Sunday, March 2, 2008

Digital Camera Advice

Hi, Ladies! I will be buying a digital camera before our trip. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks so much.
  • cost?
  • brand?
  • features?

(BTW, I am no longer a blog virgin. Yay!) This blog stuff is really COOL!

5 comments:

Clink Sisters said...

Bernice - WELCOME to the blog world. You did great.

bah said...

Hi Bernice,
I tried to post a comment but was unsuccessful. This one is sort of a test. I did email you my thoughts on buying a digital camera.
bah

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info, Barb. It was very helpful. My "great cousin" is also going to give me some tips later.

Clink Sisters said...

Bernice - let me give you the information on what I purchased.

I got a Sony CyberShot DSC-T10Optical 3x 7 megapixels that I got in the spring of 2007 for my trip to Greece. It was the last year's model so I got it for a little off at Staples. it came with a battery, charger, felt cover, wrist strap, and cable that allows me to input into different types of terminals, and possibly 1 2GB card (but I don't think it did because usaually the cameras only give 512 MB cards or something smaller. I now have 2 - 2 GB cards and 1 - 4 GB card. I got the 4 GB on sale in the past few months. I have NOT yet removed any of the pictures from any of the cards yet. One is full but the others still have space available. I have taken several trips (cruises and Irish Festivals over the summer and Christmas). Before we go on our cruise, I will download everything and wipe them clean. In the book it says it has an internal memory of 56 MB. I don't know what this is used for -- unless it is for the settings.

What I like about my camera is that it is about the size of a credit card and about as thick as 4-5 credit cards put togehter. You must use a Sony CyberShot battery (of which I have 2) -- I don't thin you can substitute another "like" battery for the one it needs. I told you why I have 2 -- for those days when you are out sightseeing all day, I can put one in the camera to start and if it starts to run down, I have a backup I can use. This might be important on this specific trip where we have days that can be 8 hours (average) long. In the book it says when shooting still images, the batter life is approximately 125 minutes for 250 photos; 240 minutes for 4800 images being VIEWED, and 110 minutes when shooting movies.

In the book, it says 2GB set at a 4x6 photo can take up to 2250-3798 depending on other settings. I would assume the 4 GB would be double. They don't cover that size in the book. For a standard move, I can get 1 hr 30 min on a 2 GB.

I can do movies and still photos with this camera. When I do movies, though, it takes up space on the card so it reduces the number of photos I can have.

I have lots of settings:
--I can set the flash for several different settings including off which may be important in some of the buildings we go into in Europe -- you can take photos only if your flash if OFF.
--It has a self-timer so I can get into the picture but I have never used it.
--I can set it to do marco / magnifying glass for shooting close up photos.
--There is an anti-blur which is automatically on. I can adjust the exposure but I have not used this.
--I can delete images anytime.
--I can hook it up with the cables to play on my TV or download to the PC
--With my printer, I can simply insert the disk into the slot and look at the photos.
--Red eye reduction when taking pictures
--Sharpness, contrast settings
--setr it to take multiple pictures with a frame interval (I have not used this -- like you would use it for sporting events)
--I can download music to the videos ON the camera (but I download to my PC and attach the music)
--Can set a date and time on each picture
--It's compatible with ME, 2000, XP home, or XP professiona or Mac OS 9.1/9.2/Mac OS X(v10.1 to v10.4) but the movie part is NOT compatible with Mac

As I told you, I am going to buy a monopod (a "single" tripod) to help reduce my shakey movie taking. I am still working on the wild swings from left to right and vice-a-versa. I don't think they have anything for that yet!

Happy camera shopping. Hope this helps and gives you some good questions to ask.

Clink Sisters said...

Bernice - I paid under $200 for my camera. Look for last year's model...it's well worth it after you ask about the "upgrades" for this year's model. As I said, I bought mine at Staples. Don't overlook other stores that might sell cameras -- not just the Best Buys.