Almost ready to submit some reviews, BUT...

frankly, I don't have a digital camera, yet. I am about ready to buy this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=879435&CatId=127

with a 256mb memory stick.

Knowing little about digital cameras, or cameras in general, I would appreciate input from some of the veteran's in this area.
Thanks.

If you haven't seen this review, here's a link to a site that does fairly thorough research:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/P73/P73A.HTM
This is the camera that you are looking at.

Frank

Here's another review. This is near the end, the conclusions. If you use the dropdown at the left, you can read the whole review. It's very comprehensive.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/p73_pg5.html

Adjudicator,
Digital Photography is huge domain. Buying your digital camera is much like buying a car. The varieties are endless and everything depends on what you plan to do with the device once you have it.
I was a pretty active 35mm camera user for years (40+). I had several SLR camera's and several lens for each. Depending on the task I would use one or the other or a combination to achieve what I wanted to capture on film.
When I switched to Digital from Film, I bought one camera. This was to be a 'compromise' including my desire to be able to select exposure settings and composition, and my wife's desire to be able to do a "Point n Shoot" type of snapshooting.
We used the reviews of equipment found on line, and comments by users of digital cameras (and price) as guidelines then bought from a dealer online. We are quite satisfied with our choice but would probably be satisfied with one of several other models around.
One of my friends used a Sony camera... A model 707 which is a bit pricier than the model you are looking at. He liked it very much. I bought a Canon G3 and like it also. As I said when I started this, It is kind of like a 'Ford/Chevy' debate. My friends Sony is a bit heavy, and is not designed for the 'quickie point and shoot' type of photography. That took it out of my selection group, as Janet didn't want to mess with complicated equipment. I also prefer the 'CF Card' format for memory storage. That seems to be compatible with several makes of cameras, where the Memory Stick used by Sony is unique to the Sony Brand. That doesn't seem to be a problem now, but a couple of years agao when I was buying, The question was raised that it might become the 'BetaMax' of the digital camera world. (A technology that was obsolete and hard to find in the future).
A few tips- Ignore the digital zoom features on any digital camera. The optical zoom with keep the photo quality high, but extending the zoom using the digital feature on most cameras cuts into the resolution considerably and the quality and sharpness of the photo drops rapidly as the digital zoom is used.
Consider who is going to use the camera..you..the family--etc. Shop for one that will do what you want it to do for all users.
Memory. I use a 256 meg memory card. I have two and a 128 meg also. On our trip West last winter we used up All three for photo storage.(thats about 350 large photo's). I do not carry a laptop with me on trips. If I did I could upload the photos into a storage memory on the computer and using only one memory card would be fine.
I have had the camera for almost 2 years and I am still using the original (recharegeable) battery and memory card.
With digital I find that I take a lot more photos than I did with the 35mm. It is easy to shoot 20-30 pictures then save the 3 or 4 that really stand out and erase the rest.
One major (for me) gripe about all the digitals I have tried... I hate the time lag between when you push the shutter button and when the camera shoots the photo. You can minimize that lag, but not get rid of it completely. I have missed some great shots because the camera is a half second delayed from what I wanted to compose. I have learned to compensate for that, but it has taken some time to learn the technique.
I believe that a lot of practice is the key to becoming a good digital photographer.
Good luck with your selection. Once you've selected the make and model, shop around online for that camera. It is amazing how widespread the pricing of these items are.

Well. This will be a short thread, indeed. I just did the dirty deed & purchased the beast... Should arrive Tuesday or so... Bought from TigerDirect; been buying 'puter related stuff from them a long time now.

Settled for a 128mb stick, 'fer now. Thanks to all who gave me advice! I will follow up soon with some test shots; probably of my cats...



After that...

I have an older digital camera, a Canon PowerShot S-100. Even though it's only 2.1 megapixels, I am very happy with the pictures it takes (I use it largely for snapshots when I travel) so I think the camera you are considering, with 4 megapixels, will not disappoint you. I also think you are wise to pick a camera that's as small and "pocketable" as possible if you plan to travel with it or take it to restaurants. I hate feeling like a tourist with a camera hanging around my neck everywhere I go so that's one reason I selected the model I did several years ago--it was the smallest, best built then available.

The one recommendation I would make is to agree completely with the Mayor that you will eventually want more storage capacity than 256 megs. The problem is that among the ways digital photography differs dramatically from film is that if you use up your memory card on a trip, or anywhere away from your computer, you can't go to a drug store or supermarket and buy more film. You are done shooting unless you have (or manage to buy) another memory card. So I now carry both a spare battery (batteries in your case) and a spare memory card--niether is bulky and without either you are dead in the water.

This does bring up one other consideration. It seems like the variety of these memory cards is proliferating. I now have one type (CompactFlash) for my camera but I also own a PDA which happens to be a Sony and uses another type (the Memory Stick). These days there are other kinds of devices that use them as well as the wonderful little "thumb" drives for computers. Rather than own a drawer full of different types (and having to put out the cash for them), it sure would be nice if they all used the same flash memory card. So, if you own another device that uses flash memory, or plan to get one such as a "smart phone", you might want to lean toward a camera that uses the same type of card. My PDA would work very well with your camera .

quote:

Originally posted by Adjudicator

Well. This will be a short thread, indeed. I just did the dirty deed & purchased the beast... Should arrive Tuesday or so... Bought from TigerDirect; been buying 'puter related stuff from them a long time now.
Settled for a 128mb stick, 'fer now.

I'd still wander down to CostCo or Sam's ASAP and get another memory card (I know CostCo at least, carries a variety of them and I doubt they'd be cheaper anywhere else). I suspect someday you'll regret it if you don't. I'm still upset that I ran out of memory the day I visited Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

quote:

Originally posted by BT

quote:

Originally posted by Adjudicator

Well. This will be a short thread, indeed. I just did the dirty deed & purchased the beast... Should arrive Tuesday or so... Bought from TigerDirect; been buying 'puter related stuff from them a long time now.
Settled for a 128mb stick, 'fer now.

I'd still wander down to CostCo or Sam's ASAP and get another memory card (I know CostCo at least, carries a variety of them and I doubt they'd be cheaper anywhere else). I suspect someday you'll regret it if you don't. I'm still upset that I ran out of memory the day I visited Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Oh yes. U bet. Sam's Club in my area. Plan 2 buy another 128mb stick probably next week there, & probably a 256mb stick soon afterwards. Depending on what I do with said item (brother has said same has an interest factor of +/- three weeks...)

We shall see. Really interested in doing some reviews in my area. Once again, we shall see.

One important area that we didn't comment on above is what to do with the photos once you shoot them..not just for temporary storage, but for editing and final storage.
I don't use a laptop or PDA for temporary storage, having the 3 CF cards that total almost 700 megs of space has worked for me up to now. I may add another card if We start to plan a longer roadtrip in the future.
I shoot most of my photos in the Largest siz/resolution I can. This gives me about 125 photo's on a 256 meg card. The size of each is a whopping 31x24 inches initially. I upload these onto my home computer as soon as practical. Each photo is about 3 megs give or take a little in size.
I then use Photoshop 6 to edit, crop, and size the photo into something more manageable and more suited to what I want to do with it. I haven't learned all the tricks of Photoshop yet, so it is just basic editing that I do.
This gives me a finished photo of 5x7 or 6x8 inch size in JPEG format and about 350 kb of space. So far that has been the best all around thing for me...but it certainly is not the only way to handle the post-camera digital photo media.
I store these on an 80 Gig Hard Drive...making a CD backup of the photofiles every few months.
So maybe one of you techno-weinies can tell me a better way to do things??? (Please!)

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen


One important area that we didn't comment on above is what to do with the photos once you shoot them..not just for temporary storage, but for editing and final storage.
I don't use a laptop or PDA for temporary storage, having the 3 CF cards that total almost 700 megs of space has worked for me up to now. I may add another card if We start to plan a longer roadtrip in the future.
I shoot most of my photos in the Largest siz/resolution I can. This gives me about 125 photo's on a 256 meg card. The size of each is a whopping 31x24 inches initially. I upload these onto my home computer as soon as practical. Each photo is about 3 megs give or take a little in size.
I then use Photoshop 6 to edit, crop, and size the photo into something more manageable and more suited to what I want to do with it. I haven't learned all the tricks of Photoshop yet, so it is just basic editing that I do.
This gives me a finished photo of 5x7 or 6x8 inch size in JPEG format and about 350 kb of space. So far that has been the best all around thing for me...but it certainly is not the only way to handle the post-camera digital photo media.
I store these on an 80 Gig Hard Drive...making a CD backup of the photofiles every few months.
So maybe one of you techno-weinies can tell me a better way to do things??? (Please!)

[|)]Get a Mac. Use i-photo (that way, you can make yourself nice little slide shows complete with inspirational music and store 'em on CD's.)

No Chance on the Mac, BT...I have the slide/music program here on the Windows and Paintshop and a bunch of other graphic programs. Won't get into the debate over Apple/Windows...Just was glad when I retired out of a school system that used the MAC !
Even CD's are a hassle when you are talking a couple of thousand photo's. My Rail Photo Library is a little over 2200 photos on file now Thats a lot of CD space ! Thats why I store the mainline files on harddrive. I back them up with smaller subsets on CD.