New digital cameras?

[Kyle Peterson]

Hi, I was wondering if some of you could give me some recommendations on good digital cameras that are at or under $550.00. I would like to get something that:

a) Has a very good picture quality
b) Has a good optical zoom
c) Is fairly easy to use

Thank you for any suggestions that might be given. I greatly appreciate it.

Kyle

[James Dodge]

Canon G2 or G3; recently reduced in price.

[James Dodge]

Addendum: <http://dpreview.com/>

[Tango45512]

The Nikon Coolpix 5700 street price is approaching your price range. It is an excellent camera and feels like a real camera. The Olympus cameras in the range are also excellent. I am really (and have been for 20 years) an Olympus man. Their exposure system has always been great. The 5700, however, with its 8X optical zoom is superior for use in outdoor action photos and in many macro applications.

There are really so many good digital camera options in this price range that you really need to look at the particular options available and see which are appropriate to your own personal needs.

Good Luck, John

[DOMTEK]

Yes dpreview a great sight to do some figuring. I would also reccomend getting a camera that uses compact flash since the media is so cheap and you can get 512 MB, 1GB, ...sizes and even the micro drives.

[dave milbut]

[url]www.cnet.com[/url] is a great place to compare different models side by side, feature to feature, once you start to narrow down your search. they have a great search engine and allow you to bring up multiple user selected cameras to help you wade through the chaff to get to the wheat.

[Kyle Peterson]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I really appreciate the time taken in giving all the responses.

Thanks again,
Kyle

[JohnSWhite]

Kyle
What do you want to use it for? Digital is great for snaps of the family when you have limited budget, but a great landscape or other picture is very disappointing if you want to enlarge the image beyond 10x8.
I have an Olympus 4megapixel snapper and once I'd seen the results (some of which were poor because of user error! hands up) I bought a fifty year old Rolleiflex medium format. I let the digital come in once the photograph is in the bag.
John

[nospam]

I just wish Olympus would move above 4X optical zoom with a high MP camera.
They are beginning to be left behind. This from someone that has never own
anything but Olympus digital cameras.

R

[nospam]

The Nikon 5700 would be an awesome camera and hard to be if it wasn't so
slow and weak in low light focusing. Two things that could have been easily
fixed if the designer had been using all 10% of his brain instead of the 5%
he was using at the time. If you don't mind slow and poor low light focusing
it is an awesome camera.

R

[Kyle Peterson]

Thanks again for the recommendations.

Kyle

[Guero]

I have been using a Canon Powershot S30 as a complement to my regular 35mm equipment and I'm very happy with the results. But this camera is only 3.3 Mp so I recently upgraded to the Powershot S50 and the quality is very impressive. This is a 5 Mp camera that is easy to use, small in size, and packed with features (if you care to use them). Enlargements up to 11-14 are nice but I would not go much higher since I'm very picky about having tack sharp images.It costs around $500 and I would encourage you to check out review at [url]www.dpreview.com[/url] to see what actual users say.

good luck

H

[Kyle Peterson]

Thanks again.

Kyle

[Cheesefood]

I really like my Olympus C-720, but I hear the C-730 is pretty good too. My 720 is a 3.0 mp 8x optical (3x digital, but I've never used it) nice sized lens. When used properly, I get nice sharp pictures. The effective size is (I believe) 1988 x 1500 (or somthing very close to that).

It's feature rich, but can be complicated for those who don't know much about photography and it takes a few seconds to focus, but you get really good pictures with bright colors, sharp lines and good resolution.

[Thee_DarkOverLord]

Howdy Cheesefeed, good to av ya back Dude.

[Cheesefood]

TDO, howzzit going, you dyslexic misspelling british freak!

[Thee_DarkOverLord]

its guong weely goode, who ar you calling dislexick? :-)

Thats harder than you think, when i try to misspell, I normaly end up getting it right.

[Hywel Harris]

I have had a Fuji S602 for just over a year and have been very pleased with
it. You need to decide what you want to use it for, though. I regret the
size of the Fuji though it does have nearly all the features I wanted. It
produces excellent prints up to 8x6 and good prints at 10x8. If you want to
print bigger wait a few months for the Fuji S7000 to hit the streets. This
is 6m native and 12meg interpolated with a decent zoom aswell.

My father has just bought a Canon A70 and is well pleased and by all
accounts produces excellent results and has had excellent reviews though
[url]www.dpreview.com[/url] havent got around to testing yet. I like its size, not much
bigger than a mobile phone so you can take it everywhere, and it has a good
range of manual controls.

Regards

Hywel Harris

"James Dodge" <dodjim@photoplusnet.com> wrote in message
news:1dea4645.1@WebX.la2eafNXanI...

> Canon G2 or G3; recently reduced in price.