I WANT TO BUY A DIGITAL CAMERA TO USE ON VACATION TO TAKE PICTURES OF MY FAMILY AND DOWNLOAD THEM TO MY COMPUTER. POSSIBLY PRINT OUT SOME 8x10'S. I AM COMPUTER LITERATE AND WANT A REASONABLY GOOD CAMERA. I AM LOOKING AT THE KODAK 290 AND THE SONY DSC505 WITH THE 10 TIMES ZOOM. I AM CONFUSED ABOUT THE MEMORY TYPES (WHICH TO BUY). USB IS IMPORTANT TO ME. DON'T NEED PROFESSIONAL ONE BUT WANT SOMEONE TO RECOMMEND ONE TO ME. WANT TO BUY NOW. PLEASE HELP. THE MORE I READ THE MORE CONFUSED I GET. WANT GOOD RESOLUTION ALSO. PLEASE RESPOND ASAP. THANKS,

-- BEV LETTER (MLETTER@HOME.COM), November 04, 1999

Answers

Those two sound good, both have great image quality and will do decent 8 X 10s. The 505 has no viewfinder, much more zoom, much better manual control. I just got one, I luv it. :) No viewfinder isn't everyone's cup of tea. The built in flash on the 505 is wimpy, and it's a pain to hook up an external (slave) flash for it, kodak is definitely better there. The kodak also has an uncompressed format to get the last bit of quality out of your larger prints.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), November 05, 1999.

here is one thing to think about. Power. The Sony supplies one of its longlife rechargeable batteries & charger. the Kodak does not. You will need to BUY rechargable batteries and charger.

The Sony has 5x Optical and 10x digital zoom. The digital zoom is not a true zoom. The end result is a distorted image. But you still have a 5x optical zoom. Still better than most non Sony cameras.

Sony uses an 8mb Memory Stick. Kodak uses a 20mb Compact Flash! That means the Kodak will be downloading less often than the Sony! Also, Compact Flash cards can be found in larger sizes. 48mb and 64mb also available.

Kodak uses a viewfinder above the lens(not able tosee 100% of the image) Sony uses a large LCD as the view finder(my personal favorite)Although I don't believe the Sony LCD

Each camera has it's ups and downs. KODAK has a small zoom and no rechargeable batteries, but it haslots of storage space.

The F505 has a large zoom, MPEG movies, long life rechargable battries, but less storage than the KODAK.

My money is on the Sony for all it's features, even if it only comes with a 8mb card.

hope this helps. sorry for all the text

dave

-- David Erskine (davide@netquest.com), November 05, 1999.

Believe it or not Sony provides a 4MB memory stick, not 8. How cheap can you get. I'm dealing with it til the 64MB sticks come out at the end of the year. :) I have an ultra light laptop I keep uploading to as it fills up. I don't worry about the memory included usually because I always buy a big storage card anyway.

Both the cameras suck for wide angle (38mm??), though you attach an adaptor for this.

The LCD screen on the sony is nice and bright, and I like the manual focus ring on the 505, but it's hard to focus with an LCD screen instead of a viewfinder in certain situations. In any case the kodak is totally inferior for manual control if that matters.

The sony lithium battery is nice, very good battery life. A top end set of NiMH rechargables and charger costs $30 though, so it's not all that big a deal. An extra set of NiMH batteries costs like $10, for the sony an extra lihtium costs $50. You can stick regular AA's in a kodak in a pinch, if you're out of power on the Sony you're hosed.

The on camera USB is nice, but honestly a USB card reader isn't any worse and in some ways is better. I'm bummed that the memory stick PCMCIA adaptor costs so much.

Don't just look at the specs, try hold the cameras in your hand, that might sway your opinion pretty quickly also.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), November 05, 1999.