Digicams

[Mario Mendoza]

I recently picked up a Canon S2 IS. These are great cameras in the sense that they have many features and not a huge price tag. 12X (optical) zoom. (forget digital zoom as it's pretty much useless on any camera) 5mp, which is sufficient and it is also image stabilised, which is good for low light and anything with a decent zoom.

It's got a 30fps 640 x 480 movie mode which looks as good as my mates new camcorder. You can also zoom and use image stabiliser during movie recording!

Only major drawbacks are:

The size. It's not what you'd call pocketable....

And the images get a bit noisy at high ISO, but you'll prolly find most non DSLR cams do cos of their small sensor.

Anyhow, not a bad camera. Pretty good allrounder for times when I don't feel like lugging my 20d and equip with me.

Checkout the review Canon review on dpreview.com

my 2cents worth.......

I don't work for Canon BTW.....

[Mario Mendoza]

Soz, forgot to mention not to get caught up in the megapixel war.

Just cos one camera is 7 megapixel and the other is 5, doesn't mean that one will take a better quality image than the other.

This is basically just a good marketing tactic IMO......

[seventytwo]

Qualtily no. but the image size of the 7mp camera will be larger and will take more inlarging before it becomes pixelated than the 5 mp camera

[oldraven]

....but Raven....you mentioned you had a problem printing images taken from a 3.2MP camera, and then went on to say anything less than 6.0MP would be useless for printing.  (Your most recent comment compared 3.2 v 8.2)That's a hell of a leap you just made.

From personal experience, I've had both 4MP cameras and 5MP cameras.  Both have resulted in great prints from both home inkjet printer and camera development outlets.  To suggest that anyone should ignore cameras with less than 6.0MP, because of inability to produce quality prints...is totally wrong.

This is not opinion....this is fact.

I'd hate to see anyone outlay more than they need to.....or more than they can afford.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, the 3.2 vs. 8.2 was my personal experience. The 6.0 was a recomendation from a camera tech. (who doesn't make commision, so he wasn't trying to upsell me. I didn't even buy my camera there)

I'll admit, this guy wasn't exactly a solid source of information, so can I take my lumps for repeating something without validating it? Absolutely.

I'll chime in with the Canon talk. IMO, you can't beat the value and feature per dollar aspect of a Canon.

[mattson]

it only takes a 2 megapixel camera to do a 6x4 photo... and whether or not it's grainy will depend on the camera's iso sensitivity.

if you check out dpreview.com (not dcreview as above) you'll see their in depth reviews will comment on individual cameras 'grain' factor.

e.g. Olympus SP-310 @ ISO 100 -vs- Canon SD550 ISO 100:

Olympus

Canon

as you go up the iso scale (usually for lower light photos etc) you'll see the noise increases dramatically

Olympus @ ISO 400

Canon @ ISO 400

now compared to the Canon EOS 5D @ ISO 400:

The 5D is a $5000 camera mind you... so that's where you see the change in quality.

Good luck finding a camera in your budget.. like someone said... go to harvey norman and test test test... then buy else where

cheers,

Matt

[Turbo6man]

6"x4" prints on my Canon i560 from a Canon A40 2.0 MP are absolutely like from a photo shop. A4 does get quite grainy but laminating them actually hides it a bit and I can still do reasonable posters at A4.

My son and other people I know got sucked into the Kodak high megapixel for low price syndrome - DON'T DO IT! Their lenses are crap and the big image size does not compensate. They will still print sh!thouse.

Go for a Canon or Olympus at about 4.0 MP and not less than 3X optical zoom and you'll find plenty to choose from at less than $400. I just picked up an Olympus D595 for $299 as a xmas gift for someone - better than my own damn camera which I paid $699 for about 4 years ago!!!