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Hit_Sqd_Maximus

Digital cameras

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I need some tips on what to look for when buying a digital camera. What is DPI (I think) and what are some things I need to look for when looking around. I dont need anything fancy, just to take some photos when I am at the lake or at the desert w/ some friends riding dirtbikes and quads.

I got a budget of about $300

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And this is OFP related because your'e going to use the camera to take pictures to use as textures for addons - just so this thread doesnt get closed for being too offtopic smile.giftounge.gif

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</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (OxPecker @ April 16 2003,08:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And this is OFP related because your'e going to use the camera to take pictures to use as textures for addons - just so this thread doesnt get closed for being too offtopic  smile.gif  tounge.gif<span id='postcolor'>

Or maybe his Print Screen button doesn't work and he wants to post pics on the OFP Photo thread. tounge.gif

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http://www.imaging-resource.com/DIGCAM01.HTM has some very good digicam reviews. I have been looking into Canon Powershot A300 (not on that review page yet, only its predecessor A200), seems rather good for the price of it with 3 megapixels and about 250 euros price. Doesnt have an optical zoom but im not willing to pay the 100 euro extra for that wink.gif

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We bought a Nikon Coolpix 3500 (not the older 2500). Very happy so far. Love the swivelling lense.

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I bought a Kodak DX3900 Zoom last year and I am very happy with it. Unfortunatly, I don't have an upload page, so I can't post some pictures. And I sometimes wished I had more then just 2x optical zoom, digital zoom is of very little use...

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Things to consider:

Pixel Resolution- The greater the number the pixels the better the quality (and price!wink.gif of the picture taken. I would recomend anything above 3 million pixels if you intend to print anything onto photo paper. If its just for putting pictures on the web, then perhaps you can choose something with less pixels.

Memory Cards- Where the pictures are stored on your camera, usually measured in Mb. Some camera's come with an in-built memory, some come with a removable card. If you buy a camera with a removable card sysytem it gives you an option to upgrade to a larger capacity of memory card later, or carry a couple of memory cards during the day,so you can take lots and lots of pictures without fear of running low on memory. If you buy one thats in built in, you are stuck with that memory size. On the camera you may have the option to save the pictures in a particular format like .jpg or .bmp etc. Also you can save the pictures in low, medium, and high quality. The higher the quality the more room it fills in the memory which equals less pictures you can actually take than if they were taken on a medium setting or low.

Digital and Optical Zoom- Its nice to have a zoom lens but it will increase the price of the camera. Optical zoom magnifies the image through a built in lens, without any loss of optical quality. Digital zoom enlarges a selected area of the image using digital technology, however the resolution is reduced, the greater the magnification giving less optical quality at extreme distances and an image that will appear as pixels.

LCD Screen- Cool feature on the back of the camera, that allows you to view the image before taking it like a big viewfinder and review the pictures you have taken. However it eats up alot of battey power.

Also make sure you buy a camera that has a rechargable battery or the option to use them. Digital cameras use alot of energy!  crazy.gif

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I bought a Nikon Coolpix 4300 and a Canon Ixxus 400.

They are very good. but arent cheap, and i dropped the coolpix 4300 into my bathroom sink  biggrin.gif so thats why i bought the Canon  biggrin.gif

smile.gif

I also bought 2 128mb cards because i couldnt store much photo's with the original 16 mb card crazy.gif

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To pick up on Zikan's post,

about the memory, there are various systems used, MemoryStick, CompactFlash, SmartMedia. I guess this mostly depends on your personal preference. Of course, they are not interchangeable...

about rechargeable cells, some manufacturers use custom cell formats and don't support common battery formats. Bad, when you can't recharge because you are somewhere without electricity (or don't have the proper plug format).

about the resolution, in this price range you can get 3 and 4Megapixel cameras. the 4 MP cameras will usually lack some features, eg. optical zoom, compared to the 3MP variants. So it's a kind of a trade off, what is more important to you.

Mine is a 3.1MP camera, with ~2200x1400 Pixel. w/o compression, the image size varies between 500k and 1.3MB. A photo shop made me some prints in 15x10cm and you could barely see that they were from a digital camera. With this resolution I guess 18x13cm prints should also be possible without loss in quality.

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