What type of camera should I get if I want really good pictures?

Question

I don't understand the jargon of pixels... zoom... etc. and then again i don't want to spend 1000s of dollars.. I want a decent camera to take good pics for my own personal use. This would be my first camera that i will purchase.

Answer 1

Kodak EasyShare C310 Digital Camera, it is cheap and best for novice user. Apart of it, it is digital camera and you can see images on computer also and save on CD also. Price is $62.00 - $119. You can see more details of it on link below, if you are intrested and compare with other ones. Apart of it you can purchase it online on yahoo by using this link.

Answer 2

There are several things you must answer before I can give you an accurate answer to your question: How much effort are you willing to put into your photography? How much money do you want to spend? Are you wanting digital or film?
Film is the best. Digital is coming close, but you still cannot beat film for overall quality. In order to get the same results with digital as you do with 100 ASA film, you need about a 25megapixel camera, and they do not exist yet. You can get an excellent film SLR (single lens reflex) for just a couple hundred. A Canon Rebel is a great way to start, but if you have some experience, I would suggest going for the Elan.
If you want digital, I still suggest going with an SLR. I am a big Canon fan...it is all I use in my studio work... something like the 30D ($1500) or the Digital Rebel ($800) are good choices.
Your lens is really going to be the deciding factor in the overall quality of your pictures. The smaller the physical size of the lens, the lower the overall quality will be. This is because small lenses need much more light to get a proper exposure. When you get a bigger lens, also called "faster" you will have much more versatility and less dependancy upon a flash unit.
If you are going digital, the two elements you want to concentrate on are the pixel count and the optical zoom. For both of these, the bigger the number, the better off you are.
Digital zoom is worthless. All a digital zoom does is enlarge the center of your picture and crop the outer edges. You can simulate this on your computer should the desire ever strike you. When you use a digital zoom, you decrease the quality of your picture exponentially.
I guess that is it in a nutshell... if you want more detailed information post another question or you can write to me at discrete photographer AT yahoo dot com, minus the spaces, of course! ;-)

Answer 3

Don't waste your time worrying about it! Just do a little research.

Fuji makes a good, solid digital camera for under $300 and in the vicinity of 5 mega pixels. If you are not going to blow up your pictures to 8X10 (and few do!) then you can go as low as 3 mega pixels. Go to Price Grabber.com or Bizrate.com on the Internet. Chose the price range in which you want to buy. Chose any camera in that price range. You should also find reveiws.Do an additional search on the Internet by entering the make and model of any camera you have identified, followed by "reviews" and you will get sites that have tested that camera and you can get expert opinions and those of users like you will become. Price Grabber and/or Bizrate will also give you the outlet that sells that camera at the best price. It could be an on-line store or local retail store. Good luck and happy hunting.

Answer 4

It's hard to beat a film camera. People around me use digitals for all their photography. The rich ones with really expensive cameras and computers then send photos around which you can print out if you wish. The regular people seem to never get the prints made. Colored ink for your computer costs money. Maybe they cannot figure out e-mailing them. Whatever the reason, I just don't see their photos. Computer crashes or upgrades, and you risk losing all you have.
Film on the other hand may seem expensive to buy and have developed. But you can get a used 35 mm camera at a camera shop and they will tell you how to load, focus and use it. Or you can buy what we call point and shoot cameras which have everything automatic as far as focusing, light readings and whether or not a flash is needed. You do have to use different films for different circumstances if you wish to shoot indoors without a flash (1600), or just general speed (200) for general use. 100 speed is the finest grained and has the sharpest enlargements. But films have really improved and keep getting sharper and with better color.
The great thing is that now, once you get your film developed, you can turn a snapshot into a photo with cropping just like digital people say they can do. Kodak picture makers let you take a snapshot and crop off the stuff you wish wasn't in there. That happens a lot when you first start. So just lay your photo on the glass and follow their screen's instructions. You can get a 4x6 print all fixed up if you had messed it up for maybe 45 cents. If you find your photos aren't good color, try other developers. Many go to Wal-Mart. If that is OK with you, OK. CVS too. But really good color comes from mailing it to ABC photo lab in Mystic, CT. They will send mailers. Find them at www.ABCPhotoLab.com People ask me where I "got those pictures"!
If you want photos in an album people can sit at a table or on a couch and look at together, you want real photos. People usually don't gather around a computer screen.
If you want to frame a photo and put it on a wall, same thing.
Others will dispute what I say and tell you of the wonders of their camera phone.
That's what makes the world go around, I guess.
Enjoy! Photos are great. Once you start, it is hard to stop!

Answer 5

All cameras are good except that if you are a photo aficionado, you are not just taking pictures ordinarily but in-control of what you would like your pictures to be. For the professionals, there are buttons to control light, darkness, the sun on a sandy background, the cloudy day, etc.
However, if you don't care about this, your pictures taken are as good as theirs. The reason why these cameras are expensive, is that, an additional button is an extra money, isn't it?
Also, I suggest that you buy a camera which has at least a 5.0 mega pixels. Take for example a thumbnail size picture you'd like to print in a bigger size without affecting its quality: take note that when you zoom (zoom in/zoom out means to make it smaller or to make it bigger) it, the picture begins to melt in multi- colored rectangular pieces! A rectangular piece is called a pixel. So, a mega pixel is 1million pixels. For you to have a good 8x10 picture from a small picture, at least, a 5.0 Mega pixel is recommended.

Answer 6

The more pixels a digital camera can take the higher the quality and the more money you will usually spend. They go by mega(million) pixels. A camera that can shoot at 8 mega pixels will have 8 million pixels in the photo or high quality and a sharper image versus a camera at 5 mega pixels.

For a first time purchase look at a Canon Power Shot, something out of the SD line that they have.

Or an Olympus Stylus 800. My mom got one for Christmas. Shes not very tech sauvy and she picked it up right away. It does everything and it looks good to.

Hope this helps.

Answer 7

You should shop for a few key areas...

size is a big player-you want to buy a camera of a size you can see yourself using often..too big you will never use it..too small same thing..make sure it feels comfortable to you

Pixels-more the merrier...more pixels means better quality and sharper image you can blow up better..similar to 100-1600ISO film..100ISO tight grain so it will blow up better=less blurry

zoom-optical is the best...digital zoom cuts your resolution(pixels) down...same as if you cropped a photo or computer image around a person standing in the distance...bigger you make them blurrier they are

image stabilization-a camera with image stabilization is GREAT!! most times you will not be using a tripod and odds are you like to zoom in...meaning when you zoom in your shake is more obvious...looking for a camera with image stabilization will almost guarantee no blurry pictures caused by movement

Lastly LOOK AT THE LENS!!!-This is a biggie and why SLRs are the best cameras..the larger the lens the more light gets in the better color and contrast your shot will have...there a small to mid size cameras with large lenses!!! Don't be fooled into buying a camera with the specs and a small lens...

Also if you are in a photo shop you can have them take test pictures with a few potently cameras and print them on there better printers so you can see the difference.

Answer 8

Personally I like the Sony DSC-W5 5 mega pixel camera it is very easy to use and the manual is very informative. But Cannon makes great cameras as well so just take your time and do a little research and ask lot's of question. Have fun. Cheers.

Answer 9

sounds like you need "point and shoot" type of camera. I personally would recommend to go with Canon PowerShot SD550
or Canon PowerShot S80. If you want to have a decent camera to take GOOD pictures - get ready to spent at least $350+. Cheaper camera doesn't mean better quality!

Answer 10

Canon Powershot A Series