My birthday is in 5 days, and I need to decide on a digital camera to buy. If you guys have any suggestions, it's greatly appreciated. Possibly personal experiences. I don't know. Well, this is basically what I want.

- The price must be $250.00 or less.
- I want atleast 3.0 megapixels
- Needs an optical zoom (preferably 3x or more)
- Small, slick, looks good
- Nice battery life

Thanks.

U should get a video camera that has a digital camera with it...as in it can do both....

Here ya go!

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Kodak%20Easyshare%20CX7530%20Digital%20Camera:1991440806:page=details;_ylt=Aurx8Jg4muxHgoMd87pP42znSHAD;_ylu=X3oDMTBsNXRqbmpuBF9zAzU3NjkwMzQzBHNlYwNiZ3NpYg--?clink=dmps/digital_camera_/ctx=mid:6,pid:1991440806,pdid:6,pos:11,spc:14489115,date:20050104,srch:kw,x:

buy it at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00022AVDM/qid=1104886934/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-photo/002-0246326-2136831?v=glance&s=photo&n=502394

I own this camera and I love it

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... o&n=507846

Here is a later model, that is better and still in your price range

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... o&n=507846

Ripper, the Olympus 300 is the one I was looking it.

I had it down to that and the Nikon Coolpix 3200. Can you give me details about the 300? Not specifications, but how good it is, battery life (on average), quality, etc? I think it comes with a recharable battery, which is something I like.

Can anyone else help me?

My friend bought a digital Camera off ebay. He said that he saved himself like 150 dollars. So if you still want to spend 300 dollars on your camara, you can probably get a camara that costs about 450 dollars on the regular market, if you but it off ebay.

Here's a link to one i just found right now

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 29795&rd=1


It has 10x optical zoom, 3.1 megapixels and it's only $229.50 US right now, it ends in 25 minutes.

Here's another one

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 75281&rd=1

It's canon 3.2 megapixel with 3x optical zoom

Finepix cameras are nice.

I have a Samsung s305 (something like that). It's about 3.2 megapixels...

I hate it. It takes great pictures, but it's very inefficient.

I've been through two cameras in the past 2 months. Some Samsung camera that I got for $97 bucks on Black Friday, and a Vivitar 4MP camera, which was also crapola. I need a good one now.

Battery life is good, I charge it and I can spend the whole day taking pictures no problem. The only to,e the battery died on me is when I forgot to charge it while I wa sin Toronto all weekend, it still lasted me basically two days. Just get int eh habit of charging the battery at night and you will never have a problem.

The quality of the pictures is raelly good, though you will want to get a memory card bugger then 16 MB, 16 MBonly holds around 35 pictures. I have the 256 MB card which can hold 300+ pictures.

The defualt setting takes pictures at a resolution of 2048 X 1536.

The xzoom works wonders, I took some really great shots from the CN tower in Canada, and I love the the closes to protect the lens so itis easy to store in your pocket and not that bulky at all.

I LOVE mine and highly recommend. My boyfriends parents, who are not ocmputer people at all, liked mine so much they went and bought one this weekend.

No flaws?

Go with Canons, they're the best in the digicam market (with Sony, but with them you pay 10-20% more for the name brand)...

Here is a good website with reviews:

http://www.dpreview.com/

I'd go with Canon PowerShot SD200 Digital Elph, simple, small and takes beautiful pictures... Given the money you want to spent, it is hard to beat the quality... It is a great camera to take with you everywhere, parties, school, etc.

Canon's many pros:

# Incredibly compact design
# Slim enough for any pocket or purse
# Beautifully built and all-metal construction
# Excellent color
# Manual (custom) white balance
# Very good resolution
# Good exposure and generally very reliable focus
# Good flash performance at short distances
# Very, very fast
# Good screen
# Excellent movie mode
# Nice handling and easy to use interface
# AF illuminator
# Excellent macro mode

You can read the rest here: Review for the SD300 (its big brother)

I've had it since March and so far I ampleased with it, its performed well for its price. I've used probably once or twice a month since I got it. I don't take that many pictures when I am around my house.

Iwishi t was a bit smaller, becaue I am picky about storing things in my pocket.

But I have no complaints.

Oh, Zing, so you know in the past 5-6 years I owned 7 digital cameras (D-SLRs included): 6 of them were Canons and was 1 Nikon...

What's the best Canon with the things I'm looking for, and the price range I need?

- The price must be $250.00 or less.

CHECK; SD200 is in about the range, around $250.00

http://www.dpreview.com/shop/merchants.asp?id=canon_sd200

Dell Store also has it for $255.00

- I want atleast 3.0 megapixels

CHECK; 3.2MP

- Needs an optical zoom (preferably 3x or more)

CHECK; 3x

- Small, slick, looks good

CHECK; Canons Digital Elph cameras are known for winning design awards

- Nice battery life

CHECK, average

User Reviews:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=canon_sd200

http://www.photographyreview.com/pscCameras/Digital,Cameras/3,Megapixel/Canon/PRD_328919_3098crx.aspx

As I said before, you cannot get a better "NEW" digital camera, IMHO, in the price range you're looking for...

I like that nice, 2 inch LCD.

More user reviews with some comparable competitors products suggested:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_PowerShot_SD200/4505-6501_7-31122720.html?tag=pdtl-list

You might also look at the Canon Powershot S410 for about the same price... It has a smaller screen (1.5"), higher resolution (4MP) and uses cheaper and slightly larger memory cards (CompactFlash I) vs. SD/MMC cards in the SD200... Also, SD200 (Sept '04 vs. Feb. '04 for S410) is a newer design, so its processing chip and algorithms might be slightly more refined for better picture quality and faster 'reaction time' (a.k.a. less noticeable shutter lag)...

get that kodak one its excatly what i have and works wonders seriously its very nice. I got it for 260 and its 5MP

Thanks, guys. I've narrowed it down to three cameras, and I'll let you know what happens.

Nikon Coolpix 3200




Olympus Stylus 300




Canon Powershot SD200

From the above options I'd go either with Olympus or Canon... The Nikon model is a bit lower than the two...

Zing, go to a local camera shop and try to play with the cameras and see how you like it... Take some pics, see how they appear on LCD (It won't necessarily give you any indication about the picture quality but i's nice to have a sharp, and big, LCD screen)...

If I can give you the last piece of advice, go to the http://www.dpreview.com, find similar models with full reviews for each manufacturer, you're looking to get and go into Samples and check the high-resolution samples for yourself (Many times there are similar pics, so you can directly compare the colors)...

It'll give you a good idea about the color (don't look at the resolution, look at the color, esp. reds and greens, and how do you like it... it is the most important subjective feature in liking or hating your camera), as every manufacturer has slightly different color...

(But that assumes that you have at least rudimentary calibrated monitor, if you look here: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd300/, scroll to the bottom of the screen and you'll see a 'grayscale' strip going from white (A) to black (Z) displaying various shades of grey in between... If you can see separately, you're fine... ):

Canon SD300 (practically the same color curve as SD200):

Samples

Olympus C-50 (the closest match, although C-50 has a bigger chip, meaning better color accuracy, but it is still OK to compare the samples):

Samples

Nikon 5200 (same as above, has a bigger CCD chip...):

Samples

PS: BOYFRESH, you need to learn how to wrap your url links, otherwise it throws the page formatting out... Use Name and it'll display Name, underlined as a hyperlink, so you can click on it instead of the loooong one... Thanks... ;);)

How is the Canon SD100?