Digital Camera's

[Grant]

Planning on buying a digital camera for fishing use and wanted some ideas on what is good bang for buck. Have borrowed a 1.1MP digital for all my other posts pics so i thought this might be a good camera.
3MP Digimaster Surfer $250 brand new 1 year warranty 2x zoom
Any help welcomed

[yogi]

Hi,
I recently got an Minolta Dimage E203 for $300. I think it's the last of a discontiuned model that's why it's so cheap. 3 X Optical zoom, 2 MP. I would advise you to check if the camera you are looking at has Optical zoom, I really would bother with the digital zoom part.

I'm not familiar with the brand that you mentioned but I still think it's a better idea to stick to the better known names because the optics in the lenses of the cameras is very important. Having played around with SLR cameras for many years, you'll realise the importance of a good lense.

Try looking for the lower range or older models from the better brands like Canon, Nikon, etc.

I guess that you would probably be using the camera for fishing photos and snapshots? In that case, I think a 2MP to 3MP camera should suffice. They also require less memory space to store the smaller photos and you can take heaps of photos before you need to transfer them to a PC. Mine takes 157 photos at the highest resolution with 64MB. It takes someone who's really triggerhappy to take that many shots in one session.

The other thing to consider is the type of memory cards that the camera uses and the cost of the extra cards that you need. The one that come with cameras usually have smaller memory size.

Hope this helps.

Yogi

[Grant]

cheers yogi given me some things to think about. Having a more detailed look in some mail catalogues and 300 bucks seems like a sweet spot for a brand name 3MP camera. Would a 2MP camera with better lens/zoom etc take better photos than a lesser quality 3MP??

[yogi]

Hi Grant,
I would say that a 2MP camera with good lense/zoom will take a better picture than a 3MP with inferior lense and digital zoom. The MP will matter if you decide to print out the photos and enlarge them. Else I think it's better to stick to a brand name camera with good lense/zoom. IMHO.


Yogi

[Mattj]

G'day Grant

Have to agree with Yogi, my work has a 2.1MP with a 10x optical zoom. Optical zoom is where it counts. I took it up on a scenic flight and the quality of photos/zooming was unbelievable. I'm no expert, but I keep hearing about optical zoom. Sure the new 4-5 MP might have excellent resolution but have a price tag to match.

[dan_WA]

That's a great shot of a nice looking area Matt;
any hints on where it is ?

[Mattj]

Wylie Head, Esperance

[Grant]

Cheers guys 2MPwith high optical zoom seems the go and going to check out what I can find.