The best 3 MP digital camera in the market?

[compiler]

Can you recommend the best 3 MP digital camera in the market or help me to locate a good web site for the info?

[castledude]

Two best sites (IMHO)...
Check out the reviews and the forums on both.

Does a really good job at consitant benchmarking so you can compare two very similar pictures taken by different cameras.
http://www.steves-digicams.com

Has a really nice side by side feature for comparing features.
http://www.dpreview.com

What you need to do is figure out what kind of pictures you are going to be taking, your budget, what your output is going to be (low res web, higher res web, 4x6 pictures, 8x10 pictures, bigger). Need for zoom, need for flash, need for movie mode.

[compiler]

The price hopes less than $400 and the MP is from 3-4. The digital camera is for family fun; most 4 x 6 pictures and with zoom, flash, movie clips and battery/charger those standard features. I have narrowed the search to the Canon, Fujifilm, Kodak, and Nikon (or according to your recommendation). I am not an expert in the camera comparison but more interested in the conclusion. Which 3 MP digital camera do the experts think the best buy in the current market and why? Thanks.

[castledude]

All the cameras you mentioned will be fine. I'd probably rate them in this order for a new user:

1) Kodak ... Easiest to use ... Lowest price
2) Canon ... Best Optics and Low Light
3) Fuji... Little harder to use, great pricing and good features.
4) Nikon.. Great camera but a little tricky to use.


Cameras in your price range ... (assuming you are talking USD)

Kodak 6490 (10x Zoom) lots of discounting. Great starter camera with enough features to allow you to use it later as you get more advanced.
I own this camera and am happy with it.


Minolta Z2 10x zoom is better than the 6490 but costs more (about $450)


Fuji S5000 (10x Zoom) .. Nice camera a little more advanced on the button pushing but with a little practice is very easy to use.

Canon S1 (10x Zoom) .. Best of all the cameras I'm going to recommend. Stabilized lens to remove hand held shake. Unfortunately this is going to cost you an extra $100 for the feature.

Canon A80 only a 3x zoom but a nice camera that is small and pretty easy to use.

Kodak 6440 smaller than the 6490 and with a 3x zoom. Nice camera.
-------------------

Be sure to get an extra battery (or set of batteries). Use NIMH for the cameras that take AA cells. About $25

You will need an memory card (SD usually) a 128M is enough and will give you between about $50

You can print three ways:
1- Local store (Wallmart, Costco etc) about $0.15/print
2- Inkjet printer (Epson R200, Canon i960) about the same
3- Dye Sub printer (Kodak dock, Canon 200) about $0.35/print


With any camera if you stay with the brand names you will probably be happy

Good luck ..

[compiler]

Your reply is very helpful. I have checked the Canon S1 and the possible lowest price is US$420. (It seems not compact size). If I prefer the compact size Point and Shoot 3 MP digital camera with the battery / charger, which one could be your recommendation? I plan to buy a Point and Shoot compact digital camera right now (because the price is decreasing) and I will probably buy an advanced digital SLR camera in the future when the SLR price decreases.

BTW, for general use, is 3-4 Megapixel adequate or had better having 5 MP?

[castledude]

For a 4x6 print 2MP=300ppi This is about the best you will get from a printer so 3/4MP is actually a little overkill.

You can print very good 8x10 prints with 4MP (I do it a lot). With 4x6 prints it will allow you a lot of crop space (area around the edge to throw out).

In many ways for your requirements 3MP is better than a 5+MP.
1- Lower memory card cost (smaller card holds a lot of pictures)
2- Lower Noise... In general a smaller Number of megapixels
makes a cleaner picture.

If you want to go to poster size (10x14 or larger) then 5MP might be a good thing otherwise it's not worth it.


-----------------------------------------------------
If 3x zoom is enough then here are a few more cameras to look at:

1- Canon A75 about 1/2 the size of a CD
2- Minolta DiMAGE Xg really small but still has an optical zoom
3- Nikon coolpix 3100
4- Pentax Optio 33L (The swivel display can be really handy for
looking over crowds)
5- Kodak 6330 (The 7xxx and 6xxx Kodaks are good the others are
not as good).
------------------------------------------------------

Remember pictures are not taken by cameras they are taken by photographers.

Whatever camera you get note down what things you wish were better as you use it. Don't jump into the DSLR wagon unless you really have a need for it's features and it matches up with your needs. It's no good to spend $2000 on a camera and have it sit on a shelf.

The better the camera the more you will have to do (sounds backwards doesn't it). You will need to pick the speed or aperature, you will need to decide if a flash is needed, you will have to bring the pictures into a photoediting program EVERYTIME. It's this power that puts you in creative control of the process and allows you to exceed the built in profiles of the camera. And that is why I love it.

[compiler]

Thank you very much. I noticed the storage card is not changeable. There are different types of cards. For example, the Canon uses the Compact Flash card; the Nikon uses the SmartMedia card; the Fujifilm uses the xD Picture card and the Kodak uses the SD/MMC card. Do you know the pros and cons of those different cards? What type of the storage card is better according to the price, capacity? In addition, do you think the LCD size such as 1.5, 1.8 and flipping matters?

[castledude]

CF is the best price and best storage (up to 16GB if you want it) thats why all the DSLRS accept it. About the size of a small book of matches.

SD/MMC is next up in price and storage (up to 1GB) but is faster for continuous storage so the movie mode will benefit from using it. About the size of a postage stamp.

xD smallest, most expensive, slighly lower than SD (512MB) capacity.
About half the size of the SD cards.

Smart Media is nearly obsolete and has very low capacity (256MB). About the size of a small book of matches (but thin).

For a 3MP camera a 128M card will get you 200-400 pictures and will run you between $20-$40 depending on the format.

-------------------------------------------
All the cameras use the same format as was in the early (Windows 95) version of windows/dos FAT16. So most cameras that are over 2 years old will not accept a card bigger than 2GB. Newer ones use FAT32 to allow use of larger memory.

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As for displays bigger is better (especially if you are getting older like me) flipping is great for holding and aiming over a crowd or doing waist level shots.

[djonween]

Can help me to compare which one is better ? i'm new comer in digicam looking for low end with min 3MP , 3 Optical Zoom, with Movie + Sound limited by storage. thx

[castledude]

Go to the two sites I talked about above...

Check out the reviews and the forums. You will see people that actually have the cameras talking about the good and bad of the cameras.

Also do a search by camera here, look at the type of pictures taken by people with those cameras then send a personal message to the people using those cameras ask them what they think of the camera.

Next go back to Steves site and download the sample pictures look at the quality.

Good luck...

[compiler]

Thank you for your expertise, castledude. I have now got ABC about choosing the digital camera. Next, I would like to ask you about the battery type. Of course, I am talking about the rechargeable digital camera. Do you think the regular rechargeable AA batteries such as for the Canon PowerShot A75 are better than the non-regular rechargeable battery such as for the Canon S410? I think the non-regular rechargeable battery may cause the user frustrated if it is dead outside. But the regular AA batteries can easily replace of the rechargeable AA batteries. Do you think what type of the rechargeable battery is better?

[castledude]

The AA batteries are easier to obtain but a set of NIMH (the only way to go) plus charger will set you back about $25-$40.

The good thing is that in a pinch you can get a replacement set of alkalines almost anyplace. But this will cost you. I had a camera that used AA and I got about 30 pictures on alkalines with NIMH I would get about 150. Since I was in a tourist area they hit me for $12 for a set of alkalines.

You can get fast chargers now for NIMH 1hr or 15min charge times. The 1hr chargers use any NIMH while the 15min charger requires a special more costly NIMH battery.

The non standard battery will cost you about $15-$30 but usually will last 2x-3x the time of a similar AA camera. Example my 6490DX will give me up to 600-900 pictures on one charge (no flash) or 300+ pictures with flash. Typical charge time is 2hrs for these batteries. Also because of it's size the camera does not need strange lumps

So overall it is a push with a slight edge to AA cells. IMHO I would not really use this a deciding factor.

In either case get a spare set of batteries and if it uses AA then get an external charger (the one they give you typically has a charge time of 8-12hrs) with a 1 hr or even the new 15min charger.

[compiler]

How do you think about the “Aperture priority, Uncompressed Formatâ€

[castledude]

If you want to be serious aperature and shutter priority are essential. If you just want to take snapshots then it doesn't matter.

The automatic mode on a camera picks a aperature (depth of field) and a shutter speed (how much to stop the action) on a curve for each amount of light they pick a different value they think the average person would want.

Shutter priority allows you to set a shutter speed so you can stop action (fast shutter speed) or allow it to show motion (slower shutter speed) or do some creative effects (ever seen those shots if headlights in traffic where the lights are all red and white lines, that is a really slow shutter speed).

(Fast Shutter speed)


(Slow Shutter speed)



Aperature priority allows you to determine how much of the third dimension is in focus. Do you want a tack sharp background then open up the aperature if you want a blurred background (to highlight the subject) then you use a smaller aperature.

Uncompressed format allows you to save the picture without compression. JPEG does some tricks to make the picture smaller. Most of the time people don't mind these tricks but sometimes you want the uncompressed image to get all the data possible, this is especially true if you want to do a lot of post processing (Photoshopping). Higher end cameras even go beyond this and give a RAW format that contains more information than you monitor can even display.

[compiler]

The battery type seems not an issue as long as it is rechargeable. But, the flip LCD such as the Canon Powershot A80 can prevent the scratches on the LCD. How do you think about it?