Help !! I am totally confused with all the info on digital cameras.is there a really a camera that stands out from the rest? i would like to go top of the range but which make/model.i need a camera to take on holiday to photograph people, flowers and scenery.

-- mark smyth (thebatman@btinternet.com), August 15, 1999

Answers

I've spent hours and hours reading and comparing digicams...I decided on Kodak because of all the good things I've heard about their digicams like superior color etc etc.....then they just came out with 4 new cameras. I picked the DC280 it's a 2.3(2.0 usable?) megapixel. I got it for 666.79 from onsale.com..another good price is from tri- state computer www.tristatecomputer.com for 659.00 but from their website it seems like they are a mom and pop place..so i opted to get it from the bigger company...from what you said it sounds like you don't want a big bulky camera..I personally like smaller sized cameras that resemble 35mm cameras...go to kodak.com and check out all the cameras they have....I haven't seen a different digicam I like more than the one i got.....but what do i know? :)

later

-- Paul (web69x@aol.com), August 15, 1999.

Mark,

Ive had an FD91 since last December and can highly recommend it. It does have resolution than some others, but this is only of concern if you do a lot of printing at the 8 X 10 size. Normal prints at the 4 X 5 = size with a good printer such as the Epson 750 or 1200 are comparable to Kodak prints.

The 14X zoom actually allows for more pixels in the print than virtually all other cameras on the market when the subject is far away. That is, a photo taken with a 3X zoom and 2 megapixels enlarged in the computer to equal a FD91 photo with 850K pixels will have far less resolution in the image than the FD91 image. In such cases, the FD91 image will have more than 8 times as many pixels available for printing than the 3X, 2-megapixel camera. Incidentally, the zoom is equipped with Sonys image stabilization so that you can take sharp, hand-held photos at full zoomnothing else on the market comes close. I recently used the FD91 on a trip to Costa Rica and it was the envy of the photographers in the group. I got many good shots of faraway animals and birds that were mere dots with their 3X or 4X zooms.

Floppies are not only the most convenient and by far the cheapest means of storing images; they are often far more practical than memory cards. The FD91 stores an average of 8 photos per disk at high resolution and they do not have to be downloaded into a computer when full as memory cards must be. If you are going on a trip, a memory card camera will require you to download frequently or have a number of these very expensive items with you. A small box of 25 floppies will fit into a corner of an average-sized camera bag and will be good for about 200 photosroughly equal to the space required for 35mm roll film for a similar number of photos. Further, floppies can be downloaded on any computer anywhere with no special equipment and they can be purchased virtually anywhere.

I recently went on a ten-day trip to Cost Rica with a Smithsonian group. I only took 100 floppies total--four small 3 = X 3 = X 3 = inch cartons, and didnt use them all. I came back with more than 500 images and could have taken many more. If I had run short of floppies, they were readily available throughout Cost Rica. The space required to carry the floppies was about the same as for an equivalent amount of 35mm film. In addition, I didnt have to carry a bunch of extra lenses because the FD91 has 0 to 14X zoom capability. My camera was the envy of all photographers in the group because I was able to capture many wildlife photos that were impractical for cameras with only 3X or 4X zooms.

The FD91 and other Sony Mavica cameras use Lithium ion batteries from Sony videocams and last many times longer than batteries in other brands of cameras. Their best battery, the 550, can be expected to operate the zoom and take photos all day longhundreds of pictures. If flash and zoom are not used and the viewfinder is used rather than the large LCD, you can take more than 1,000 pictures without running the battery dead. These batteries tell you how much time you have remaining before recharge is required and they can be fully recharged at any time without loss of capability.

The FD91 also has many other useful features such as choice of spot or area metering, in-camera disk copy, selective deletion of images, movie mode, voice overprint, aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, auto exposure mode, manual or auto focusing, auto white balance, etc.

I might further add that you will not find a group that is as happy with their choice of digicams as Mavica owners. If you will check out the Mavica information Exchange. (http://www.mavican.nu/cgi- bin/mavica/mavica.pl ) you will find that most Mavicans vary from the extremely happy to the fanatic. Checking with other forums, you will mostly read about various complaints and problems that individuals are having with other brands of digicams.

Rodger

-- Rodger Carter (rodger.carter@wpafb.af.mil), August 16, 1999.