<p>We need suggestions for not super-expensive digital camera for college student. Looking for value: enough pixels to make it worth the $$ + ease of operation & reliability. This will be a moderate-use camera. </p>
<p>Also, what are opinions on those stand-alone dedicated photo printers (e.g., the small ones). Are these a good idea? Has anyone purchased one for your grad & found them well-used?</p>
<p>Or does anyone think that the older (“instant” 35 mm) technology cameras are just as good or better for college needs?</p>
<p>For casual use, I would go with one of the small, pocket-sized cameras. The smaller it is the more likely it will be carried around and hence available to capture candid shots. My son and I both have the Canon “Digital Elph” series of cameras. I think they are also called Powershots. They are small (easily fits into a coat pocket or even a jeans pocket if the jeans aren’t tight.), but have good optical zooming capabilities and good pixel count.</p>
<p>My D loves having a digital camera at school and she uses it a lot (one of the less-expensive Canon PowerShots)–battery life is key, so whatever you decide on, check the various battery configurations (that is, can you use regular batteries in a pinch). She doesn’tp rint that many pix–tends to save on disk and share via e-mail. When she does print, she uses her multipurpose HP Photosmart printer, which is also well used for schoolwork.</p>
<p>The Kodak cameras that use the Easy Share software are also winners. DD has one and it is very easy to use. You can get a docking port/photo printer/charger thingy also. The camera itself is a Kodak Easy Share with numbers after it. DD’s is no longer made, but the prices are very reasonable, the cameras are small, and they are very easy to use.</p>
<p>We’ve got two of the Canon Power Shot’s – the one that sells for about $199 in the Best Buy/Circuit City stores. Everybody sells it.</p>
<p>Very happy with both the older one (a 2 megapixel A-60) and the newer model (A-75, 3.2 megapixel). They are the same camera, just upgraded every year with “better” specs and more features for the same price in typical Japanese marketing fashion.</p>
<p>It uses standard AA batteries, so you can buy an off-the-shelf NiMH recharger kit and batteries anywhere and inexpensively. The NiMH batteries are definitely the way to go – hundreds and hundreds of shots before a recharge.</p>
<p>The only mandatory accessory is a larger memory card. These are also widely available and inexpensive.</p>
<p>The camera has all the features of an elaborate 35mm or can be used in “dummy” point and shoot mode.</p>
<p>The 3.2 “MegaPixel” size is more than sufficient for any conceivable consumer application and, frankly, a bit more than you really need – sufficient resolution for Sports Illustrated quality publication at 5 x 7 inches and quality 8 x 10 prints. Most college students would probably use it in the “medium size” mode (2.0 megapixels) or smaller, anyway.</p>
<p>For the same money as a photo printer, you can buy the same thing in a regular dorm room printer that does just as good a job on photos. Or, you can get 4x6 pro prints just about anywhere for 20 cents a piece – Snapfish, Clark, Walmart, etc. These are real photo quality prints, much better than you can get from a home printer. In fact, all the 35 mm prints are now made on the same machines, digitally scanning the negatives.</p>
<p>get the sony cybershot digital camera 4.1 MP. i have it and it is really easy to use. you can also make movies with sound included. price not too bad $279 when i bought it i think it went down to $250</p>
<p>Got a Canon A-70 off eBay for around $115. Takes great pictures, and came with big memory card. One disadvantage is that the Canons have a slight delay between pressing the button and the shutter releasing, which I find quite annoying. But other than that, it has been terrific.</p>
<p>I think all but the high-end, near professional digital cameras have the delay. In fact, that is one of the major reasons for going with a high-end camera. But, you are right, the delay is annoying and prevents capturing some shots that are time sensitive.</p>
<p>D and I both have a Pentax Optio S. Great resolution, and it not only fits in your pocket, but in an Altoids tin (with a few easy modifications to the tin). Hers is the older model (S4) and mine is the S5i. Major difference is slightly more resolution and better zoom. We both carry them all the time for casual picture taking; they’re easy to use and easy to carry around. (The S4 seems to be going for around $150 on Ebay; the S5i is around $300.)</p>
<p>The “delay” is because the optical autofocus, infrared focus, and spot metering need time to work in order to set the camera properly. The same is true of auto mode 35 mm SLR cameras - you push the button to “do the metering” and then push it again to take the photo. </p>
<p>The “officially-approved” technique for the Canon Powershots is basically the same thing: push the button half-way (you’ll feel a detent), give the camera time to do its thing and show you the settings it’s come up with in the display. Then, push the button fully to actually take the photo, which is virtually instantaeous. If you mash the button all the way from the get-go, the delay is the time it takes for the camera to figure out the settings. The pitfall to this approach is moving the camera before the photo is actually taken, something the “officially-approved” technique prevents.</p>
<p>There is also a feature that allows you do lock the settings, once established, in order to take multiple photos of the same thing without the delay.</p>
<p>You can set the Canons (and other consumer-grade brands) to operate in manual mode if you prefer to set the exposure, focus, ASA speed, etc. yourself or with a choice of aperature or shutter speed priority semi-auto – although almost nobody uses a point-and-shoot camera that way.</p>
<p>PS: The anti-redeye feature also introduces a bit of a delay: it flashes the infrared light beam on and off several times so that the subjects’ pupils close down before the flash fires, thus reducing redeye. This feature can be turned off in the setup menus if you don’t want it.</p>
<p>you can get reviews there on other cameras as well. one thing i do like about mine is that it has a fully manual mode… just like ID just stated with the ability to set aperature and whatnot yourself. I don’t typically use my digital camera in manual mode, but i have used it for a few pictures here and there… just a nice little feature to have.</p>
<p>I personally am not a huge fan of digital cameras - regardless of the amount of pixels. I think the prints are of a much lower quality than that of a film camera… so i only use them when i only want pictures on my computer (pictures from a party, pictures of a new hair cut, my new car, etc)… I have a regular printer that is photo quality, but i very rarely print out a digital image. </p>
<p>but for any serious photography that i do i use my SLR Film camera… it takes AMAZING photos. I shot a roll of film of my 6 year old cousin last week. She wanted to have some pictures done of herself for her mom and dad. we took about 25 pictures, got them developed in an hour, picked out the best 8 and had 2 sets of 5x7’s made of them. When she handed them to her dad, he was looking through them and the first thing he had to say was “wow, what kind of camera do you have, these came out beautiful”… and when she gave them to her mom, first she commented on how nice her daughter smiled in the pictures, and then she said, “I can tell you didn’t use a digital camera”… </p>
<p>so there’s definately a difference in quality… but for amatuer photography or just snappnig pictures around at college a digital camera is good… and most people wouldn’t notice the difference in the prints :)</p>
<p>You weren’t seeing the difference in the cameras. You were seeing the difference between photo prints and printing something on a home ink jet printer. The film negatives you dropped off at the one-hour lab were scanned, producing a computer file exactly like the file on your digital camera. The difference is that these files were then printed on a color-processing machine that uses a traditional silver-halide based photo paper light-exposure, chemical developing process, just like old fashioned film developing. If you dropped off files from your digital camera at the same lab, you would get the same results (assuming you give them 300 pixel per inch files with minimal JPEG compression), probably a little better because you bypass the scanning step which introduces its own loss of quality.</p>
<p>There are some advantages to film photography over digital, but it is not something that would show up in one-hour photo lab 5x7 prints.</p>
<p>The magazines, like Sports Illustrated, are now 100% digital photography – of course, the photographers are using pro-grade optics and stuff that is not found on point-and-shoot cameras, either digtial or film-based.</p>
<p>After reading reviews and after several visits to the camera store, I recently chose the Nikon Coolpix 5900 (5.1 megapixels and 3X zoom) and I absolutely love it. Ergonomically it was the best. I initially was attracted to the very small credit-card-like cameras, but in handling them, I found I was afraid they would slip out of my hand. Also, most of the tiny cameras do not have a viewfinder and I wanted that feature. I think the 2" LCD vewier is just the right size (large enough to see but smaller than some so it drains the battery less). I purchased the Epson Picture Mate printer so I can print directly from the memory card. When buying the pair, there is a $50 rebate for each the camera and the printer. I think the rebate offer continues until the end of the month. And my photos so far (gradutation, prom, etc.) have been great. Granted, a film camera produces superior photos, but the digital has its place too. And I do agree that it is preferable to have a camera that uses AA batteries (this one doesn’t) but on balance (size, weight, features) this one suited my needs the best. I suggest looking at it when considering cameras.</p>
<p>ID - I’ve had digital images made into prints there too, with my bosses 7 MP Sony digital camera as well as my 3 MP Toshiba camera and my moms 3 MP HP camera. They weren’t as clear… actually, the prints from my moms camera looked like absolute crap.</p>
<p>I normally develop my own prints (color and black/white) in the dark room on campus… I usually develop them to be 8x10 or 11x14… I like large pictures… I wanted to see the difference once, so I took a picture of something with film, and with a digital camera. I had a digital 8x10 of one of the pictures printed at a photo place, and there is no way it was as clear as the one I developed myself. (probably because my camera is only 3 MP, but still…that should be able to print a nice 8x10)</p>
<p>Eventually I want to have some sort of dark room at my home, because it’s something I really enjoy. :)</p>
<p>We’ve been through several brands, but the little Canon Powershot A-80 has been a real trooper. It’s been dropped, squished, and dropped into a river (twice) and keeps on going. It also uses AA-sized batteries (we use the lithium ones and they last forever), so in a battery emergency you can pop in some regular AA’s. But here are a few principles:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Smaller ones tend to be taken more places and used more frequently. My next one is going to be one of the smallest.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t worry about pixels unless you want to print posters. For my son’s first camera, we bought a 2-megapixel Canon and found that even at 8x10 the prints were great.</p></li>
<li><p>The larger the LCD, the better. Some of the newer cameras have large LCDs.</p></li>
<li><p>Invest in a much bigger memory card (or stick or whatever) than the one that comes with the camera. And then use the full resolution for the photos. DON’T try to cram more photos onto a card by decreasing the resolution.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t try to use a home printer for all of your prints. Ink and photo paper can get expensive over time and the photos may fade over time (although they are getting better at making longer-lasting inks). It’s too easy to either upload them to the Kodak site (used to be OFoto) and order the prints you want or just to take the card to WalMart or some other place that will print the pictures.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention that I have a little HP photo printer we hardly ever use. We have a larger photo printer with long-lasting inks that we print most of our photos on. But the convenience of the smaller one is great! Again, look out for the cost of the inks and paper.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention that I have a little HP photo printer we hardly ever use. We have a larger photo printer with long-lasting inks that we print most of our photos on. But the convenience of the smaller one is great! Again, look out for the cost of the inks and paper.</p>
<p>And an additional principle:</p>
<ol>
<li>DO NOT USE THE “DIGITAL ZOOM!” Optical zoom is how far the camera lens will zoom in; digital zoom is just a way of blowing up a section of the photo and all it’s doing is making the pixels larger.</li>
</ol>
<p>I used a Canon Powershot at a photography job I once had… they are nice little cameras. Very Durable.</p>
<p>I don’t use the LCD to take photos on my digital camera - I always look threw the viewfinder. Just my personal preference. I do use it to view the photos and change settings and whatnot on my camera though.</p>
<p>And I agree with the digital zoom comment. :)</p>
<p>My kids both have the kodak easy share. They are small, very light weight, and simple to use. I think they were right around $100 - low enough so that if they get lost or stolen it isn’t the end of the world. We used to print online via shutterfly, but CVS now has the machines where you insert your memory card and print right there (it usually takes about 15-20 minutes to get the pictures). It is easy, fast, and very inexpensive.</p>
<p>Like odyssey, I have a Nikon Coolpix, although mine is 3.2 megapixels. I love it! It is smaller and lighter than the Canon cameras and fits easily in my rather small purse. However, it is bigger than the Optio, which I was sure I would drop. And it has a nice little bulge on one side, which makes it easy to hold with one hand. Uses two AA batteries–I got rechargeable ones, which I like. I think it turns out nice pictures. I don’t print them at home yet, but I like being able to download them all onto the computer and send them to people, if I want.</p>