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Looking for a "beginner's" digicam

S

Suck_My_Deck

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 14, 2002
Messages
9,526
I need exactaly what the title says. I've wanted a Digital camera for a long time, but I'm finally to the point where I actully feel like spending money on one :D. I mostly just want to take pictures of car projects and the occasional odd photograph of people/places/stuff. I don't need something insane, something preferably in the $150 dollar range as I don't need uber high quality because I'm probably not going to be doing much (if any) printing. An optical zoom however is a MUST because I know how crappy digital zooms are. I've got a few quesntions too:

Whats the diffrence between CMOS and CCD? I know that the acronyms stand for (Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor and Charge Coupled Device) , but not what they mean. Someone basicaly explained to to me once that "CMOS is old, and CCD is newer and better" is that true? Whats the real diffrence?

Is there any real (picture) quality diffrence between brands, or will say an Olympus 2.5MP camera take pictures as well as a Fujifilm 2.5MP camera?

Anyway, what can you guys recommend to me?
 
There isn't a quality issue between brands overall like say Canon vs. Nikon vs. Sony. I think you would be most happy with a canon A70. It is a little over 150 but worth it. It works great as a point and shoot but also has some manual controls if you felt like progressing more in photography. Here are some of the main things you might be interested in:

3 MP
3x zoom
Excellent picture quality

If not the A60 is great and less than 150.

Here are some samples taken with the A70. http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/?gallery=canona70_samples/
 
I also was in the market not to long ago. After a few suggestions from the great people on the boards here....I chose the Canon Powershot A80. I love it. It is more than your budget and is more camera than you need, so I was going to suggest the A60(2mp, 3x Optical), A70(3.2mp, 3xOptical), A75(3.2mp, 3xOptical. If I am not mistaken I beleive they are the same body but with different inards.

For me, the A80 is great. I got it from a Ritz Camera B&M store since they offer a full refund within 10 days if you don't like the camera, also there replacement program can't be beat. I paid more there then I found it online, namely DigitalFoto.com.

Anyway, I suggest you take a few cameras for a spin at a Ritz near you and see what you like or need.
 
In addition to the low end Canons there is also a low end model from Nikon called the Coolpix 2200. It costs about the same as the Canon but it is only 2 MP instead of 3. Nice picture quality though. But they all offer decent picture quality across the board...at your price level there is practically no difference between an Olympus and a Canon, or Pentax and Nikon, or what have you. They are all made by companies who have a least a decent reputation in photography and so they all know how to pack punch into a small design.

As for CMOS vs CCD, without getting into too much technical details, they pretty much yield the same type of quality in small compact cameras. Both were developed in the 1960s and 1970s, but for a long time small CMOS chips were used for "shitty" cameras like those on inexpensive early-model webcams and pen-sized digital cameras. CMOS sensors are small and cheap and power-efficient. CCDs were typically used for high-end optics in high performance digital cameras and in the medical field, for instance. They offer, at least in very complex operations, better optics than CMOS chips. CMOS sensors in general are very SMALL while CCD sensors are large.

Now, however, CMOS chips have been greatly improved and are even being put into digital SLR cameras that once were the territory of CCDs, rather than stuck in webcams. Many dSLRs and other high end digital cameras today now use CMOS chips, including the Canon D30 and I think the 300D. The difference is that in these high end digital cameras, the CMOS chips are very large, many times larger than CMOS sensors in small digital compacts. They are "high end CMOS" sensors with amazing quality compared to what many people thought CMOS could yield.

BUT, they're pretty much the same in compact digital cameras. I wouldn't worry too much about that.
 
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