What's so great about a digital camera? I let that question hang as an excuse to stay with my film camera for three years now. In reality, I was too cheap to invest in a new camera. Yet, when my work and my love for snapping pictures made me re-evaluate the investment I learned that digital cameras can actually save you money.
I did find two savings in digital processing. One is that by seeing the pictures before I process them, I can decide to print only those which I love. With a digital camera I know which pictures are worth saving. In reality, out of the 480 pictures on my twenty rolls of film, only 260 are really great. The other savings I found are that digital prints are sometimes cheaper than film prints. With pharmacies advertising sales of $.09 a print, I can't process film for that price. The low end price of a digital print fall at $.012 while the low end price of a film print figures to be $.015. That saves $14.40 if I develop all 480 pictures.
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The most important part of buying a digital camera is making sure that the one you select meets all of your needs.
Sony Electronics, Inc. continues to dominate the digital camera industry. With its wide range of digital cameras, here comes the latest addition to its roster of amazing models, the Sony DSC-V3 Digital Camera which is so far one of the best 7.2 megapixel cameras in the market.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I would like to buy an inexpensive used digital camera on eBay. I intend to use it to photograph items I'm selling on eBay. Do you have a camera (manufacturer and model, please) that you'd recommend? It's fine if it's a few years old, of course!
By Liz
I used to have an Olympus C-740 that I absolutely loved and was always getting compliments on the resulting pictures. I gave it to my mom and sometimes I wish I hadn't! Great camera. It was 'only' a 3 MP camera, but if you are just taking pics for eBay, it doesn't really matter. I think the whole megapixel count is a bit overrated, anyway.
Canon is most likely a safe choice as well. My better half still uses our Canon A10- a 1.2MP camera! He likes it because it's easy and durable, though a later model with more megapixels would be better for you.
The problem with Olympus and Fuji is that they take xD cards, which tend to be expensive. If you went that route, a card included in the auction would be nice!
Not that I'm too keen on the eBay idea...it's too easy to get carried away and bid too much! I'd certainly compare the prices online first, not too mention check out the clearance sections of stores near you. I recently bought another Olympus (an FE-something or other....4MP) at Sears brand new for $34!!! You can also keep an eye on the Slickdeals.net forums for good camera deals.
Oh, whatever you decide, just be cautious of camera makers (I think Sony is one) that use only proprietary batteries. I like Olympus and Canon because you can usually use rechargeable AA's in them. (I say 'usually' because my experience is limited to the camera's I've owned).
Good luck!
wow please make sure you read the ad before you buy don't get me wrong i buy off of ebay and i'm not putting it down but once you buy it your usually stuck with it and this is electronic so my advice would be to check thrift stores or big lots or the local paper so if it doesn't work you have some recourse and you can get your money back or check it out before you buy.
Hi,
My camera is a Concord 4 mp # 4363z I've been very happy with it. It cost $99. two years ago. It has features that many more expensive cameras have. It has a setting for close picture taking also, that would be very important for selling on Ebay.
I bought a recharging system and use AA batteries in it. You can also use regular AA batteries, but they don't last long.
I could not imagine using a docking system. Extra batteries can go with you.
If anything happened to mine, I would not hesitate to buy the same camera.
I am currently in search of a digital camera. My budget is $250, though I want a quality camera. I do not need any special features. I just want a good easy to use camera, and would prefer one with a large screen to view pictures. If you have a camera that would work with my suggestions, please tell me the name, the brand, and where you purchased it. Thank you very much!
By Cara from Firefield, USA
How do I choose the best digital camera, without spending a fortune on it? I want clear pictures and also as much zoom as possible.
By Cricket from Parkton, NC
Tips to help you when buying a digital camera. Post your ideas.
Digital cameras prices are coming down in price, but you still need to shop around, and that's easy to do on the internet. I personally like Staples because they have the instant, on-the-spot rebates. But they are just one place. Just SHOP AROUND, 'CAUSE PRICES ARE COMING DOWN.
By Ardis Barnes
If you'd like to sell jewelry on ebay, I have been told that it takes 10x optical, minimum 3 megapixels to capture the finer detail. I don't own a digital yet, because I am waiting for prices to drop. At the time of the inquiry at a professional camera shop, 4 MP were the maximum and the cost was over $1,000. Prices have since come down substantially and I am wondering if the 10x optical has been reduced in favor of a higher MP.
I have read that the higher MP's are just regular MP's made smaller, and less useful. That a 3 MP with standard sized MP's, is more useful than something with many more MP's that are less than standard size. How you would find this out, I haven't the least idea, but it bears thinking about.
I know that the digital power of a camera is less impressive than the optical power. Digital zoom just means enlarged (which becomes fuzzy when a larger picture is made) and optical means better focusing. So buy the most optical zoom you can afford and ignore the digital.
By Holly
"I have read that the higher MP's are just regular MP's made smaller, and less useful. That a 3 MP with standard sized MP's, is more useful than something with many more MP's that are less than standard size."
MP = megapixels. mega = 1 million
Every megapixel is 1 million pixels, no more, no less.
Like a kilometer is always 1000 meters, since kilo = 1,000.
There's no such thing as different size megapixels. Every megapixel is 1 million pixels.
If there were such a thing as different size megapixels, I doubt anybody would pay those high prices for cameras that have lots of megapixels, and reviews for those cameras in magazines like PC Magazine and Consumer Reports would not report that they made good quality enlargements.
Does thriftyfun not verify any of the information that it puts in its newsletter? I had come to trust this site as a source of good advice for saving money. I guess I will just have to research things on my own.
"I have read that the higher MP's are just regular MP's made smaller, and less useful. That a 3 MP with standard sized MP's, is more useful than something with many more MP's that are less than standard size."
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I read this somewhere in a magazine that was discussing the new digital cameras. I didn't make it up. It was quite a surprise to me as I figured a mega pixel was just what it was called, and not a stretched out version of itself.
And yes, you will have to verify everything you read on the internet. Some info is placed so as to be purposefully misleading and other info may be accidentally misleading. Some can just be misinformation and other, the actual facts.
You have to be your own judge about everything you read.
Nice article about pixels and sensors.
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www.ptech.wsj.com/
This article talked about shrinking pixel size and offering more.
This weekend I saw an advertisement for a Bell and Howell digital camera with 10 megapixels. The asking price was $200 and I just had to read about it.
The ad said that the 10 megapixels were due to interpolation. I don't know what that means, but I do know a 'buyer beware' when I see one. Sounds like the 10 MP's were really something else.
Holly
Holly, I looked the word up on dictionary.reference.com/
Interpolation is basically a way to guesstimate the value of something, based on what is around it. In the case of digital camera images, the camera actually sees and remembers a "holey" image, and then fills in the holes based on the colors around the holes. As a very simple example, say you have a hole, with a white pixel on one side and a red pixel on the other side. The camera's processor would fill in the gap with pink. If one side were blue and the other side green, the hole would be filled in with blue-green.
What you end up with is a 10MP picture, but only a certain number of those pixels are originals that the camera actually saw. The others are the filled-in holes. For the best quality image, the greater the percentage of "original" pixels, the better.
I need a new camera and don't want one with a lot of bells and whistles as I am not very good in this area.
By ruthie
