My blog is down, but I'm coming up with an even better one. I notice when I look at other sites with their own pictures instead of stock ones or stuff from Wikipedia, it gives a down home feel. Look at Adam's blog. I want to at least be able to do that sometimes when I need to for my own site. Plus, I'm married without children, but we go to parties with friends, travel sometimes, and even probably want pictures for insurance, just in case.

I know it's insane complicated how a camera works, and I really don't care about knowing all the formulas. My question is if someone can recommend a good one. And in general if I'm only gonna learn a few things, I know megapixels is most important, but what are the other super basics I should know about so I don't waste a lot of money?

Megapixels are not important for what you talked about wanting to do. Lately people assume 1024*768 for web display; if you want to use the entire area for a single photo, that means you need about 750,000 pixels. It's very simple math. I print a lot, and sometimes pretty large, so I'm in a different boat. I use a 13 megapixel camera body; that's 4368*2912. I have close to 20 GB of memory chips for it. When I use an image for the web, I throw 99 % of the pixels away. If all I ever did was shoot for the web, it would be pretty wasteful.

Also, any modern camera you buy is going to be 6 or more million pixels. The difference between 6 and 8 mpx isn't that much. You can't buy a camera that won't be enough in resolution terms, so forget megapixels and look for features you'll actually use.

Probably the most important thing is to head to the store and try a few. See which ones are most comfortable in your hand and in your pocket. If it's so bulky you left it at home, it's not useful. After that, it's a good idea to look at the images they produce. Just like different types of films were optimized to different tastes, digital cameras are the same.

I bought a Kodak EasyShare Z700 on sale at Walmart last year and absolutely fell in love with it.
I'm far from being a camera expert, like Forrest, but this camera does everything I want it to.

It's an excellent point-and-shoot camera for noobs, but it also has advanced manual controls if
you want to customize shots, like exposure, aperture, shutter speeds, and ISO equivalents.
It has hardly any shutter lag like some of my previous digital cameras. Great for action shots.

It also has pretty good battery life. I've seen reviews that say battery life is average with this
camera, but that's using standard 1600 mAh NiMH rechargeables. I use 2500 mAh NiMH batteries.

I paid $250 for this camera but I've seen it much cheaper online. Overall, I highly recommend it.

Forrest,

Is there Video recorders that can be used to make single snap?
Sometimes it's pain in the a** to go over whole video to find a few good pics
not to mention it's time consuming.

I would love to buy something universal that can do both


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Interestingly, most digital video cameras will also do stills at pretty good quality for the web, and most of what you'd think of as still cameras will shoot video lately. A lot of the main ones - Canon, Nikon, Olympus - are limited to a few minutes, but I think a lot of the Sonys will shoot as long as you have memory to store the video on. They tend to shoot pretty low res, 640x480 and down, so they don't take that much space. The two Olympus digicams I've had were pretty mediocre at video, though.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

most digital video cameras will also do stills at pretty good quality for the web

Any thoughts which is better:
Hard Drive, DVD etc. formats?

It seems like they come up with something new every month


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I have a Sony digital8 handycam that takes decent still shots, but they're only
slightly better than my cellphone pics. It's also a pain in the butt to retrieve them
from the tape.

My digital camera I mentioned in my last post will take about 10 minutes of video
footage if I empty the 2gig SD card in it. As expected, the lighting & resolution
is pitiful.

The old saying "use the right tool for the right job" applies to photography as well.

Forrest,

Are you using one of those $6,000 - $8,000 Pro type cameras?






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Well ... I spent $3,000 on the camera body, with no lens. The four lenses I have right now, I paid about another $3,000 combined; there was another $1,300 zoom that was stolen, and a $450 prime I sold. So while there's still plenty to be jealous of in the pro cameras - 22 megapixels instead of 13, 10 frames per second instead of 3, wifi and gps - probably anybody else would think I'm insane to even hesitate to say yes.

If it comes down to gear, lighting is the most important, although I don't use lighting gear, but then after that optics have more influence on photo quality than anything else. The last camera body I had before this one was a lot less professional, but with mostly the same lenses, the pictures look pretty similar; the new one is just able to capture a wider range of them.

Now the trouble comes from the fact that most compact cameras - film or digital - have a built in lens and that's that. They're almost all pretty good, but if you look at two photos side by side, one with a compact, all in one camera and another through a lens that cost thousands of dollars and doesn't even zoom ... it won't be much of a contest. On the other hand, most people don't do A/B comparisons like that; a pretty good lens is going to take pretty good pictures. There's always something better, but there's also good enough. Unfortunately that's subjective and different from person to person.

But here's an interesting comparison. I used to have a D60, a 6 megapixel that came out in early 2001, and I've replaced it with a 5D, a 13 megapixel camera that came out in mid 2006. In computer terms that's millions of years apart. Here's one photo from each, both shot through the same lens ... can you tell which came out of the better camera?

Nice pictures.

Well for what you are describing, and the lack of experience, you want a pocket size point & shoot camera.

now you need to "practice" taking or creating images by composing an image and -=[click]=-

The more you practice this crude method, the better you will become at it and then a whole new world of questions and a way of seeing will beging to develop.

It is extremelly easy to make money with a camera, any camera, but it is a lot of hard work.

you have to put one foot on the rung of a ladder, or a step to get to the next step... !! take the steps and you will learn.. .. quite well !!

Cool cameras! And the pictures looks very awesome! Canon Powershot SD 750 I think really rocks...

Originally Posted by KanGaro_Toure

i use this cam it's pic quality is good and prize also reasonable

I know it's insane complicated how a camera works, and I really don't care about knowing all the formulas. My question is if someone can recommend a good one. And in general if I'm only gonna learn a few things, I know megapixels is most important, but what are the other super basics I should know about so I don't waste a lot of money?

Any digital camera with an optical zoom lense 3.1 MP or better will take all the snapshot sized quality photos you need. Even those will be a much higher resolution than you need for use on the web.

The cannon powershot is best buy rated by Consummer Reports and is about $150. I bought the A530 model for my wife about a year ago. If she can use it in point and shoot mode anyone can. I personally prefer my older kodak model for control purposes and its slightly more slr size.

Whatever brand you buy I do suggest tou buy a card reader and use that to transfer the images to your computer. Sometimes the shell extensions create problems. With the card reader in is all operating system doing the work. I had a real mess when I tried to run the kodak and cannon software on the system. An internal card reader solved all my problems. You can buy usb driven external units also.

You can have your photos printed far cheaper than you can print them yourself. You can upload them from home and then pick them up or have them mailed to you.

I'm with Colby, except that I bought the Powershot A520 for myself about 8 months ago. I'm not a photographic expert by any means (I don't know what SLR is, I don't know about all the other stuff, and I don't want to)...I just want something I can aim and click and away I go. I can edit my own pictures with Pornoshop, so I don't need something to do that for me...I just need something that stays relatively focused and works.