Digital Cameras (again)

[Mark]

Hey Everyone,

I know that digital cameras have been brought up on this thread time and time again but I thought I would bring it up again anyways since so many people seem to know so much about these things.

Basically I am looking at getting a digital camera, both for myself and as a gift for someone, and I would like to know what you guys think the best "personal use" digital camera is.

It's not a strict definition, but I'm looking for something that maximizes functionality and useful features, while keeping the cost at a reasonable level. When I say reasonable level I'm thinking around $300 Cdn but there is room to move in both directions (preferably down!).

Thanks in advance.

[gbrown]

$300 Cnd Hmmm... what's that, buck-eighty in good-old-US dollars? (Ref: "Candian Bacon" cameo role for Dan Akroyd as the Ontario Highway Officer)

I've been pretty happy with my new Nikon... a bit out of your price range, but I know they have some less expensive models that don't have as many whistles-and-bells. Of course, as with all camera purchases, the FIRST question is: what do you want to shoot with the camera? THAT should be the major consideration.

[Ted Sullivan]

Digital cameras? What are talking about? You mean they have the Internet on computers now???

Sounds kinda high-tech to me Mark...

[Corey]

Define your need. At that price point just try to find something which at least meets your main need.

For example if you want a good lens, which is probably the number one thing affecting image quality in my opinion, then try to find the camera at $300 which has the best lens and ignore everything else. That is probably what I would reccomend personally. You might not end up with a bunch of high tech features but at least you'll be able to snap a sharp pic.

If you have some other desire instead though like storage capacity or battery life or whatever, then find the one which has that. A decent lense probably costs Nikon/Canon/Sony about $300 just to put in a model so it's unlikely you'll get anything great in this price range but I'm confident there's some reasonable stuff around.

You know what the very best way to do this is? You guys have lots of friends, ask around until you find one that is in the business or close to the business. Those people will have the very best knowledge on this question because they are up on what's new, know which brands/models get returned a lot, and which ones sell the most. Good luck Mark, looking forward to lots of cat pics. STRIPPIE!!!!

P.S. Another good choice, go to London Drugs. Lots of cameras, great price point, superb service/return policy, and the staff actually know what they are talking about. Even if you don't buy one there it's a great 15 minute education session on what you should be buying, where you get to actually to see the cameras and check them out. Whatever you do make sure the store you buy from has a no hassle return policy. Future shop has a no-questions-asked 10-15(?) day policy. You can buy it, try it out for a week, and if it's not right for you, return it. That's why I bought my LCD there, and it *paid off* because the first one they sold me had a bad pixel. Future shop swapped it for a good one next day, no probs. Most chain stores wouldn't have, they would have required it to have x amount of bad pixels for a return, not just one.

Anyhow that's some ideas. DODGER!!!!

[gbrown]

"London Drug"??? Like "Boots". Hmmm... the airfare would really kick up the price of the camera, eh?

What Corey says about the lens is spot-on. I do a lot of macro work with my minerals and having a decent close-up setting is important. Here's an auction I've got up on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2289617678

Click on the image in the lower-right to see what sort of a close up I can get. Mind you, this isn't a full resolution image...just bigger than the one on the front page of the auction. (Hey... ya wanna buy a rock???) By the way, that panarama image at the top of the page was made by stiching together 15 VERY high resolution images. That's really about a 320 degree field of view.

(( You have GOT to love that multi-tab feature in Firefox. It made browsing for the eBay auction really easy... just opened up another tab and put in the URL)).

[eric_darling]

Hey Gary...

I think it's "London" as in London, Ontario, Canada. But that's just a guess - I could be the donkey's pajamas on that one.

And agreed on Firefox - the tab thing is something that the Safari browser on OS X has really got me hooked on now.

[Corey]

I'm not sure how the London Drugs franchise got it's name, good brand though... From their site I see there's only 60 of them and none in Ontario where Mark is, oops! Seems to me I do remember a "Boots Drugs" from Edmonton when I was a kid, just baaaaaaarely though... None up here now anyhow.

[eric_darling]

Well lookee there... It's a western Canada thing, and a true enigma, since their corporate web site provides few clues.

[Corey]

Sweet! I'll check it out some time and see if I can piece together a story, seems like it might be interesting given the demise of all their competition over the past 20 years. When I was a kid there were at least 2-3 dozen different independent drug store chains in Edmonton, now there are like 3.

Here in Cowtown the last one just fell. The city archived their famous landmark "rocket shaped" sign last week for posterity.

[eric_darling]

Corey, that does sound like an interesting story. A good topic for a documentary/historical piece. I bet there's a lesson or two to be gleaned, and some interesting strokes of luck (both good and bad) in there to boot. If you get around to that, let us know!

[Corey]

Will do.

Local TV and CBC attempted to do a mini-doc on the drug store closures but everything they do comes out as pure garbage. To give you an idea of where the CBC is at right now, today the "National Art News" leads with "Apple iTunes Downloads now available!". ???

AND here in Canada our tax dollars *pay* for that crap!!! Isn't that outrageous? My tax money paying for a garbage Apple iTunes ad in the same week that they announced over one million Canadian children are not getting enough food to eat. It's enough to make you cry.

iTunes ads are a higher priority than feeding our kids, jeez... Now *there's* a documentary. Just wait until I get my camera. Just wait.

BTW not for nothing but Canada is chock full of shockingly talented artists from every single imaginable sector who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of excellence, and who can't get any national press *ever* due to these iTune ads and like-minded garbage. Leadership at CBC is confoundingly poor quality and has consistently been so for decades. It's an old boys network which carefully protects itself at all costs.

And to boot, the crappier Canadian programming gets, the more awards they hand out to each other. The CBC news awards itself a few dozen Gemini awards ever year, often for programs with *very* low ratings. Mike Bullard is a good example. He won a "Gemini" award and I guarantee you that you cannot find a single person anywhere who doesn't believe that his show was the worst, unfunniest, most untalented piece of garbage to ever grace the airwaves. I've never seen anything like it. Truly and phenomenally bad in every imaginable way. Even *he* used to admit it, it became a bit where he would spend the first ten minutes joking about how poor their ratings were. ???

To be fair I should mention that the band, "The Orin Isaacs Band" was superb despite everything.

[eric_darling]

I honestly can't wait to see what you come up with. It's guaranteed to make the rest of us think, at the very least.

But take it from one experienced American - if your public funding for television network programming were ever to be diminished, it would probably not be better directed. Corporate interests rule.

[Corey]

Corporate interests couldn't possibly rule anymore there than they do right now, believe me. Not sure if you've been following our "Sponsorship Scandal" inquiry but suffice to say it really doesn't make any difference either way, you're right. You're trading in "stiff A" for "stiff B" at best. Either way the squeaky wheel gets the gravy...

To be clear I have no beef with corporations, there are tons of fine, admirable people running respectable, decent corporations. (such as Indigo Rose) Seriously, you know the story so you know I'm not exaggerating... Nothing wrong with profit. I'm actually pro-corporate. People who earn reasonable profits via hard work and ingenuity are downright heroic. Those folks are the my only hope actually. In a world where people like that made up the majority I can guarantee things would be good for everyone. My only problem arises on an individual level with people who operate without conscience. I'll leave it at that.

I'm going to save up for that new Sony now BTW. Seems like a neat camera, no? I've recently gotten my finances organized so now I'm systematically making some efforts toward that camera. Shouldn't be too long.

Entertaining sidenote, just caught episode 3 of season two of The Apprentice. Hee. They couldn't possibly have found 18 less qualified people. The one I saw was on "marketing" and it was fun because it treated me to about ten of the worst marketing ideas I've ever heard. Not just standard bad either, *spectacularly* bad. Pour "suds" into the East river to make it look like toothpaste? (???) I wouldn't trust that group with a newspaper route.

I especially enjoyed when the girls showed up in a minivan to "pick up" over 800 cases of toothpaste 3 minutes before the warehouse closes fully expecting all to go well. HAR! What a mockery. Then the guy files for chapter 11. HEE!

[gbrown]

Speaking of the CBC... anyone interested in some MP3's of old CBC radio shows circa 1971? I've got a bunch of 33 1/3 LP's that were sent to my college FM station. Anyone for "Rod & Charles Show"?

[Corey]

What's the content of that show?