What is a good camera for under 200 smacks?

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

Ive used mine to do plenty of vids, and they are pretty **** good. I was really surprised at how they looked/sounded for a digital camera video.
As long as ur not doing anything for hollywood i'm sure you'd (or she'd) be happy with the vids it can make

I would be using hers for vids as my 1000 dollar camera sucks *** at vids for some reason, lol! Is pretty old though and the technology is just leaps and bounds from years ago.

I actually seen a Casio that is youtube ready, whatever the fack that means, lol!

 

[HyPnAwTiKpImP 10+ year member]

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=12442&pq-locale=en_GB

i pick this one up like a month ago pretty nice in video and in pic. i posted some pix on here with this camera for some item i have for sale real high quality pix and video IMO for cheap

 

[4runnercrazy 10+ year member]

look at BB and CC my gf got one there for about 120 it was a sony easy share 7.1 megapixels and came witrh a case batteries and all that stuff (it was on sale) but alot of the time they have good stuff on sale there

 

[T9X 10+ year member]

My dad bought a Canon Powershot not too long ago and it takes some f*cking sick pictures. He took a picture of a bird 200+ yards away across the pond and you could see the color of its eye and what kind of fish it caught in it's mouth when you zoomed in.

I'll try to find out which model it is.

 

[95BlackGA 5,000+ posts]

Kodak EASYSHARE Z712. I have one of these, and it's a great camera. I've always liked Kodak cameras, especially this one. Takes amazing pictures, and is pretty easy to use. The Kodak EASYSHARE P850 is also a good camera, and takes good macro images. My mother has a FinePix S700, which dominates both of the Kodak cameras, for the price to picture quality/features.

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

i just bought a canon SD870IS few weeks ago and REALLY like it. It has a gorgeous 3" screen that takes up almost the entire back of the camera. It has a wide angle lens and image stabilization. You don't have to be a photo nerd to take excellent pics, even a retard like me can manage to take stunning pics.

You can take a pic almost instantly after you turn it on and the zoom is also very rapid. The shot isnt missed waiting for the camera to boot up and focus, you just turn it on and shoot.

It uses a battery pack which is very cheap ($11 iirc) which means you can have several to swap out as needed. The video quality is dam good for a digi still camera, better than my last canon a630 which wasnt bad at all.

It has a touch sensitive wheel like an ipod for navigating through menus or scrolling through pictures. It is a super compact, about the size of a pack of smokes, but doesn't sacrifice quality at all.

It is slightly more than you wanted to spend, but not much and well worth it. Jmac recommend this camera to me a while ago and he was correct. It blows the competition away.

I cant say enough good things about this camera.

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

and like others have said... stay away from sony... they use a proprietary memory stick which cost more than a standard SD card....i guess sony didnt learn from betamax.

 

[Infraja 10+ year member]

Anything Sony is good quality in my opinion...I've had one in Iraq for almost a year now I picked up Amazon and it hasn't crapped out once. I am just a Sony fan when it comes to electronics anyway based on the name and quality of the products.

 

[Jmac 10+ year member]

The Sony's are reliable (except the DSC-S series, which fvcking blows), but picture quality and performance is not great. Also, they've made recent units unnecessarily complicated to use any of the more advanced features as well. Even the menu is a chore where it wasn't on older models.

The Memory Stick Pro Duo cards have dropped significantly in price and, while they're not as cheap as SD, the price difference isn't large enough, IMO, to sway one over to an SD-compatible camera.

Personally, I'd go w/ Canon. As Faulkton mentioned, the SD870 IS is incredible, though above your budget. Definitely an awesome camera, though. Closer to the $200 mark, you have the A590 IS, A720 IS, and SX100 IS from Canon. All of them have pros and cons, though.

The A590 IS has the lowest feature set and the least zoom, but is the most compact of the 3 and has the best optical viewfinder (great for shooting in bright light).

The A720 IS is probably the best all-around, offering a wide angle lens with a decent amount of zoom (6x), a fairly compact body, optical viewfinder, etc. The flash recharge time is about the only fault I've found, as it's slower than the other 2 and the optical viewfinder isn't quite as clear as the A590's, neither of which will make much of a difference to your average amateur photographer.

The SX100 IS offers up the most zoom (10x, great for wildlife) and still maintains a fairly compact body, but lacks an optical viewfinder (which may make it difficult to get the shot you want in bright light), doesn't have a particularly wide angle (not great for indoor shots), and lacks the ability to add on additional lenses (adding a wide-angle adapter would help significantly w/ indoor shots, though it's expensive).

 

[dubrx 10+ year member]

i had a canon sd630 for awhile now, well i just lost it, but i had it for quite some time, i believe 2 xmas's ago and i loved it....looking to get another one, well the updated version.

do the "price match guarentee" at bb and cc and you could prolly save some cash. also last time i was at a costco a few weeks ago they had a canon 8mp powershot series + memory + photo printer for $250 i believe...they always have good deals if you got one of those locally

GL

 

[sqhertz 5,000+ posts]

i got a canon a570is. bad *** camera. thats what i take all my pics/vids with. im sure if you search for threads ive started , youll see a few of them.

id say go with a canon. excellent cameras. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

i had a canon sd630 for awhile now, well i just lost it, but i had it for quite some time, i believe 2 xmas's ago and i loved it....looking to get another one, well the updated version.
do the "price match guarentee" at bb and cc and you could prolly save some cash. also last time i was at a costco a few weeks ago they had a canon 8mp powershot series + memory + photo printer for $250 i believe...they always have good deals if you got one of those locally

GL

I had the 630 too.

It was a good camera, but i wanted something small to carry in my shirt pocket.

 

[mcsoul 10+ year member]

The Sony's are reliable (except the DSC-S series, which fvcking blows), but picture quality and performance is not great. Also, they've made recent units unnecessarily complicated to use any of the more advanced features as well. Even the menu is a chore where it wasn't on older models.
The Memory Stick Pro Duo cards have dropped significantly in price and, while they're not as cheap as SD, the price difference isn't large enough, IMO, to sway one over to an SD-compatible camera.

Personally, I'd go w/ Canon. As Faulkton mentioned, the SD870 IS is incredible, though above your budget. Definitely an awesome camera, though. Closer to the $200 mark, you have the A590 IS, A720 IS, and SX100 IS from Canon. All of them have pros and cons, though.

The A590 IS has the lowest feature set and the least zoom, but is the most compact of the 3 and has the best optical viewfinder (great for shooting in bright light).

The A720 IS is probably the best all-around, offering a wide angle lens with a decent amount of zoom (6x), a fairly compact body, optical viewfinder, etc. The flash recharge time is about the only fault I've found, as it's slower than the other 2 and the optical viewfinder isn't quite as clear as the A590's, neither of which will make much of a difference to your average amateur photographer.

The SX100 IS offers up the most zoom (10x, great for wildlife) and still maintains a fairly compact body, but lacks an optical viewfinder (which may make it difficult to get the shot you want in bright light), doesn't have a particularly wide angle (not great for indoor shots), and lacks the ability to add on additional lenses (adding a wide-angle adapter would help significantly w/ indoor shots, though it's expensive).

I'm so glad you qualified that statement about Sony cameras eliminating

DSC-S . It was the only Sony I tried and I returned it the same day.

I've also returned Panasonic, Casio and Canon due to image quality.

I'm pretty picky, I finally settled on the Nikon D80. I actually was

happy with the price/performance ratio of my Kodak point and shoot,

before I got the nikon slr.

I cannot comment on the other Sonys. I would say that you should look

into a few factors:

1) Does the houshold have existing electronics that use a type of memory card?

2) You need a camera with a good flash.

3) rechargable batteries are best.

4) Durability if it's for a 12 year old.

 

[hott-nix 10+ year member]

i just picked up a canon powershot a560 to use for everyday shooting (so i dont wear out my rebel xt) it's a great camera. huge screen, 7.1mp and about $125.

great image quality as well

 

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

Well, I should have checked back into this thread before I went to the store, lol!

I didn't pick up anything anybody suggested, which is fail for me. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

I do think I did pretty well after getting home and charging the battery and setting it up. Great little camera that my step daughter will love! Simple to use and the software is easy as pie and came with some cool scrap booking type shit she will like.

It is the Panasonic FS3 Point and shoot camera 8mp. Is their middle of the line camera and for middle of the line I was impressed. Only have a 256mb memory card in there for now, but takes way better vids than my 1000 dollar camera and the pics are just as good. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif Love my Karl Zeiss lens (I think that is the name) on the Sony, which is why it was chedder.

Anyway, I like the iso on this little unit and is speaking of little, that it is, but will fit right into a shirt pocket, pants pocket or just about anywhere. Now to find a case so she don't scratch the shit out of the LCD screen and then picking up another SDHC 4 gig card for it so it takes longer videos and better pics. Least that was what I was told.

Paid 170 taxes and everything. Right at my price and checked a bunch of those Cannons out, but didn't like the fact that the Cannons in my price point didn't have the battery pack/charger and could only use double A's with them. I already burn enough of those with my Kodak. And yeah, I could get rechargables, but fawk it, this was much better IMO. Pretty slick little camera.

Now, if I could stop using it and acting like it was mine, lawlers! Wife will be pissed if she sees me taking pics with my one step daughter around, lol!

Thanks for the input, even if you didn't recommend this camera.

I actually might pick one of these up for me to have. My SLR Sony is a little much at times. I should have stuck simple, but hell I only paid half for my SLR.