Digital Camera on the Cheaps

xenomouse

In my walking about, I often find myself wishing I had a digital camera with me to capture interesting sights: mutant squirrels, silly signs, public urination, horrible parking jobs, etc. I'm looking for something simple and cheap, but there's a lot of stuff out there. I thumbed through the cameras at Amazon and Newegg, and a large portion of their cameras were not even rated. Since you all seem to be smart chaps, I thought I'd get your opinion on the matter.



For $30, I would like a digital camera with the following minimum specifications:

1.3 MP

Slot for SD Card or CompactFlash.

Flash



I'd be willing to pay $5-$10 extra for any of the following features:

More MP

Decent Zoom

Decent View Screen

Compact Size



So, ultimately, I'm willing to spend up to $70. Yes, I know I'm limiting my choices to less than hot cameras, but - see my list of "interesting sights above" - I'm looking for a glorified toy.

bodtchboy

for you're price range, I'd look on craigslist for a used one. You can usually get a pretty nice one about a couple of years old that someone is already wanting to upgrade from. In my opinion, I'm not even sure they have new ones for less than $100 unless you wouldn't mind a kid's camera.

I've only dealt with Panasonic cameras. They have great lenses, take very good outdoor pictures like landscapes. But they don't do very well in low light.

Canons have been good camera's. Some friends have had luck with the Nikons as well.

Sean

Yeah I would pretty much agree with what bodtchboy had to say. You would be hard pressed to buy a decent new camera for that much money. Especially when you consider that you would have to figure in the card as well. If you really only want to spend $70, find a second hand camera that looks okay.

I did a bit of digging around on newegg and if you do want to buy something new, then the Canon A460 is actually a pretty good camera for the price. 5.0 MP, 4 x Opt Zoom for about $110 with a free 1GB SD card at the moment. Anything cheaper than that is going to be pretty crappy to be honest, at least Canon cameras have decent quality lenses even at the cheaper end of the market. Let me know of any models you find though, I'm pretty familiar with most cameras and should be able to let you know if its decent.

xenomouse

I'm not looking for a brand spanking new one, and I've already got media cards laying around. Here are the ones I'm currently considering:

Olympus FE-115

Kodak Easyshare CD33

Polaroid PDC-3070BD

Konica Revio KD-400Z

Polaroid PDC-3030

Vivitar Vivicam 3825



Right now, I'm leaning towards the Konica or the Olympus. The Olympus is the cheapest, but that's because it's refurbished. I've not had much experience with refurbished electronics, so I'm not sure about it. Though it is only twenty-five bucks...

bodtchboy

Out of those choices, yes, I think the Konica or Olympus would be the best. My dad has had a Konica for a few years that has done very well.

xenomouse

Here are a couple more that might do the trick:

Kodak EasyShare CX4200

HP Photosmart M417



Any opinions on the matter?

bodtchboy

The HP has a slightly larger LCD monitor than the others. I'm sure HP will be fine for you, but I also think that Konica and Olypmus have made better cameras than HP generally.

Sean

Yeah I would tend to agree with that. Olympus and Konica make some pretty good cameras, even at the lower end of the market. Just be a bit careful with Olympus though, they use XD memory cards rather than the more common SD. Its a moot point if you already have both cards, but XD are considerably more expensive than SD and are only really in use in Olympus and Fuji cameras.

xenomouse

Oops! Someone else snagged the Olympus.



It's cool though, I checked Craigslist and found a decent looking Kodak DC3800 for $35. I'll let you know how it turns out.

xenomouse

The DC3800 was in better condition than I thought it would be. It had more than my minimum specifications, and it was only $35. Thanks for your advice, kind peoples.