Camera Recommendations.

Quoted message said:

I should have added:

While Fuji and Olympus digicams take very good quality photos, they use xD
cards.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. xD, while available now, is yet another dead-end
technology based on "SmartMedia" - an already-dead memory card format.

Stick with SD cards or Compact flash. Supporting xD by purchasing a camera
that uses it is just encouraging manufacturers to make more bad,
non-standard formats.

I don't agree with that, at least not for compact cameras. The media is
relatively irrelevant, given that a single card (for most uses) is going to
be all you need and, at $50 for 512 megabytes, it's not that much of a
hardship. The best you might get on a reasonable-quality CF card might be
$15-$20 less than that, so if you factor that price back into the camera,
it's generally not going to be a deal-breaker.

When XD cards first came out, yikes, I certainly would have agreed
wholeheartedly. When I picked up the Fuji E510 in Hawaii, it ran $70 for a
128 meg card!!! Ouch!!! But they've since become much more generic in
pricing.

For a DSLR, or anything else where you might be gobbling up huge amounts of
storage (shooting everything in RAW mode, for example), then the better
price/size ratio of CF (or to a bit lesser extent SD) becomes relevant,
especially when you start buying multiple cards. Further, the faster
download speeds are helpful as well.

But to trash a compact camera based on its memory card is putting too much
emphasis in the wrong place, in my humble opinion.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

"C.J.Patten" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I should have added:

While Fuji and Olympus digicams take very good quality photos, they use xD
cards.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. xD, while available now, is yet another dead-end
technology based on "SmartMedia" - an already-dead memory card format.

Stick with SD cards or Compact flash. Supporting xD by purchasing a camera
that uses it is just encouraging manufacturers to make more bad,
non-standard formats.

Don Wiss said:

SMS said:

... are cheaper, and a bit larger, but the big disadvantage is
that they use AA cells, as opposed to a Li-Ion battery.

The advantage of Li-Ion batteries is they are smaller and lighter for the
charge that they hold.

Actually, the other big advantage is that the Li-Ion batteries have an
extremely low self-discharge rate. If you only use your camera
occasionally, NiMH batteries will self-discharge to less than half
charge over a couple of weeks, while Li-Ion batteries will lose only a
very small amount of charge.

True but NIMH AAs are so cheap and used in so many other electronic gadgets
that you just leave a set in your charger, which keeps them charged up. You
then have a fresh set all the time.

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
says...

Quoted message said:

Don Wiss said:

SMS said:

... are cheaper, and a bit larger, but the big disadvantage is
that they use AA cells, as opposed to a Li-Ion battery.

The advantage of Li-Ion batteries is they are smaller and lighter for the
charge that they hold.

Actually, the other big advantage is that the Li-Ion batteries have an
extremely low self-discharge rate. If you only use your camera
occasionally, NiMH batteries will self-discharge to less than half
charge over a couple of weeks, while Li-Ion batteries will lose only a
very small amount of charge.

rs said:

Actually battery life for the A510/A520 with 2AA batteries is as long or
longer then the proprietary Li-Ion batteries. And a pack of 4 2500MA AA NIMH
is about $10 and chargers can be had for as little as $10; or if you forgot
batteries and you're out riding just about any convenient store carries AA but
none will carry the specific Li-Ion you're camera needs . . . or any LI-ions.
Also you really need to have a backup Li-Ion for your SD series, the Canon
battery will definitley give you sticker shock.

S series ("http://sterlingtek.com/cannbcambate.html"😉 is $9.
SD series ("http://sterlingtek.com/canbeqba.html"😉 is $12.50.

Again, it's not just the battery life, it's the size and weight, and
it's the self-discharge rate that makes it a lot less hassle to use a
Li-Ion battery.

rs said:

For teeny the previously mention Canon SD300 is a good choice but do look at
the Canon A510 & A 520 3M and 4M respectively and as cheap as $165 and $200
if you hunt around the net.

The recently released A610/A620 also look very interesting -- larger
sensor than the A510/A520, faster picture-to-picture time, and better
video capture.

-Mike

none said:

rs said:

For teeny the previously mention Canon SD300 is a good choice but do look at
the Canon A510 & A 520 3M and 4M respectively and as cheap as $165 and $200
if you hunt around the net.

The recently released A610/A620 also look very interesting -- larger
sensor than the A510/A520, faster picture-to-picture time, and better
video capture.

One thing to keep in mind is that Canon has a poor record of supporting
operating systems other than Windows. After finding this out the hard
way with a Canon printer, I know I'll never buy Canon products again.

Whatever you do, avoid Olympus. I don't ordinarily bash a product, but
I used to have an Olympus Camedia digital. I had to send it back to
replace a bad memory card after 4 months and they kept it for another 2
months before they replaced the memory card. Their reason for the
delay was that they were really backed up (red flag).

About six months later (shortly after the warranty expired, of course)
the camera simply shorted out. I contacted Olympus to see if they'd
still agree to repair it under warranty, considering (a) they had the
camera for 2 of the ~13 months I'd owned it and (b) an electrical short
indicates a serious flaw in the camera. They refused to consider it.
So, for about $500 I had the use of a camera for 11 months -- not a
happy experience.

-JR

Quoted message said:

Whatever you do, avoid Olympus. I don't ordinarily bash a product, but
I used to have an Olympus Camedia digital. I had to send it back to
replace a bad memory card after 4 months and they kept it for another 2
months before they replaced the memory card. Their reason for the
delay was that they were really backed up (red flag).

About six months later (shortly after the warranty expired, of course)
the camera simply shorted out. I contacted Olympus to see if they'd
still agree to repair it under warranty, considering (a) they had the
camera for 2 of the ~13 months I'd owned it and (b) an electrical short
indicates a serious flaw in the camera. They refused to consider it.
So, for about $500 I had the use of a camera for 11 months -- not a
happy experience.

Thankfully, your experiences vary greatly from my own. My 5050 took a slight
fall and developed this strange problem where the sensor seemed to display
only half the lines vertically, looking like a super-poor tv screen turned
sideways. I sent it back to Olympus and they promptly repaired it, and
considered it a warranty issue. This happened about 7 months after I
purchased the camera. And then, two months out of warranty, it took a small
fall again, causing the same thing to occur. I sheepishly called up for an
RMA, explained what had happened, and waited to see what they were going to
charge me for it. To my surprise they treated it as a "re-work" at no
charge, replacing the lens assembly and a couple other things, even though I
stated that it had, in fact, taken a small fall (about 18 inches, if I
recall correctly).

Alas, in the end it didn't matter, as my daughter borrowed the camera and
lost it at Disneyland. Sigh...

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

"SlowRider" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Whatever you do, avoid Olympus. I don't ordinarily bash a product, but
I used to have an Olympus Camedia digital. I had to send it back to
replace a bad memory card after 4 months and they kept it for another 2
months before they replaced the memory card. Their reason for the
delay was that they were really backed up (red flag).

About six months later (shortly after the warranty expired, of course)
the camera simply shorted out. I contacted Olympus to see if they'd
still agree to repair it under warranty, considering (a) they had the
camera for 2 of the ~13 months I'd owned it and (b) an electrical short
indicates a serious flaw in the camera. They refused to consider it.
So, for about $500 I had the use of a camera for 11 months -- not a
happy experience.

-JR

Quoted message said:

Any recommendations?

The Canon Elph Series is incredible! I use an old S230 for taking all my
biking pictures. The pictures from the camera are so good that a number of
them have been used in publications or requested. In the current Elf
family... the SD series is what you want to check out.

Here is the details on it...

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=145&modelid=11158

SD400

Cnet Rating... Very Good 7.4
Consumer Rating... Excellent 8.2

http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_PowerShot_SD400/4505-6501_7-31302873-2.html?tag=tab

Note - it has videos you can watch on the cameras.

SD500

Cnet Rating... Very Good 7.2
Consumer Rating... Excellent 8.3

dpreview user gave both cameras 4+ stars out of 5. The site also contains
full reviews.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/

PC Magazine rated both models 4 out of 5... I will send you the write ups
from the magazine tomorrow.

SD 300

CNet rating of 7.4
Consumer Ratiang of 8.0
4+ stars on dpreview
4 on PC Magazine

Hope this helps!