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I have a compact little OLYMPUS with a great lense that takes awesome photos. I am constantly complemented on how clear my photos come up and it is because of the quality of the lense. I am no photographer but somehow the lack of a zoom in the lense makes clearer photos.

 

I am looking at investing in a digital camera but like you miteyak I love looking through my photos in a real album. Who has suggestions for a good digital camera that does everything you need? There are so many different models out there now that its impossible to choose something. I am probably willing to pay up to 30000 yen.

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The canon digital rebel is good, but not too small. Shoots like the slr it is, so great for action shots. Huge range of lenses too. Wanna hold yer horses till feb, however, when canon will probably announce new models.

 

The 1ds is creme de la creme, but then it's also 10,000 bucks (US)

 

I, like woywoy, love the fixed lenses. My standard lense is a 28-70 2.8L (about as good as zoom lenses get) but still not quite as intense as the canon pro 50 I used to own. I miss it (tragic canoeing accident...)

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The canon G5's pretty decent mid-sized. Good shots, but careful on the motion (not instantaneous shutter release) as with most non-slr digitals I think. Full manual to automatic functions give creative control over your pictures. Also has a raw mode allowing pro quality info. The S50 is smaller, cheaper but same res. Lose on the LCD screen size and RAW capacity but still a great little digital.

 

I use a G2 (older G5) for work, great little standby.

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Woy Woy,

 

What do you want to use the digi for? I have my SLR if I'm in photo-taking mission mode. IMHO the images from a digi still have a long way to go before they have the depth and vibrancy of film.

 

On the other hand my Canon Ixus 4.0 megapixel was bought with size in mind. I slip it into my pocket when I go skiing, it sits in my handbag at all other times for the unexpected shot I might get while at work or around town. The image quality is great for its size, and I have a lot less of those 'if only I had my camera on me' moments these days.

 

A mid size digi strikes me as a funny compromise because you get a camera that won't go everywhere, and has lower image quality than an equivalent SLR... confused.gif

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A mid-sized digi is still small enough for the pocket, but produces quality comparable (in some cases better than) to non-drum scanned slides, and definitely better than scanned negs.

 

As for the likes of the rebel and 10D digis, for digital darkrooms they outperform slide scans not done at a professional level (imo), the cost of which is pretty prohibitive for amateurs.

 

It all depends what you're going for (not forgetting that not all pixels are created equally).

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i've got a big-ass canon eos55. takes great pics when i'm on holiday, but so bulky that i cant take it everywhere. i usually use disposable cameras for nights out or on the slopes. not great quality but dont have to worry about losing it or dropping it or whatever.

 

I'm not so interested in digital still cameras- great for emailing to lots of people but it seems unless you have a webpage they just get looked at once and then forgotten. i like to show off pics by putting them up on the wall or in the loo or make reprints to give to people.

 

digital video on the other hand is way cool. can do lotsa editing and then record onto vhs tapes to share. so much fun to watch over and over.

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nekobi....

 

it is way more economical to make digital prints than prints from film (especially in this country!)...

 

1) You dont have to print the entire role

2) pick and choose which pics you like on your computer, and print as many as you want (under 25yen/print)

3) online photo-albums are free and super easy to use (I use shutterfly.com)...I can share pics with friends and family instantly now...very cool

 

I still use my slr on long trips, but the digicam is an amazing gadget...from mini-vids, skiing, nights out, to anything your artistic eye can see...

 

danz

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yeah its def expensive to develop film here, esp b&w which i like, but how goods the quality of the printed digital pics? i'm not really familiar with how many megapixals translate to an alright photo. i just know the digital prints

i've gotten from people have been pretty crappy.

 

i do really like seeing friends' online albums. but i just look once, then forget about it.

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4-5 mill pixels (w/ good interpolation) will give a good pic up to A5, with a bit of photoshop knowledge and a good inkjet or better. (Canon G5/S50...)

 

The canon 10D or kiss digital will give 6 mill pixels, w/ great interpolation. Fantastic A5 pics, can be rezzed up to A4 in photoshop.

 

(on the crappy photo note, most pictures people take are crappy full stop, film or digital...)

 

Given you already have a 55, a kiss digital would be a great addition, and you won't be dissapointed with the results. (see above note)

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There seems to be a lot of compromising you have to go through when purchasing a digital camera over a standard camera.

 

I guess it would be ideal to have one small compact digital camera for having with you all the time and then a decent-sized digital camera with options for manual operation for serious photo shooting. Can anyone recommend a good quality, small digital camera for snapping? Are they all that bad?

 

miteyak, are you a photographer? You seem to be really up on camera technology and so on.

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I bought a digital Ixy when they first came out and it was a great purchase. I've treated it roughly for several years now, and apart from the painted markings coming off, nothing has gone wrong with it. It's so easy to use that the markings aren't missed. It's very solidly built. All the many Japanese designers I know have one which suggests that their design and performance is highly evaluated.

 

You can switch the menus between J and E, and download manuals in J and E from the Canon site.

 

Most of the pics on my Member Page were taken with the Ixy. Moving pictures can be a gamble, especially if you decide not to use the flash. Quality sometimes falls, and the shutter speed is not as fast as you might like, but especially if you put it on continuous shooting you can usually get something usuable (however getting your dumb mates and family to keep the button pressed down is harder than you might think...)

 

In poor lighting, you can often get better (more natural) pictures without the flash.

 

There are several size settings and if you take pics on the largest setting, you can get very detailed images (of course you need the biggest memory you can afford - at least 64 MB). I haven't bothered much with the lighting settings on the camera as I usually tweak the pics quickly in Photoshop (obtained through some piratical behaviour).

 

The newer Ixy's are slightly smaller than mine with better optical zoom. I tried to swap my 'classic original' version for a newer one at a party but the big fat dumb American wasn't having any of it.

 

I don't use a film camera because of the expense and hassle and use of paper and chemicals.

 

Besides the Ixy, the new Pentax small cameras would be worth a look (in spite of their moronically bad TV adverts).

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I'm going to be getting my first digicam soon - my analog camera's kinda heavy, so I want something with more portability to have with me more often that will still print reasonably well. That new small Sony 5mpx looks nice, though I think I'd like to have a viewfinder option - sometimes LCDs can be hard to see in bright light. Depending on what gets announced during Feb at the trade shows, I'm currently leaning toward a Konica Revio KD-510z (Minolta DiMAGE G500) after reading reviews and info on it at dpreview.com. Also, interested in Olympus zoom cameras - my analog camera has a 3.8x zoom, and even that feels a bit small.... but I think I'm leaning toward the smaller digicam and just using the analog for when I want to have the bigger zoom, since, of course, I can enlarge it on the computer and printout.

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WoyWoy,

 

The ixys are a good little deal. And since the 4.0 megapixel model is now a year old I've seen it fairly heavily discounted.

 

Something to bear in mind when looking at digi cams is the optical quality. I'm a little obsessive about getting the best quality I can for my buck, so I tested every 4.0 meg and above model I could find. For my mind, the lens quality on the canons gave me better images than most of the 5.0 meg cameras out at the time. On the down side, shutter speed is not as fast as some, and its a touch slow in focusing.

 

A bonus though, was that I was able to buy an underwater housing cheaply (by underwater housing standards). Its rated to 40 metres, and I've had it down to 25 - have managed some pretty good shots while scuba diving.

 

Another advantage with digis in general is that they seem to hold up better in lowlight situations than film. On the Ixy, you can adjust exposure values and film speeds to suit each pic if necessary - not so easy, or readily checkable (is that a word?) with film...

 

Its more than 30,000 (don't forget to factor in the cost of memory card/compact flash/memory stick/etc which can vary between makers), but if you wait a bit you might find it drop in price again. With 5.0 meg cameras becoming more common, it wouldnt surprise me if canon released an ixy at that level - hopefully affecting the price of the older stuff...

 

And on the subject of scanned negs or slides, I agree with Miteyak about comparative quality against mid size digis. But if I shoot film, its so I can get the richness and contrast (the ixy - and most digis - dont seem to cope with contrast very well) that I cant get from home printed images. I only scan my negs and slides to get a better idea of what I want printed, then get those ones that I really like done professionally.

 

If I like something, but not enough to get it done properly, I'll print it at home, (on my big boy Epsom 4000 that does A3+ size cool.gif ) but accept that the quality is going to be lower than a 'real' print (not least because even the highest grade home printing paper doesn't hold up against professional stuff).

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