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Random Quote: why couldnt the little boy see the pirate movie... becuase it was rated ARRRRR!
Getting ready to purchase a digital camera for the boat. I have done a little research, and all I can tell is that I can pay 300 bucks or 900 bucks. So...what is the difference.
What features are a must? I am mainly looking at being able to take fishing picures and send jpeg files to people.
Pixels and optics, more megapixels and better optics= more $$$$. I would buy from some place that has an extened warranty. "Honest I don't know how the salt got into it."
Make sure the memory card is of good size, aleast 16megabytes or larger. Optical zoom is better than digital zoom. If you want to print out 8.5 x 11 pictures go with at least 3.0 megapixels, if not then 2 megapixels.
I had a 1/3 mega-pixel Fuji "point & shoot" camera and it's been great! For Xmas I bought the wife a 3.5 Mg-P Fuji that looks like a small thru-the-lens 35mm camera, nice and light though.
Guess what .... ???? The new one has too many pixels. The photos come out of them a whopping 2100+ pixel size at the widest or tallest. If you go to cut them down for sending via an email to someone who had dial-up, you loose resolution.
I admit the higher res is great for shots where you really need the details, but for fishing and fun, the 1.3 has been great too. FWIW I've had zero problems with these Fuji cameras. Shop the net, I saved at least $200 buyng on-line versus the stores.
Things I cared a lot about was the zoom power and the fact that it has an optica viewfinder (little box to look thru). In bright sun, you can't see crap on the LCD's. Learned that the hard way. I have a Sony mavica - great to have the floppy disks and the 10x zoom is killer. I'd get a Fuji Finepix if I had to do it over right now.
"Kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I'm going out to sea" Lyle Lovett
Go to www.dpreview.com ALL you ever want to know. Great site. I have a Nikon Coolpix 990, 3.4 mega pixels. I bought it three years ago...still great. You can get 5.0 mega pixels for the same price today. I just couldn't wait. You'll never go back to film!
"Never enough time to do it right; ALWAYS enough time to do it over." Boston Whaler, "MUMBLER", 24' Outrage (1996), twin 175 HP Evinrude Ocean Pros. Snowball, the cat...
As a general rule of thumb, for non-professional quality cmeras, the "best" brands are olympus, canon, nikon, in that order. This is not my personal preference, it comes out of Digital Camera Magazine and other sources I've read. I do a lot of digital photography and graphics in my office and the Photoshop people and camera people really praise the Olympus cameras.
Stock up on good quality smart media cards in the next year. rumor has it that Olympus and Sony and some others are going to a new media format and will phase out SM cards.
a couple features to consider ... availability of a waterproof enclosure and a short time betweenb shots. my fiance has a new 3 megapixel olympus and I have a 4 year old 1.3 megapixel camera. guess who gets more """"keeper" photos by shooting rapidly? :-)
Got the NIKON COOLPIX 4500 for xmas, great pictures so far ... damn manuel is 167 pgs. It's a 4.0 mega pixels and a 4x zoom will also take a thirty-five second quicktime movie with sound ,also will focus down to 3/4 of an inch.( good feature to use on some of the fish I catch ) . Got it at "BEST BUY" and bought a 4 year "anything" warr. even saltwater x-ups .
I got the exact same camera for Christmas as rainmaker. The little I have used it so far it seems to be very good and simple and takes quality photo's. I think it will do a lot more if I ever get through the 160 some page instructions.
I was looking for a camera too. I wanted something rugged and waterproof. Not too many options out there. Finally got me a Casio GV-10 Casio GV-10
Its not real big on pixels (1.3M) but that keeps the image size bearable. It also does 10 second video clips with no sound. Waterproof and shockproof - perfect for the boat.
And for $150 on eBay Brand New - can't beat that.
Sal.
check this URL: http://www.imaging-resource.com/
They have some great articles and will help you narrow down your choice. Also have links to pricing etc. I purchased a Canon Powershot S10 which is 2.x mega pixels and a very small tough footprint. I've been happy with it. You can view the quality of some of the pictures at
home.cfl.rr.com/fishon58
Digital Camera 
You'll never go back to film!
"Never enough time to do it right; ALWAYS enough time to do it over." Boston Whaler, "MUMBLER", 24' Outrage (1996), twin 175 HP Evinrude Ocean Pros. 
Snowball, the cat... 
