standard type, the second a high performance type and the 3rd a miniature.  The standard type can only be manufactured up to 128 mb.  That's small for a 5 mp digital cam and will only hold abut 35 pictures on high resolution.  Compact flash can be bought in sizes over 4 Gig if you so choose.  The newer high performance memory stick and the miniature memory stick have a different problem.  While they can go up to a gig in memory, most older devices for reading memory sticks won't work with them.  Somehow the HP version is different and it takes a special reader to be able to get the files off of it.  CF on the other hand has been the same ever since its introduction.  

 The improvements to CF now are centered around the I/O speed of the cards.  The cards I use are 2x and 4x standard speed.  They are available up to 40x speed.  With photographing wildlife, you want the write time to be as fast as possible.  There's nothing more aggrivating that having an elk walk off while the red button is blinking on the camera waiting for the disk to write the last picture.

 Sony has realized the problem they have with the memory sticks and on their higher end cams like the F828 are putting in both memory stick and CF drives.  Put simply, the F717 and 707 were nice cams, but when Nikon and Canon came out with their own point and shoot 5 mp cams aimed at consumers and using CF drives, Sony saw the light and on the next upgrade fixed that.  They of course still own the Memory Stick and still want to sell them, so they haven't put CF drives in their consumer cams and probably won't.

 Basically, I'd stick with a Compact Flash camera and one that uses a rechargable battery pack that has plenty of capacity to handle the needs of the camera.

 Skipper


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## Label Dawg (Oct 28, 2004)

Thanks for the input, Skipper!

I'm a novice but I would like to purchase a quality 5 mp point & shoot digital camera that is both fast and easy to operate. I currently do not possess a digital camera.
I have a Pentax 35mm point & shoot that takes really great pics...

What brand and model number digital camera would you recommend in the $300 - $400.00 price range?


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## Skipper (Oct 28, 2004)

It's a little bit hard for me to put one of the under $400  cams above any other one.  They are all pretty similar.  Most in that price range use AA batteries which to me is a big big turn off.  The thing about digi cams is they are very much like your computer.  They are a combination of a photo chip which has been around a long long time previously and still used in commercial and consumer video cameras paired with a micro processor to convert the image on the chip to a jpg or tiff computer file.  The long and short is, they have to boot up when you turn them on.  In the smaller cams, the boot time is much longer than it is in the SLR's and the higher dollar point and shoots.  Thus, you tend to leave it on even when you aren't shooting.  AA batteries just don't have the capacity to run one very long at all given the power requirements.  When you get to the cameras between 400 and 500, some of them start to use the L-ion battery packs like the bigger point and shoots and the SLR's.  These packs have the power needed to run the cam without a lot of aggrivation and making the Energizer Bunny rich.  The one in my Cannon can typically handle a full day's shoot on a full charge although I do keep a spare in the truck just in case and carry it later in the evenings.  The sony battery pack is good as well.  It usually lasts 90% of a day.  Nikon's pack is a little shorter lived than either the Sony or the Canon pack.

 Right now, there are some bargains to be had on some nice cameras.  The Nikon 5700 and 5400 are being phased out as newer versions have hit the market.  These 2 cams are excellent and while it would be nice to have the newer 8 mp versions of the same cameras, saving $500 on a closeout might be a better option.  I noticed that B & H photo is advertising the 5700 at $550 (after $150 rebate) and the 5400 at $599.  (the 5700 is the better of the 2)  The 5700 was and $1100 camera when it came out.  They also offer some used ones at further discounts.

 Canon's S500 is one that uses a battery pack and Compact Flash memory.  Priced at $409 through B&H.

 The Sony DSC-V1 is essentially the same camera you looked at, but uses a battery pack instead of the AA's.  It's $350 through B&H.  It's main disadvantage is the memory stick.

 Nikon uses CF in most all their cameras, but doesn't put a battery pack in until you get to the $500+ cams.  

 Skipper


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## TOW (Oct 28, 2004)

Here is the one I got and the people I bought it from.


http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/Product.asp?ProdTypeList=&Sku=OMC770#

I LIKE IT A LOT......Especially the 10X zoom...


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