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Random Quote: There are no stupid questions..There are only stupid people.
I'm looking for a digital camera that works well when taking pictures on the water and snow. I find my current camera over exposes the pics in high light conditions.
I'd like a camera that is 4-5Mpixs, a decent optical zoom, takes videos and is small. Water resistance would be a bonus.
Any suggestions? Were would you buy it for the best price?
I have this camera. It is 299.00 at Best Buy. We bought one for the Admirals son and 1 for us.
Here is a little info. We did not get the movie one for us but did for her son.
Casio EXILIM 4.0-Megapixel Digital Camera
Model: EX-Z40
This ultraslim digital camera features internal memory, multiple recording modes, an included cradle and longer battery life.
4.0-megapixel CCD captures high-resolution photos up to 2304 x 1728
3x optical/4x digital/12x total zoom; smc Pentax lens
2" digital interface color TFT-LCD monitor with acrylic scratch-resistant panel, and histogram and grid display modes; optical viewfinder
The sony cameras are nice and you can get an underwater housing with some of them. I have an older 3.1 mp sony, the first that came out with the underwater housing, and it has worked great. But really, this is a very broad topic. Since you are taking pictures in the snow, you'll want some control over the exposure. I doubt any of the "snapshot" cameras will fit the bill, regardless of how many megapixels they have. I'm sure most of the slr cameras will, but then you're talking double or triple the price ($800-$1200, with lense) and they aren't "small." Your best bet is to visit some of the review sites and look at the example pictures for cameras in your price range. Find the one that does the best in bright situations and you're all set.
I have a Nikon 4 megapixel, it's a 4300, which is a couple years old. Works great, takes great pictures and is user friendly. The local camera chain "Ritz Camera" pushes the Nikon line, so I took the bait and bought one. No complaints yet.
CR,
What you have to understand is that the exposure meter is trying to give you a balanced grey photo - if you put this into a B&W world. If you are shooting pics with a large bright background, it will strive to underepose the picture - hence the darker or ruddy pictures.
If shooting with lots of black in the photo, it will adjust the exposure to lighten the black areas - hence the overexposed picture.
You will need some manual adjustments to make this work to your needs, and the cheapo point and shoot cameras will not have these manual overrides.
On a side note, the new Olympus C700 ior C07000 with the 7MP capability really impressed me, and may be something to look at; I don't know if there is any means of exposure compensation, but check it out. A good site for you www.dpreview.com -- check it out.
*NOTE* I dont know your price range, so that may not be what your looking for. If your looking for an SLR Camera (remove lens) let me know, I can find a good deal for you as well.
Eduardo.
__________________ River Marine Supply
Over 30 Years of providing the best prices in the industry and the highest level of customer support.
Like Cooper, I have a Sony with an underwater case and it is awesome. I have personally had it down 110' on Scuba trips. I would recommend it in a heartbeat.
Personally though, I have found the Camedia to be really nice camera if you are starting from scratch. As for me, I will probably buy another Sony since I have memory sticks and all that good stuff and keep the current Sony for water applications only..
__________________ - Chris
Guess What?? I got a Fever.. And the only prescription is.. MORE COWBELL!
-2011 Blue Wave 2400 Pure Bay / Yamaha F300 4.2 with Command Link Plus
-2003 Sea Fox 195 Bayfisher - Mercury 125 Saltwater Classic (Sold)
-1994 Wellcraft V-20 Step Lift (Sold)
go to a computer site like pc world or zdnet and do a search, and they'll have unbiazes ratings and ability to compare by features.
i have owned or own nikons, canon and olympus. i buy one or two new ones almost every year, top of line consumer models. i like nikons best, but, in all honesty, it's cause i've finally mastered their damn menus, which are notoriously complicated, and b/c i often need ultra-hi rez pix for comercial printing purposes, and nikon's raw file format and software is my best option for this, far and away.
all that sed, all brands have auto settings to adjust for snow and glare. if you're not sending the pix to a commerical printer for brochures or posters, than nikon, oluympus or canon will do fine. or even another brand name.
one last note..... i prefer compact flash memory cards, as opposed to secure digital. it's sturdier -- i've had several secured digital cards go dead on me in various applications, but never a compact flash card.
lexar makes some very fast and large capacity compact flash cards that will boost a camera's performance. don't skimp of memory card quality.
I've had Minolta, Nikon and now a Canon Sure Shot. Overall I like the Canon the best, probably since it has taken the mosr consistently good shots. It aws also highly favored in several consumer forums I researched. Part of that may be due to the difficult menus and user interface of the Nikon. Minolta was just OK.
Coincidental to reading this post, I got a promotional e-mail from Tiger Direct:
kingair - 4/18/2005 9:53 AMThe Casio has white balance.
king - FYI almost all digital cameras have white balance.
A great boat camera is the new Pentax WP. You can read a review at http://www.dpreview.com/news/0501/05...ax_optiowp.asp. This is not a water resistant camera, but a water proof camera, water proof down to 5 ft for 30 minutes, so obviously is will survive spray and rain on or around the water. It's a 5mp camera so it will produce very sharp pictures, and an added bonus is that it has a large 2 inch LCD monitor.
The Olympus Stylus Verve is also a good waterproof digital camera - 4mp as I recall.
Thanks for the advice. I'm going to pick up the Pentax Optio WP. In the past I heard great things about the WR so hopefull they have only improved with the WP.
The best price I have seen is $294.25 at newsite.pagecomputers.com
$319.99 at zipzoomfly.com. Anybody ever deal with these companies or suggest a different vendor with a similar or better price?
I did not see the camera listed at riverside marine.
I've had good luck with zipzoomfly, and you might also want to look at buydig.com which I have also had good luck with.
P.S. I have the Pentax Optio WR 4mp (waterproof down to 3 ft). If you know anyone who is looking for a small shirt pocket size digital camera in great shape I'm selling mine for $100, including shipping.
I've owned Sony and Canon, and I'm sticking to Canon from now on(on my 4th now). Check out the Digital Elphs (Powershot series), you really can't go wrong.
A bonus with these is the really superior video mode - 640x480 at 30 frames a second, why even buy a video camera anymore? My water resistance system is a ziplock!
Check out CNET for good reviews of all cams. Good luck! Digital cameras rock.
I can tell you not to buy a Kodak EasyShare CX7530. I just bought one at the advice of the ultrafriendly staff at OfficeMax. Seems to be great. 5MPIX, 3X zoom for $199.00. Only problem: there is a "software problem" when you have downloaded the latest update for an XP OS. So I have a $200 camera that I cannot download pictures from. Kodak website says a software fix is in progress but I am still waiting.....
I have several digital cameras and at work I support several others (I'm the IT Guy). The ones I have are Kodak, Casio, Nikon and I also deal with Olympus and Pentax. The Pentax camera is a nice unit but I don't like the proprietary battery they use and additional batteries are $50+ and when they die, you have to find a place to plug in to charge them. I don't care for the Olympus because their memory card seems flimsy and I've seen them get bent and become unusable.
One thing that I ALWAYS look for in a camera is one that uses AA batteries because if your batteries die, it's easy to find replacements. I also look for one that uses SD memory because it is small, inexpensive, and easly found if/when you need a new card.
I am retiring my 4 megapixel Casio because the thing eats batteries and if you use regular alkaline batteries, they don't have enough juice for more then 4-5 pictures before they need to be replaced and you can get about 30-40 pictures if you use NiMH batteries.
The one I just purchased for myself is a Nikon 5 megapixel and it has settings for 3 different type of batteries and have gotten over 70 pics with the alkaline batteries that came with it, which I am still using. It is very user friendly and you can even get an underwater housing for it which I'm going to be picking up in the next couple weeks. The only thing I don't like about this camera over the others is there seems to be a little more lag time when taking a photo but I think that might be because I'm not using the higher powered NiMH battery in it.
For anyone with a camera, get yourself a card reader (apx $25) and don't load up the software that comes with the camera...it will just slow your computer down because most of them put so much stuff in your startup that you will hardly ever use. With the card reader, it will just show up with a drive letter like your CDrom or floppy drive and you just copy the pictures off of it ... and you'll save your camera's batteries too.
Go with whatever you deicde - but a few notes. Be sure to learn the exposure control and compensate when taking pics on water or snow. Get a decent photo editing program and you can perform miracles after the fact with lightening, darkening, etc. Best value is probably PhotoShop elements which is a tuned down version of Adobe Photoshop which is the professional's standard.
Note: A dark picture can be lightened considerably to save it, but an overexposed image is burned and cannot be darkened enough to correct. So, you're better off being a little underexposed.
Best Digital Camera? 
