What features are important in buying a digital camera? I am looking to spend no more than $200.?

Question

I have never owned one nor have I ever used one. What about the cameras that come with printers?

Answer 1

I think best the camera in your price range is the Canon Powershot A540. You can find it "everywhere" for about $170. I've recommended this camera within my own family, so I'll be living with the results of this recommendation right along with you. You can use the rest of your budget to buy a decent memory card.

Go here and read an extensive review:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_reviews/a540.html

Check the sample images, too.

This will blow your mind. The A530 is now discontinued, but it was the "little brother" to the A540.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/150-vs-5000-dollar-camera.htm

Canon just introduced the A550, which has more pixels, but offers less user control. I'd be happy with the A540.

A550 review: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/a550.html

You will need to add a memory card and I suggest the Sandisk or Lexar brand in any speed. You will spend from about $20 for a 512 KB card, which is perfectly adequate, to about $40 for a Sandisk Ultra II, which is as good as you'd ever want for this or many other cameras.

You can use this with any printer, but that's another matter. If you want to get a camera and printer that are worth bothering with, you are not going to make out well spending only $200. There are a number of decent printers for about $100, including a number of Epson printers, which you can buy direct from epson.com. They have a guide to help you choose what you are looking for. I'm assuming that you have a computer, since you posted this question, but if you don't, you can always use a 3rd party service like a drug store or WalMart or you can do it yourself at these outlets also.

Answer 2

screaming had some good advice..however, i'm sorry to say, his answer is completely flawed.

you don't want to always go with the maximum number of megapixels...the quality of your lens is much more important than the amount of pixels...a 10 megapixel image (for example) that was taken on a webcam like camera (apitek has an 8mp media unit similar), and it basically looks like a extremely large webcam photo....there's pixels but the quality of the light isn't quite there.

as far as the ones with printers, well, you can take your photos to wal-mart and get them professionally processed onto photo paper for a lot less than it'll cost you for printer supplies.

while the list of camera features to look for is huge. i will make a suggestion. Sanyo...a name known for medicore electronics, has been hiding the good stuff over in Japan. Come to find out, thier portable electronics over in Japan are top notch, and thier digital cameras have attracted some attention. I just picked up a Xacti VPC-40 at RadioShack for $199. Now, it's only a 4MP, however, it's got a 5x optical zoom which is always nice, and it has REALLY good quality optics...so even tho it's only 4megapixels....you're getting every bit of deal out of that. Compared with an Olympus that was pretty top of the line in it's day....the Sanyo's lens had a much cleaner picture.

granted, it doesn't have the best specs camera wise...a very limited f-stop caused by the zoom lens..however, it's got a host of features that you'd be amazed to find in a camera like that...not to mention..it also doubles as a digital camcorder, with tv-quality video. If i had to buy a digital camera for someone who had never owned one before, I'd probably get them one.

Answer 3

First you want at least 5 mega-pixels, and the largest optical zoom possible. Next you want the screen on the back to be as large as possible. that way you can see what you really got. Nice but not absolutely necessary is how fast can you take your next picture.sometime just being able to point and shoot several frames is plus for sports events.
If you have a good ink-jet printer then it makes no cents to pay for a special printer that only does one thing.