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Monday, October 12, 2009

Camera suggestions anyone?

This is a post mostly for any of you who know more about digital cameras than me, because I know that at least some of my readers do.

Every time I take my children somewhere to get their picture taken, I seem to come home dissatisfied. True I have never used a private photographer, and maybe I would be happier with their results. But I often feel like, if I had a a nicer camera than I do, a few props, maybe a back ground or two, and a little bit of know how, I could get pictures just as good as the ones I am paying a lot of money for.

Now true I know nothing about photography, so I am willing to admit, my pictures might be worthless too. Anyway, I am contemplating the idea of getting a better camera, and I want some advice from someone who knows about cameras.

My current camera is an Olympus Camedia with D-535 zoom, and 3.2 megapixel. I would like to get a camera that has a better digital zoom, higher resolution, and one that doesn't take forever for the picture to take after you push the button. I don't want to go so fancy as to have lenses that I need to change, or have a flash I have to attach. Built in flash is fine. But I want something that would take nice enough pictures that I could print off an 8 x10, that would be high enough quality to hang on my wall, and not have it be grainy, or blurry.

So if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

6 comments:

The Osborne Family said...

We love Canons, but you have to be willing to spend some dough. The first one we got was $500 and it was awesome. The pictures were clear and crisp and printed off nicely. We just replaced it this year with a $200 one (I wanted something more compact that I could just toss in my purse)and, while it is still good, I am not as impressed. It's worth paying more.

Mary said...

We just did a camera upgrade last fall after the same troubles. We got the Canon power shot S5 IS and we love it! Friends recommended it to us. It's an advanced point and shoot has 8 megapixels which they told us was good for 8x10. It doesn't take forever to take a picture. I have yet to read the manual,but know it can do lots more cool things that we have yet to discover. I think it's an old model now as technology goes, but it's similar to this one http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9455127&type=product&id=1218107269974
In the reviews someone complained about battery life, but we don't open the back screen, just look through the top, old school like :)
I think we found ours at costco.com for $350 and it came with a memory card. Good luck shopping!

Rose said...

We LOVE our Canon (I think it's an xT Rebel or something like that). You've seen it, I think... :) We only have one lens for it (although it is optional to buy more), and it works good for zooming in and out. It also has a timer on it. It is 10 megapixels, so the quality is so nice it can be blown up into huge posters and still look great. So... if you want a HUGE portrait of your family above your fireplace... well, you can have fun with that. :) I think that the camera is easy enough for a novice to use... but nice enough that if you wanted to learn more and start getting creative with it, you can!

Julie Baldwin said...

Devin LOVES cameras and knows a ton about them. Call him anytime. He loves to talk cameras and help people find the best camera for the pictures they will be taking.

Kati said...

Ours is a Nikon D40 and it's perfect for us. We got it at Costco for about $600 I think and it did come with a zoom lens in addition to the kit lens (55-200 mm zoom, 18-55 mm kit). I use the kit lens probably 90% of the time, so you'd be fine with just that (as long as you don't need much zoom :). Good luck deciding!

Michael said...

We decided on a Nikon D3000, which is essentially the new D40, with a huge number to make it sound fancy. It's still being shipped, but when it shows up, Julie will certainly put up some pictures :)