Opening the floor

[ladynox25]

So....I've decided that I want to get myself a digital camera. Here's the deal: I'm on a limited budget, so I can't just get the top-of-the-line, all-the-bells-and-whistles, very expensive but also very neat model. What I want is good, solid quality, a decent amount of memory, and some zoom capability. I don't want to give up my old dinky point-and-shoot film camera in order to get a dinky point-and-shoot digital. I want something nice, in other words, but not too pricey.

So, all of y'all out there, those who have digital cameras and those who know a heck of a lot more than I do, what should I be looking at? What models are good? What's the price range I should be looking at for what I want?

The floor is yours.

Edit: I don't know if this matters or not, so y'all can tell me, but it needs to be compatable with both Mac and PC, software-wise.

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

The first thing you need to do is specify a price range more specific than "not too pricey." That means different things to different people.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

If you more than a dinky point and shoot digital, you're going to need to spend more than what you've indicated to Pam above. DSLR bodies are $800+, and good point and shoot non-DSLR cameras range from $300 - $900 depending on what level of optical zoom and how many Mpixels you are looking for (and how fast the sensor is, 6 Mpixel of slow sensor is worthless, but a really fast 4 Mpixel sensor with decent glass can take a damn nice picture). A good 35mm point and shoot non-SLR body was a multiple hundred dollar investment When Film Ruled the World, and SLR bodies were only a little cheaper than roughly equivalent DSLR bodies are now.

Last time I was looking at prices, the equivalent of the camera I paid ~$500 for 1.5 yrs ago was in the low $300s (5 Mpixel), and that was June.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

Also, just about every camera out there works via some sort of removable media (like Flash cards), so the available memory will depend on how big a card you want to buy. Likewise, you should be able to read the image files off the flash card with any card-reader, or off the camera. Both mac OS X and Windows XP have utility programs for this; the worst you'll have to do is download a driver for the camera. (If you are using an antiquated OS, then you might have various problems since older OSes were developed before digital cameras became so popular.)

[christymarx.livejournal.com]

For that kind of price, I highly recommend the one I have: the FinePix A205.

Nice little camera, nice zoom, takes very nice shots, USB download cable, variety of memory cards available, built-in flash.

Eats through batteries, of course, but they all do.