Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Surfside, FL, USA
Posts: 113

I'm looking to buy a digital camera for under $300 to use on a trip to Paris this summer. This will be my first digital camera purchase, so memory type doesn't matter to me. I'd like the picture quality to be good enough to print regular-sized (4x6?) pictures, with possiblity of enlarging to 8x10, though this is not necessary. Any help would be appreciated.

__________________
"A fish's dreams should stay in the sea." -"Big Eyed Fish", Dave Matthews

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Greenville, SC
Posts: 172

I own a Kodak DC265, 1.6 megapixel, and the image quality is great. For $300, you should be able to get around 2 megapixels. The best thing to do is read through many of the digicam magazines for reviews, or visit Epinions At max resolution I can get 30 images on a 16MB CF card. I own two cards. One advantage is that you can always switch to a lower resolution of you are running out of space on a trip; at 640 by 480, I can get 120 images on a card. Make sure you have two sets of NiMH batteries.

__________________
"Life is what you experience between racing games"
Galley

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 17

I own an Olympus Camedia D100. The picture quality is very good, and it's a simple camera to operate. It can fit around 82 pictures on standard mode (640 by 480) and 24 high quality mode (1280 by 960) on an 8mb smart media card.
http://www.photoalley.com/pa/shopPr...00780B43C635345

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

Stay Away from sub 200. I have a Kodak DC3200. Megapixel isn't everything. I learned that the hard way..

__________________
-Vincent

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 47

Olympus 450

I picked up an Olmypus D-450 (I think thats the model - last year's version) - 1.3 Mpixel - that I picked up on an Egghead auction about 6 months ago for $285.
- I buy 32 MB smart Cards on the auction also. Got one this morning for $21 - holds about 140 medium resolution photos.
- I believe that 1.3 MP is plenty unless you really need to enlarge them really, really big. My primary use for posting JPGs on my wife's website. If I use too much resolution, the download time is outrageous. Also use an HP 950c inkjet to print 4x6 photos on Kodak glossy paper - 1.3 MP is plenty of resoltion. I've done a couple of 8 x 10s - and they look fine!
- The Olympus is pretty much a point-and-shoot camera, although you can play with a lot of settings if that's your bag. Decent built-in flash. Easy to change batteries & memory cards. Pretty good battery life. Seems fairly sturdy - we've taken it on 4 or 5 week long trips out of the country so far - and never had a problem.

- Just a note about Olympus. They make a big deal out of their "panoramic" capability. Set up the menu and you get on-screen guidelines and visual clues to help you overlap photos, etc. Neat - but the camera only works in panoramic mode using Olympus Smart Media cards - which are outrageously expensive!! So, just buy inexpensive cards, overlap your shots a bit, and let the software "stitch" them together. Works very well.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

My cam is 1MP and 5X7's look just fine! I once even printed out a low-rez 640X480 and it looked decent in 5X7 I think, certainly not photo quality but worked fine.

__________________
-Vincent

Registered: Feb 2001
Location:
Posts: 268

The new Olympus D-510 camera. Click here for Steve's Digicams review.

Cranberry PC (from Yahoo! Shopping) sells the camera for $302.